How much osteoporosis is actually masked HypoT? - Calcitonin and Hashi/Calcitonin and TSH? - how to get a research grant.. (kinda kidding)

[Guest guest]

Could treatment with T4-only meds cause or exacerbate osteoporosis

due to the thyroid's normal production of calcitonin (or create

" apparnent " problems with the parathyroid glands because of too much/

too little PTH trying to compensate? Or is calcitonin created

somewhere in the thyroid gland that isn't attacked in Hashi's?

It would seem this would be rather easy to figure out - just find

a large enough group of (older) people taking Synthroid, and a large

enough group taking Armour or some other glandular that contains

calcitonin (I assume Armour includes it), and then keep track of bone

density numbers for 3-10 years.

Only one problem. Where the $#@%@ do I get a research grant? Not

from Abbott I'm sure..

That reminds me of something I'd been thinking just today since

finishing Broda short monograph " 1976 Solved the Riddle of

Heart Attacks " - essentially blaming it ALL on hypothyroidism (I

still think there's more too it than that, and I think we're doing

things to are environment that are causing Hashi's or thyroid system

disruption). But I wondered again - the drug companies certainly

have no inventive to do anything about this horrid situation (they

make at least some money off of Synthroid and generics), as well as

other meds to treat the " masking conditions " that are really hypoT.

The mainstream endos and doctors have no incentive (they make even

MORE money off of the patients, and they get most of their knowledge

from drug reps anyway). The research community seems to be

completely screwed up and forgotten how real evidence-based science

works - you don't arbitrarily through out ' researach just

because it, *gosh, 30 whole years old*!.. No one (researchers or

doctors) seem to value empirical (rather than clinical or lab)

evidence anymore - " this worked in 98% of my patients, maybe it'll

work in your's too.. " Anyway, they are wedded to the cholesterol

hypothesis to dig themselves out of the hole. And government seem to

not have the sense to do so (they are in bed with the drug companies

anyway it seems).

But the *insurance companies* would seem to have an enormous

reason to pursue such research (on hypoT, on low-carb treatment of

diabetes, probably plenty of other things as well) - MONEY! It's

their JOB to save money (or more accurately, to save money for

themselves, then pass a small fraction of the cost on to us the

consumers). So why the heck doesn't some insurance company commision

a $#%@ study? It's not like it would be all that hard.. (with LC

diabetes, all they'd have to do would be to send off copies off all

of Dr. Bernstein's records to someplace and get it computerized, and

then let the statistics people crunch the data - for episodes of

hypoglycemia in children (low), severity of hypos (low), complication

rates (very low or non-existent), reversal of complications (in some

cases), energy level (higher than before the diet), an estimate of

increased productivity (positive), estimates of saved health-care

dollars due to reduced hospital stays (positive), sick days taken

(likely fewer), well-being of the patients (hard to quantify, but

undoubtedly positive if you figure out how to), and the list goes on.,

Same for thyroid treatment and prevention of heart attacks.

Simply repeat the evidence that used (at great expense and

time and effort, but seemingly needed as researchers don't want to

consider anything older than 30-40 years as possibly still *valid*),

and then come to his conclusions (based on the new data). Or look at

bone density vs Synthroid/Armour patients. Or heart attacks/

arteriosclerosis in treated hypothyroid patients (perhaps either T4-

only or T3/T4) vs. heart attacks/arteriosclerosis in non-hypothyroid

patients (possibly uninformative, as non-hypothyroid people may

already be protected, and looking at an " untreated, but really should

be " group is rather unethical - to leave then untreated once you've

determined they really should be)

A scary possibility (mentioned by in the monograph) is if

someone gets some kind of socialized health-care system in the US

(and we already do for a lot of people - Medicare, Medicaid, and the

VA). Then the government's diet/status-quo propaganda and the

" insurance company(ies) " will be one and the same. And then we just

watch the tax dollars go down the drain..

Has this debate ever been raised in other countries that *do* have

socialized health care? Especially since " non-mainstream " ideas like

LC-dieting for diabetes, possibly hypothyroid treatment for

arteriosclerosis and fibromyalgia, etc seem to be more accepted in

other countries than the US (according to Dr. Bernstein in his book,

for LC-dieting). Possibly *because* they have socialized health

care, and thus the government really has an *incentive* to look for

cost savings? Unfortunately, if it is that, I somehow don't think

that will work in the case of Medicare now that it has a drug benefit

- as the drug benefit itself looks like it was basically written for

the drug companies themselves..

It's sad that ends the monography, written presumably in

1976 or therabouts, with an assertion that it's time for the

cholesterol hypothesis to just die.. And from what he wrote, he

seems to have though that with all the evidence, it actually would

die. And yet, here we are, 30 years later, and it is still alive and

kicking, perhaps even a bit stronger now that we have statins.

Statins which are, after all, " relatively " side-effect free - just

take Aleve for the muscle-pain, slasher on triamcinolone cream if you

start to have a rash (and it has fluoride in it, which may give you a

bit of hypoT too - yippee!), put up with the bit of confusion and

memory-things [ " you're getting old after all.. " ], and maybe an

antidepressant if it really screws up the brain due to inhibited

production of it's main building block..)

Jim (feeling low and irritated - and not because of the

hypothyroidism.. at least not directly