LifeCare Chiropractic

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Thyroid

Important Reason You Need to Improve Thyroid Function During Pregnancy

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Improve thyroid function
Photo courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/

It seems like everyone’s got thyroid problems these days. Luckily, there’s a prescription for that and you don’t need to worry your pretty little head over something as minor as a major organ going kaput in your twenties.

While I am, of course, being facetious, the attitude exists in medicine today that we can easily treat thyroid problems with thyroid replacement hormone like Synthroid or levothyroxine is completely backwards.  If it was your heart or kidneys or lungs that just stopped working at 25 the medical establishment would run thousands of dollars in tests to determine why.  For some reason the thyroid gland is treated completely different.

Maybe it’s because we have medications that seem to do a great job replacing the lost or diminished hormone levels.  The scary thing is that the reasons for thyroid hypofunction or failure can be very serious and if your doctor does not spend the time to dig for answers (or worse–is not even aware there are answers…) your health can be at risk.

I have heard Dr. Jeffrey Bland refer to the thyroid as the “yellow canary of the human body” when it comes to environmental toxicity.  This means that, when you are exposed to toxic chemicals, whether from heavy metals, flame retardants, stress, food allergies or pesticides in your water supply, your thyroid is the gland screaming out to you that something is wrong first.  It’s your early warning to clean up your body and restart your thyroid.

But alas, we ignore that and medicate.  Even worse, we treat labs values and not the patient themselves.  How often have you heard from friends or family members that his or her doctor said the lab numbers (usually only TSH is checked) were good and so there was no reason to adjust thyroid hormone levels?  Yet the patient is constipated, depressed and dragging his or her feet every hour of the day.  Doesn’t seem to make sense.

The studies linking environmental toxins and thyroid dysfunction are quite common (you can read about many of them in previous blog articles that can be read by clicking here).  But of particular concern is the compound ammonium perchlorate in drinking water.  It is used in the manufacture of rocket fuel, ammunition and fireworks and has been discarded in large quantities in Nevada since the 1950s.  This has led to contamination of the Colorado River as it picks up perchlorate from the soil.  From there, it can last in water for long periods of time.

Unfortunately, perchlorate is known to block the action of thyroid hormone.  This obviously creates a problem and has been shown to create thyroid problems.  Luckily, you can just take your Synthroid and ignore the fact that a known environmental toxins continues to run through your bloodstream and body tissues.

Just to demonstrate that the approach that most physician take for thyroid problems is dead wrong, I present this particular study.  In it, researchers looked at the pregnancies of 21,846 women.  Of these, 487 were hypothyroid during pregnancy.  In these 487 women, first trimester perchlorate levels were evaluated.  In those who showed the highest 10% of perchloarate levels, the children’s IQ was assesses at 3 years of age.  Here’s what they found:

  • Perchlorate was detectable in all women and iodine levels were low.
  • Those moms in the highest 10% of perchlorate levels had a 314% higher risk of having her child’s IQ being in the lowest 10%.
  • Here is the important point:  thyroid hormone therapy did not have an impact of perchlorate on offspring IQ.

This article is not about the IQ levels of the children.  This article illustrates that merely medicating the lab findings of an altered TSH does nothing to fix the problem.  With the thyroid, there is a very high likelihood that something is wrong.  Whether it’s prediabetes, stress, nutritional deficiencies or exposure to common toxic chemicals, it needs to be identified and addressed.

Maybe you can’t manage to get all the flame retardants out of your life (besides–who wants to risk bursting into flames at work?), but paying attention to where your exposures are and doing your darnedest to reduce these exposures is still going to pay off.  This is the only way to address it.

So, the next time your doctor tells you that you have thyroid problems and you ask him or her for what environmental exposures might be causing the problem and all you get is a blank stare, it might be time to find a new doctor.

On Thyroid Medication? Drastically Improve Thyroid Function with This

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vitamin C and thyroid medication
Photo courtesy of https://lifecarechiropractic.com/

Thyroid conditions are far too common. Mainstream medicine’s approach is to medicate with thyroid hormones.

From my perspective, I’m always looking for why an incredibly important organ in the human body would just up and get lazy. If this was your heart that stopped working at 28, your doctors would be up in arms trying to find an answer and fix the problem. But for some reason, because we have synthetic thyroid hormone that can be given, the thyroid going bad is no reason for alarm.

