Re: Re: The UK has more obese women than any other country in Europe

[Guest guest]

I read the book for doctors written by Dr about 's Temperature Syndrome, which is an explanation of RT3 and a proposed treatment. In it he states that he believes people of Red Indian and Celt origin to be the most often afflicted by this condition because in the past these people were subjected to famine. Since only those who could survive without lots of food rich in salt, sugar and fat got to perpetuate their genes under such conditions he concluded that they were not doing so well nowadays with our high sugar, fat and salt diets. Hence the health problems that are afflicting so many of us, diabetes, thyroid disease, cancer with today's diet. Since for climatic reasons the inhabitants for northern Europe are most likely to have

suffered severe famine in the last 5000 years, that makes the UK, a mixture of scandinavian and celt genes, a likely place for people to have such diseases.

I was also very interested by Doctor D'Abo's theory about people adapting their diet to their blood group. Apparently having blood group O, the hunter gather group, makes you more predisposed to thyroid disease. Blood group A is a mutation which developed when people started farming. In Europe I believe it is predominant around the mediterranean. Blood group B is a mutation which allowed people to survive better on a nomadic diet/way of life. It is also a pretty recent mutation in the history of humanity. And AB is only 1500 years old and is supposed to have become prevalent at the fall of the Roman Empire when the nomadic hoards of the east "mixed" their genes with the people living around the mediterranean. Anyway, since for climatic and demographic reasons farming arrived in Northern Europe much

later than in the Mediterranean region, it might explain why there are so many of us in Northern Europe with blood group O and whose guts are not adapted to eating so much grain and why for example in Finland, there are so many people who are lactose intolerant. Both of these problems are linked to thyroid disease and probably don't do your figure any good in the long run.

One side of my family comes from north Lancashire. Between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Norman Conquest this area of England was either part of a kingdom that covered the south of Scotland and the north of England or it was part of a kingdom of north Wales. So inspite of the fact it is english, genetically the people who come from that area are probably mostly celt or have a good dash of celt genes. I know an awful lot of people in Lancashire who have thyroid disease. So for me, my illness is explained to a large extent by genetic factors.

I think the reason that people are getting so fat in UK is that they have a genetic predisposition to get fat on a dairy and agricultural diet. They are simply just not made to live like that. Of course some people will suffer from this more than other and some people will be more careful about their weight and take better care of themselves. A lot of factors enter into the equation. But it is for me more than a coincidence that this epidemic of obesity is happening at the same time as a rise in cancer, diabetes and thyroid disease (I am sure there are other conditions that I haven't named that are on the rise too). How on earth all the people with blood group O can eat according to Dr D'Abo's instructions I don't know. Meat consumption would rise and grain and dairy plummet. Perhaps more exercise is the key for hunter gatherer types.

MacG.

From: jennifer <freemangoldcoast@...>thyroid treatment Sent: Sunday, 27 November 2011, 10:38Subject: Re: The UK has more obese women than any other country in Europe

Oh I Soooooooooo agree about the wheat being a major culprit.F>> Nope its too much reliance on wheat and the effects it has on blood sugar highs and lows. Read the first pages of wheat belly and get a glimmering of what wheat is doing to us as a species. > > have a look at the 'look inside'. This doctor does say that if you go wheat free and the weight doesn't start coming off then to look into thyroid problems.> > http://www.amazon.com/Wheat-Belly-Lose-Weight-Health/dp/1609611543> > 2> > > > >

> > > I understand that people are not being treated properly with thyroid meds which actually work, but my question is how does one allow themselves to become so big? This escapes me. We just had our Thanksgiving holiday and I gained two pounds from eating all the goodies, but here it is 2 days later and those two pounds are gone. I made sure of it. It seems that people are allowing themselves to get bigger and bigger before they question their eating habits, drinking habits, sugar habits and lack of exercise. > > >>

[Guest guest]

Hi JOT - I hope you are not talking about those people who are

suffering with hypothyroidism. We all know one of the biggest symptoms of hypothyroidism

is weight gain, caused through having a sluggish metabolism. You cannot burn

off the calories if you have a low metabolism. However, a lot of folk who do

not suffer with symptoms of hypothyroidism and are obese can probably do more

to help themselves.

