LifeCare Chiropractic

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T3

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

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LOW T3 SYNDROME CAUSE DEATH DUE TO HEART DISEASE – (02-17-03)

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Low-T3 Syndrome – Strong Predictor of Death from Heart Disease

It’s nice to see some researchers focusing on T3. Keep in mind that the thyroid produces mainly T4, which has a much lower activity than T3. The T4 makes it to the target tissues such as liver and muscle and gets converted to T3 where it’s needed. Well, that conversion is dependent upon several factors (nutritional, cortisol levels, estrogen levels…) and many people with thyroid problems are given synthetic T4 (synthroid, levothyroxine) and their blood levels look good but they still have all the signs and symptoms of hypothroidism. These people may underconvert T4 to T3.

Circulation — Abstracts: Iervasi et al. 107 (5): 708

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ARE YOU TAKING SYNTHROID FOR YOUR THYROID PROBLEMS?

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Let’s get something straight right out of the box. The human body is designed with a brilliance that none can truly understand. The interactions between the cells and organ systems are intricate beyond measure. Oh–except for the thyroid. That goes out in your 20’s. 

What?

If your heart or liver or brain or kidneys were “giving out” in the 3rd decade of life alarms bells everywhere would be going off and you better darn well believe mainstream medicine is going to attempt to figure out why. But not so with the thryoid. Low levels on your bloodwork? Your doctor shakes his head, says these things happen and gives you your lifelong prescription for Synthroid.

So where’s the problem? The problem is that your thyroid is slowing down for a reason. Very often it has to do with toxic exposure. The thyroid has been called the “yellow canary” of the human body. It’s the organ that takes the initial beating when the body is exposed to allergies, heavy metals and environmental toxicants. Unless we try to identify the “why” of the thyroid failure, we’ve missed a valuable opportunity to identify and remove an exposure that the patient is experiencing that is harming their health. Sure–it may be “merely” the thyroid today, but in 20 years it’s very likely to be cancer, heart disease or dementia.

So what kinds of toxins or situations are known to affect the thyroid? This is by no means a comprehensive list, but here are a few:

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we need to go into a little thyroid physiology lessons. The thyroid produces two hormones, T3 and T4. T3 has a very short half life and gets broken down in the bloodstream relatively quickly. So the body, in its brilliance, makes primarily T4 in the thyroid and then the individual tissues that need T3 convert it when and where it is need.

The variable factor here is the conversion of T4 to T3.  It is not always an efficient process. Things like stress, selenium deficiency can slow the conversion to T3, leaving you with symptoms of hypothyroidism but normal lab values. This is why supplementation with T3 (such as Cytomel or Armour) is trickier but will likely produce better outcomes. This particular article further supports this concept, demonstrating that those taking T3 achieved better body weight and better lipid levels.