Before you follow this philosophy of medicating rather than clarifying, consider that the thyroid gland is generally considered the yellow canary of the human body (for those who don’t remember, canaries were used in the mines because they would up and die when methane levels began to climb; thus when the canary died it was time to run before the mine exploded). Stress, poor quality nutrition/prediabetes, toxic chemical exposures and food allergies top the list of things that negatively affect your thyroid.

Gluten, BPA in plastic water bottles, Teflon, flame retardants and heavy metals are all well documented to affect the thyroid. I don’t know that I have EVER had a patient come in who has a history of autoimmune thyroiditis (like Hashimoto’s or Graves) that were told that gluten sensitivity may be a huge factor in his or her thyroid dysfunction. And this includes patients who have had thyroids deliberately destroyed with radioactive iodine or surgically cut out.

But I digress.

In this particular study, researchers looked at a small group of hypothyroid patients who also had digestive complaints (another topic altogether and one that is beyond the depth of this article) to see whether the addition of 500 mg of vitamin C could have a positive effect. The results were pretty powerful:

  • Levels of TSH, free T4 and T3 all improved while on vitamin C.
  • TSH dropped an impressive average of 69.2%.
  • TSH levels normalized in 54.8% of those in the study.

Given how challenging it can be to manage thyroid medication dosage, anything that can improve the effectiveness of thyroid hormones, especially with something as incredibly cheap and safe as 500 mg of vitamin C, is a very good thing.

Perchlorate in Water in AZ and Abnormal Neonatal Thyroid Function – (09-18-00)

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Perchlorate in Water in AZ and Abnormal Neonatal Thyroid Function

Yet another reason to be sure you drink properly filtered water. Ammonium perchlorite affects the thyroid’s ability to take up much needed iodide, thereby lowering the efficiency of the thyroid gland. This study suggests that even newborn infants are affected. Technology is surely killing us, albeit slowly.

J Occup Environ Med 2000;42:777-782 Ammonium perchlorate contamination of drinking water drawn from the Colorado River is associated with significantly elevated thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels in newborns. The Colorado River below Lake Mead supplies drinking water to approximately 20 million people. In their introduction, the authors of the report explain that the water is contaminated with ammonium perchlorate, which is used in the manufacture of rocket fuel, ammunition and fireworks, and which has been discarded in large quantities in Nevada since the 1950s. The perchlorate ion, they elaborate, can persist in water for long periods, and can act “as a competitive inhibitor of iodide transport in the thyroid.” Dr. Brechner and colleagues collected data on TSH levels from 1099 newborns in Yuma whose water is contaminated with ammonium perchlorate and from 443 newborns in Flagstaff whose drinking water has no detectable levels of ammonium perchlorate. The team found that the level of ammonium perchlorate contamination was 6 parts per billion in Yuma’s drinking water. After adjusting for age and for race/ethnicity and factors known or suspected to increase TSH levels in newborns, the investigators found that median TSH levels in the subjects exposed to ammonium perchlorate were significantly higher than those in the control group–19.9 vs 13.4 mU/L.

Thyroid Tumors: Scary Times or Too Much Diagnosis

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The “what you don’t know can hurt you” phrase may run opposite in healthcare.  In other words, knowing more is not always better.

Let’s face it, we ALL have something wrong with us.  I have always told patients that if they look hard enough, doctors can find something wrong with you.  We are seeing mounting evidence that screening for certain conditions are creating monsters out of molehills (I know, I know–it’s supposed to be “mountains,” but mountains don’t increase the cost of healthcare like monsters do).

  • Mammography finding ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) that the body would resolve on its own, but instead lead to surgery, chemo and radiation treatments.
  • PSA testing that identifies non-aggressive tumors and would take decades to progress, and yet prostate surgery, radiation and chemo are used.
  • Blood pressure below 160 systolic and 100 diastolic are medicated with beta blockers that increase stroke and diabetes or calcium channel blockers that increase the risk of breast cancer, and yet keeping the blood pressure “under control” has not advantage on heart attacks, strokes or risk of death.
  • MRIs and CT scans that frequently don’t match the patients’ symptoms, but lead down a path to injections and surgery.
  • The notorious “annual medical exam” that everyone thinks is so important, does nothing for prolonged life but does increase medication usage and the chance of being given a diagnosis.