Luv - Sheila

There is also an enormous amount of overweight

people in the US as well, but I do think it starts with nutrition, or rather

lack of nutrition. I don't know if you know who our comedian, Jay Leno is, but

he starts every joke saying;

" How lazy have we become...... " and " How fat are we

getting.... "

> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15901351

[Guest guest]

Hi Tara - JOT is not blaming those with symptoms of

hypothyroidism as not looking after themselves and being the cause of their own

excess weight. It came out wrong, something we all need to be careful with when

writing on a health forum where many of us are particularly sensitive, and can

easily get hold of the wrong end of the stick. I do agree with JOT that there

is a lot of obesity around the world, and growing, and it seems people do allow

this to happen, and do little about it, probably because it seems everybody

more or less is now becoming obese and they therefore don't feel the need to

become slim and it is becoming the generally accepted thing - but

unfortunately, as these people get older, their health will surely suffer, and

suffer greatly.

We all know weight gain with hypothyroidism is one of the worst

symptoms because we are unable to burn off excess calories with having such a

slow metabolism, and many are unable to exercise because of their severe

fatigue.

Luv - Sheila

It may be easy for you to lose weight but its not easy for everyone. I didn't

chose to have an underactive thyroid or any of the other symptoms which include

depression and comments like this do not help one bit.

[Guest guest]

Hi Helen, , , and all other members who have

apparently misread what JOT had written. It really is important that because we

cannot see a person's body language, we look carefully at what was actually

written and not jump ahead believing they have written something they have not.

Many of us who are suffering with hypothyroidism and are carrying excess weight,

and because of that, and because the link was posted onto the main Thyroid

forum instead of the Chat forum, probably feel a little over-sensitive

and I think this is what has happened in this case.

I think it was Jacquie who

first posted the link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15901351

to the original article in the Mail about " UK Women are Fattest in

Europe " and rightly pointed out that probably this could be because the

TSH reference range in Europe has an upper level of 2.5 or 3.0 - whereas in the

UK, the upper limit according to the RCP and BTA is 10 - so they are being left

without a diagnosis and therefore no treatment.

If you had all read JOTS

message correctly, you would have seen that the ONLY comment she made about

thyroid disease was " I understand that people are

not being treated properly with thyroid meds which actually work… " .

JOT was commenting

about the article and NOT about hypothyroidism or hypothyroid folk or their

symptoms, or their obesity.

On re-reading your comments, I

think you have done JOT a great disservice by your commenting in the way you

did making out that her comments had been insensitive and uncaring. JOT did not

make any mistakes in debating this issue. JOT rightly addressed the

article that was discussing fat.

JOT gives masses of very

valuable information here and has done a lot of research into her subject and

does not intentionally go around being " offensive " , insensitive

and uncaring, as your messages might suggest. In fact, many of our members have

benefited greatly from her knowledge. I do believe you should re-read the

article and the message JOT posted, and perhaps be kind enough to apologise to

her for your remarks, which too could be considered insensitive and uncaring

under the circumstances, even though perhaps that was not the way you intended

them to come across.

Sheila

Jot, I think you're being insensitive and

unfair. The point being made was that many people with weight problems may also

have undiagnosed hypothyroidism. It's a good point. There's no need to be

offensive to people who do struggle with this symptom of hypo - nice for you if

you don't, but not everyone is so lucky, and it's not very constructive to go

on the attack...

H

> They very well could be, and perhaps this is true for half of them. We

don't have any of those answers here, all we have is AN ARTICLE ABOUT BEING FAT

IN THE UK.

[Guest guest]

Although I have no article to prove it, I did Atkins for three years on about 20 - 40 carbs a day.   After three years I gave up because it was too hard with me feeling and being not well.    It seems it was then that I stopped or slowed down the conversion to T3.  I was fine on thyroxine until then.   When I had a private blood test done at the bottom it gave a list of things that can cause conversion to stop.    I knew I didn't have the other things listed and the only other thing was 'malnutrition or being on a strict diet' or words to that effect.    

So yes, it seems it is possible for low carbs (but possibly low calorie) to cause it.Lilian

> just a thought but maybe that was because you were too low carb miriam ...apparently being too low interferes with t4 to t3 conversion.

> trish

[Guest guest]

Different . I would have written Jennny F - or even

F.

Luv - Sheila

Hi Happy to apologise to anyone I offended. I

just thought the conversation was progressing and that I was just agreeing with

2 that wheat can be a contributing problem.

