Completely Confused About Thyroid Article

[FredSonoma]

Hi all,

I just tried to read Ray Peat's article on thyroid: http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/hy ... dism.shtml - I really don't understand it at all. Could anyone explain to me the basics of what he's explaining, and how it's relevant to how I should eat?

(for what it's worth, I just got measured with a TSH of 1.61 and a T4 of .8 )

 

[tara]

Fred,

You are not the only one to find Peat's articles a challenge. I found I got more of an understanding as I read and reread several of them, since some of the concepts come up in many of his articles. So I'd encourage you to keep reading, even if it is difficult to understand. You can also listen to or read transcripts of interviews, which are often a bit simpler.

What's most relevant to you in that article probably depends on your habits and current state of health.
If you want to, feel free to post more about what you are eating, health issues or symptoms you are hoping to address, and brief history.
Particularly, you could report if you have been monitoring body temperature and pulse, and if you have scanned a list of hypothyroid symptoms to see if you think you have any/many of them.

Some of the things I take from that article are:

Low thyroid function means cells are not creating enough energy to perform all their functions well. This can contribute to many different diseases that are currently not usually recognised as being caused in part by low thyroid. To some extent, when thyroid function is low, stress hormones can increase to help supply energy to function. But when the stress system is relied on too much of the time, that can eventually cause other troubles.

Many more people suffer from low thyroid function than is recognised by the medical establishments, who tend to just go by TSH measurements. Probably the upper limit on the 'normal' TSH range is too high for good health. Few people are healthy with TSH over 2. Probably most people would be better off with TSH under 1.

TSH measurements alone are not enough to determine euthyroid/hypothyroid/hyperthyroid function.
Other indicators that may help assess are:
- monitor body temperature and pulse. See if they go up or down after food, and at different times of day. This helps distinguish temperature maintained by thyroid from temp maintained by stress hormones.
- overall base metabolism - eg by how many calories you eat to remain weight-stable
- how much water you evaporate in a day - ie the difference between water intake (including from food) and urine output
- achilles heel test - how fast your foot bounces back to resting position after achilles tendon is thumped (because stressed, low energy muscles take longer to relax)
- other blood tests may help interpret
- health symptoms

If thyroid function is low but not extreme, you may not get much help from most doctors. If you do get it taken seriously, you will most likely be given T4 (thyroxine), the relatively inactive thyroid hormone. This is enough to be helpful to some people. But many others have trouble converting this well enough to T3 (triiodothyronine), the active form that cells need. They will be better served by supplementing T3 as well as T4.

That's a major simplification/synopsis of the article - there is more in there. Others may see other things as key.

My personal view is that except for more extreme cases, it is generally a good idea to take a look at diet and lifestyle factors to see if metabolism can be improved with that, before launching into thyroid supplementation.
Take a look around related threads here, and you'll find lots of varied opinions on how to proceed. The dietary guidelines are worth a look. If you have more detailed questions, you can try us.

 

[FredSonoma]

Thanks Tara! I appreciate the thorough response.