Now that we’ve dispelled a little of the “more knowledge is better” theory, we can move on to this particular article looking at the diagnosis of thyroid cancer.  As a way of background, in the 1980’s ultrasonography of the thyroid became available, followed by guided biopsy in the late 1990’s.  This advancement in technology has led to the ability to biopsy smaller and smaller nodules all the way down to 2 mm.

Because of this increase in imaging technology, the incidence of thyroid cancers has increased 322%.  90% of the cancers identified are papillary cancers, which is considered the least dangerous type of the cancers.  As a matter of fact, small papillary cancers are a common finding at autopsy.

Here’s the problem, despite the 322% increase in the diagnosis of thyroid cancer, the mortality rate from thyroid cancer has remained unchanged in the 30+ years since 1979.  So basically, we are finding more thyroid cancer and treating the cancers more aggressively, but we’re not saving any lives.

What we ARE doing is surgically removing one of the most hard-to-balance endocrine glands in the body, leading to continual challenges throughout the life of the patient.  Combine this with the fact that conditions like prediabetes greatly increase the risk of thyroid nodules and cancers, and you’ve got a situation where serious conditions like prediabetes are ignored, but the gland showing the problem (in this case the thyroid) is removed.  Two negatives without a positive.

The bottom line is that you should ask whether imaging on your thyroid is absolutely needed in your situation.  If any nodules are found, again ask some heard questions about whether anything needs to be done or can you follow a wait-and-see approach.

Groups Urge FDA Not to Recall Abbott Laboratories’ Synthroid – (06-21-01)

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Groups Urge FDA Not to Recall Abbott Laboratories’ Synthroid

It’s always interesting to follow a heated debate over what many times appears to be an ineffectual therapy. I have seen many patients whose lab values came back to normal using synthetic hormone replacement, and yet clinically they still had all the signs and symptoms of hypothyroidism. The pharmaceuticals get rich and the patient doesn’t get any better. Thyroid glandulars, nutrients helping the conversion of thyroid hormone to its active form, and removing all sources of xenoestrogens can be a much more powerful approach to managing thyroid problems.

(article) In response to reports that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) might force Abbott Laboratories’ to recall Synthroid (levothyroxine), three professional and patient advocacy groups urged the agency on Monday to defer any action for the sakes of the millions of Americans on the thyroid drug. The American Thyroid Association, The Endocrine Society and Thyroid Cancer Survivor Association expressed concern that the removal will lead to the unnecessary discontinuation of these patients’ prescribed treatment. About two thirds of the 13 million Americans with hypothyroidism, thyroid cancer and other thyroid conditions are on this third most commonly prescribed drug in the US, the organizations noted. Therefore, “Even the threat of an interruption could cause alarm, inconvenience, and cost for patients who are doing well on their current thyroid medication,” said Dr. Paul Ladenson, secretary of the American Thyroid Association. Despite this appeal, the future of Synthroid remains uncertain. In April, the FDA told Abbott Laboratories that its thyroid medicine Synthroid has a “history of problems” and cannot be “generally recognized as safe and effective.” The FDA’s concerns were expressed in a letter, rejecting an Abbott petition to have the compound approved without the filing of a new drug application (NDA) detailing the drugs safety and effectiveness. Abbott, who acquired Synthroid’s maker earlier this year, is now expected to submit an application to the agency by the FDA’s August deadline. However, the FDA’s statements still raise the possibility that the popular 40-year-old drug could be removed from the market. The agency previously has refused to rule out asking for the drug’s withdrawal, saying it believes there are two other drugs in Synthroid’s class that could fill the void. Earlier this year, King Pharmaceuticals and Watson Pharmaceuticals secured FDA approval for similar products. But Abbott maintains that it is confident the drug will be allowed to stay on the market. The safety and efficacy of Synthroid has been extensively studied and validated, the company said in a prepared statement. The results of these studies have also been published in prominent peer-reviewed journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the drugmaker noted.

Successful Withdrawal of Thyroid Hormone in Nursing Home Patients – (03-05-01)

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Successful Withdrawal of Thyroid Hormone in Nursing Home Patients

The authors of this article went to four nursing homes and identified patients on thyroid hormone therapy; many were believed to be put on the therapy inappropriately or had only needed it temporarily. Many had been on the hormones since they were younger. Half of the patients that met the criteria for the study were successfully weaned from the hormones. This article raises many interesting issues. First, I believe we handle thyroid disorders very poorly. There are so many patients out there who are put onto thyroid hormone replacement for one main reason only — abnormal lab findings. If those labs are normal, you’re normal. If they’re abnormal you’re put on thyroid hormone. Yet, many, many times on the hormones, the patient’s bloodwork comes back to normal but their symptoms are still present!! Two possibilities: subclinical hypothyroidism (us docs need to stop using labs and use our brains-LOOK at the patient for a change–not the bloodwork!!) and lack of effect of thyroid hormone. Glandulars typically work cheaper and more effectively than synthetic hormones.

