an underrated reason for our poor metabolic health now is the removal of thyroid gland from food.
traditionally, we ate the whole animal, and up until the late 80s thyroid gland was found in common foods like ground beef 1/n
traditionally, we ate the whole animal, and up until the late 80s thyroid gland was found in common foods like ground beef 1/n
an outbreak of thyrotoxicosis (too much thyroid hormone) in beef in the mid 80s caused the plant responsible to stop gullet trimming, the process by which beef thyroid gland is harvested for food. 2/n
this indeed did stop the outbreak of the disease. however, it only served to fatten pharma's pockets, since synthetic thyroid hormone (levothyroxine) had just begun widespread use, but many still preferred to treat hypothyroidisim with natural thyroid gland. 3/n
in the late 19th and early 20th century, hypothyroidism was diagnosed based on symptoms and temperature, as Broda Barnes detailed extensively in his book "Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness"
He and many others had great success diagnosing and treating hypothyroidism. 4/n
He and many others had great success diagnosing and treating hypothyroidism. 4/n
However, in the 1970s the blood test for thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) was developed, and was pushed as the "gold standard" measurement of hypothyroidism, completely disregarding Barnes et al's work for the previous century of successfully treating hypothyroidism. 5/n
There are 2 main thyroid hormones, T4 which is longer lasting but largely inactive until it gets converted into T3, the true thyroid hormone. One of the benefits of supplementing natural thyroid gland is that you get both of these hormones in the correct ratios. 6/n
It was only in the mid 70s that synthetic, T4 only pharmaceuticals started to become used, though many clinicians still preferred the natural thyroid gland (both T4 and T3) supplementation for reversing symptoms. 7/n
T4 only was more effective at lowering the lab value of TSH, which led people to believe that people were being overdiagnosed and oversupplemented in the past, despite there being massive benefits with little risk to supplementing thyroid gland. 8/n
So we became hyper-fixated on TSH, to the point where now that's pretty much the only test you'll get for the doctor to determine if you're hypothyroid. In reality, the "old fashioned" method was far more effective in actually producing RESULTS, not better lab values. 9/n
Additionally, though thyroid gland was removed from the food supply, it was still legal to sell to pharma companies. Nice.
10/n
10/n
So now we're in a situation where SO many people are hypothyroid based on symptoms, but only a fraction get actually diagnosed via TSH measure, and even then most of those people get the inferior levothyroxine. This has been a top 10 selling drug for the past decade. 11/n
We used to eat the whole animal, check symptoms for hypo, then supplement with the gland as needed to normalize symptoms. Now it's looked at as weird to supplement thyroid hormones when in reality it's only weird NOT to consume thyroid hormones, historically. 12/n
Do yourself a favor: be well versed in the symptoms, laboratory and non-laboratory diagnostics for hypothyroidism and make the right choice for you. Don't assume you're fine because a stupid doctor can see that your TSH value is within an already horrific reference range. 13/n
Some good resources to get started are the previously mentioned book by Barnes and this article by @dannyroddy dannyroddy.substack.com
Planning on making this a video at some point to go more in depth but just wanted to ramble about it now. Sources for you know who:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
govinfo.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
govinfo.gov
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