Sorry if I contributed to taking the discussion off into other directions

F

[Guest guest]

Actually it proves my point as your friend obviously needs the T3 in Armour because she is not converting, otherwise she would be fine on thyroxine alone. If she was converting properly she would not need to supplement with Armour which contains T4 and T3.

That is why I need T4/T3. Before Atkins I was OK on T4 alone, but it was after that I needed to add the T3.

Eskimos might have evolved into being able to eat very low carb and not stop converting.

Wheat has only been around for about 10,000 years. Not time enough for people to evolve into being able to digest it properly (hence being intolerant to gluten), however some have already reached that stage where they can digest it. It is plain old simple Darwin.

It might be dieting per se that can cause it not specifically low carb. Or dieting on things your body had not been evolved to eat (hence the theory of the blood type diet). Or you might say that the need to diet at all might be thyroid related in the first place. Although not hypo as we know it, it might be just a wee bit slower than someone else's but not enough to make one ill.

Just my theory on my own experience and it could be if I had been on some other diet it would still have happened.

I am not knocking the Atkins diet and I too have to keep low carb for my diabetes. And eating carbs again didn't reverse the situation with my thyroid.

I guess it is all speculation and anecdotal. On the bottom of my test results it didn't say the cause was low carb, it said the cause was malnutrition (dieting), but the malnutrition might be because my body does not absorb the nutrition. I know it doesn't absorb iron well. I thought the Atkins diet was very highly nutritious so that was what surprised me with the test results.

Lilian

I do have some anecdotal evidence to the contrary. One of our members here in Bristol has to follow a low carb diet in order to feel well. She is doing fine on Armour, so it can't be interfering with her conversion.

[Guest guest]

I wonder if that is the reason diabetes charities, medics, nurses and even dieticians, say you must base your meals - when diabetic - on carbs.

However, on an EXPERT [not shouting that is the initials ] course that I went on, where we had to write what we ate and our blood sugar down, I had the best blood sugars of everyone, but then I was the only one eating low carb. I still eat low carb regardless of my thyroid because I am fine doing it when taking Armour And the person taking the course had to (reluctantly) admit that lower carbs was better for a diabetic.

When I brought up the subject of meals being based on carbs, she tried to explain that it means there should be some carb in the meal. She was a bit lost for words when I said that most people's idea of 'based on' means something like three quarters carbs and not as she was suggesting it meant a quarter carbs.

Also I think a lot of people get confused about what carbs are. They think it is potatoes, rice etc. The starchy ones. They do not realise all vegetables have a varying amount of carbs in them. And I am surprised at the number of people who consider fruit has no carbs - except banana.

As I said, personally I am taking plenty thyroid medication but eating less carbs.

I think your best bet Miriam is to do what you feel best with. If you feel well that is the best indicator that you are doing something right for you. If it works don't mess with it

Lilian

Re: The UK has more obese women than any other country in Europe

That leaves me with a dilemma then. I have to follow a pretty low carb diet because otherwise I have problems with fluctuating blood sugar levels.Miriam>> Although I have no article to prove it, I did Atkins for three years on about 20 - 40 carbs a day. After three years I gave up because it was too hard with me feeling and being not well. It seems it was then that I stopped or slowed down the conversion to T3. I was fine on thyroxine until then. When I had a private blood test done at the bottom it gave a list of things that can cause conversion to stop. I knew I didn't have the other things listed and the only other thing was 'malnutrition or being on a strict diet' or words to that effect.

[Guest guest]

The thing is Miriam, because I was about to be put on insulin I went on a low carb diet, and it improved my diabetes so much that I was not put on insulin and ok on thyroxine. Towards the end of the three years that I was on it I began to get the symptoms of hypothyroid again, although I did not realise it at the time. What with pains, stomach upsets, and all the rest, I just could not cope with worrying about low carb. The quickest and easiest was the answer. Which was more carbs.

It was obvious in hindsight that was when I was beginning not to convert.

So if it was the diabetes that caused it, surely it would have caused it when it was at its worst and they were going to put me on insulin. Unless it did start to happen then and going on a low carb diet delayed it. But then why didn't it keep delaying it whilst I was on Atkins.

However, we are back to the malnutrition which must have been an absorption problem as I was eating a very good nutritious diet on Atkins.

Liian

Although this article says a low calorie diet can adversely affect T4 to T3 conversion, it does not say anything about low carb diets. In fact, as it lists insulin resistance and diabetes

[Guest guest]

Well if nothing else the Mail has provoked a very interesting and informative discussion.

Lilian