J Am Board Fam Pract 13(6):403-407, 2000 Studies of community-dwelling patients have indicated that substantial numbers of patients might have had thyroid hormone therapy prescribed inappropriately and that thyroid hormone therapy in some can be discontinued without adverse effects or evidence of clinical hypothyroidism. We wanted to find out whether thyroid hormone therapy in selected nursing home patients could be withdrawn without adverse effect. Thyroid hormone therapy was successfully withdrawn from one half of the nursing home residents studied. Previous studies conducted in community-dwelling patients have shown similar findings. Many older patients began taking thyroid hormone therapy when younger either for inappropriate reasons or for what turned out to be transient hypothyroidism. If the findings of this study are generalizable for other nursing home residents, there are important implications for health and health care costs.

Increased Need for Thyroxine with Hypothyroidism during HRT – (06-14-01)

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Increased Need for Thyroxine with Hypothyroidism during HRT

Will the lack of understanding of basic physiology never end? It is known that estrogen blocks the conversion of T4 to T3 (the thyroid produces mainly T4-the inactive form–it needs to be converted to its active form later in the target tissues). So, it is no surprise that estrogen replacement therapy will increase the need for thyroid hormone replacement. Here’s a novel idea–instead of giving another drug to make up for the side effects of the first-how about managing menopause naturally and avoiding the need for HRT? Consider the possibility that nature specifically designed menopause to protect the female body from the accumulated effects of aging? Does HRT then sound like such a good idea?

NEJM — Abstracts: Arafah 344 (23): 1743

Read entire article here

Thyroid Cancer Death Higher In Younger Ages

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In a recent blog post, I pointed out the very strong relationship between thyroid nodules and prediabetes and diabetes.

Not surprising, considering that the diabetic spectrum is the worst thing that could happen to your body.  So, there are clear associations between prediabetes / diabetes and thyroid problems.  But what about thyroid cancer?

Before we delve into thyroid cancer in particular, let’s look at cancer and the diabetic spectrum.  (BTW, I refer to the “diabetic spectrum” rather than prediabetes or diabetes in particular because the difference is purely arbitrary–both are incredibly devastating to the human body).  Insulin levels are elevated in the diabetic spectrum as the body tries to better manage the elevated glucose that is having a harder and harder time making it into the cells.

Insulin is a proliferative hormone, meaning that it causes cells to divide more.  Any time a cell divides, the chance for an error is present.  And, while cell division is darn near perfect, it is not 100% perfect.  An error in cell division can lead to cancer.  This means that anything that causes a cell to divide more would potentially increase the risk of a cancer developing.

And this would be relatively non-discriminatory as to the type of cancer.  This is why we see an elevation of so many different types of cancer in the diabetic spectrum.

Now back to thyroid cancer.

In this particular study, researchers looked at the contribution of diabetes to the development of and mortality associated with thyroid cancer.  While there was a clear association between diabetes and thyroid cancer mortality, that wasn’t the shocker.

Here’s the shocking stats of diabetics’ risk of dying from thyroid cancer:

  1. Men 75 years of age, 185% increased risk, women 22% lower risk
  2. Men 65-74 years old, 121% increased risk, women 203% increased risk
  3. Men 55-64 years old, 253% risk, women 299%
  4. Men 25-54 years old, a whopping 580% increased risk, women, not to be outdone, 534% increased risk

The surprising aspect of these numbers is the greatly increased risk in the younger ages.  And these are some pretty serious increases in risk.

The bottom line is that this study confirms, yet again, that the diabetic spectrum is THE most dangerous beast you will ever battle against.  While many would believe heart disease, cancer or dementia would be the answer, it is not.  These conditions are the end result of NOT doing battle against the original enemy.

If you’re not sure what changes to make to lower your risk, be sure to download (AND read!) my ebook, Dr. Bogash’s Lifestyle Recommendations.