Join Our Newsletter

For current information about hormone therapy related topics please join our newsletter







Thyroid

Thyroid, the Hormone System and Hypothyroidism

Thyroid affects every cell of the body. The thyroid gland and its hormones are the "traffic direction center" of the hormone system. Thyroid hormones are important in their own right but more so in relation to the function of other hormones. Put simply, a healthy thyroid function is critical to a healthy function of the hormone system in general. Testing and treating testosterone and other hormones and neglecting thyroid, is foolish.

Thyroid is produced by the thyroid gland in response to stimulation by the pituitary gland. Like testosterone production, the pituitary gland works like a thermostat. It senses the level of thyroid (T4) in the blood. As it senses the body needs more, it puts out thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) to stimulate the thyroid to produce more T4. As T4 levels rise to healthy levels the pituitary shuts the TSH down. As the body ages, the pituitary produces less TSH and the thyroid produces less T4. The result is a low level of thyroid hormone (hypothyroid)

A noted physician said recently that hypothyroidism in aging adults is perhaps the most undiagnosed and under treated illness in modern medicine. Doctors are not doing the testing, are doing the wrong tests, and when given the test results are providing the wrong treatment.

A few symptoms of hypothyroidism:

  • Low energy -- fatigue
  • Weight gain
  • Water retention
  • Hair loss (a major cause)
  • Dry skin and brittle nails
  • Feeling cold in normal temperatures
  • Anxiety and irritability
  • Depression
  • High cholesterol
  • Mental foggines
  • Susceptibility to hardening of the arteries
For those who want to read more:

There is a simple test you can do at home to determine if you might be hypothyroid. With a thermometer by your bed, when you wake in the morning, and before getting out of bed, place the thermometer under your armpit. Do this for three mornings. If your average temperature is 97.8 degrees or less, you may be hypothyroid. The test may indicate problems that do not show up on lab tests. Be careful to work with a doctor who knows the importance of lab testing backed up by checking these self-administered temperature readings.

T4 accounts for only 20% of thyroid function – it passes through the blood brain barrier into the brain. The other 80% of T4 should be broken down by the body into T3 and its functional form T3 free. As the body ages, chemical changes take place that inhibit this breakdown.

Problem #1: Many/most doctors only measure the feed back mechanism TSH and T4 – see above and ignore the T3. If there is treatment, it involves giving synthetic T4 such as Synthroid. The doctors seldom check T3 and thereby miss 80% of thyroid function.

Problem #2: Increasing T4 when the body is not breaking it down into T3 is under treatment/mistreatment. As the body ages, chemical changes occur that inhibit the breakdown of T4 to T3.

Some chemical changes that may inhibit the breakdown o f T-4 into T-3:

  • 5 Deiodinase - Zinc and selenium deficiencies
  • Severe stress and cortisol
  • Lithium
  • Dioxins
  • PCB
  • Copper excess

It is quite common for us to see men who have been checked by their family doctor and/or are being treated with T4 but are showing all the symptoms of low thyroid. We check their T3 free and find it to be low.

In treating thyroid deficiency, we use desiccated thyroid that contains both T4 and T3. We want to see the T3 free somewhere between 350pg and 425pg.

These conditions tend to increase with age.

The above shows the reason we test the Free T3. It is also the reason we do not use Synthroid to treat symptoms of hypothyroid. Synthroid is pure T4. It does little good if the problem is not the amount of T4 but rather the conversion to T3. Thus the reason for using desiccated Armour thyroid because it contains both T4 and T3.