We are slowly coming out of a dark age in treating thyroid disorders. Dr. Broda Barnes gave us the fruit of his decades of thyroid hormone study “Hypothyroidism, the Unsuspected Illness”. He used whole desiccated thyroid very successfully in his practice. He clearly identified the many presentations of low thyroid activity. But this all went amiss when forces within the pharmaceutical industry induced practitioners to abandon whole thyroid preparations in favor of only l-thyroxine (T4) therapy. This completely stopped patients from getting any active liothyronine (T3).
Practitioners suddenly lost their ability to observe and document thyroid deficiency symptoms. They were trained to measure the pituitary hormone, thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). A reference range was created which seems to have no good correlation with healthy thyroid activity. People reached the point of desperate hypothyroidism long before they ever got over the conventionally accepted range. T4 administration could lower the TSH levels and could work well for some but many still experienced all of their hypothyroid symptoms while being treated. Their limited testing looked OK.
Some medical practitioners persisted in using whole thyroid and some of them suffered from attacks from their medical boards for failing to fall into lockstep with the simple guidelines that conventional medicine had put its blessing upon. In the meantime, patients suffered and very likely died prematurely because this therapy failed some of them.
As the sheer weight of Dr. Dach’s book will attest, thyroid physiology is complex. Dr. Dach took on a herculean task of sharing his observations within the context of many, many studies and references. This book is the medical education that almost no one received in their professional schools. As a champion of using whole desiccated thyroid, Dr. Dach weaves in the story of the toppling of the T4 therapy only paradigm that is slowly happening.
Throughout his book, he sprinkles clinical pearls Here’s one “In our patient population, we see bone density improving, especially in women receiving bioidentical hormone replacement”. Just this week I saw a headline that bone density was diminishing with T4 only therapies. Hmmm.
And here “TSH suppression allows the use of high-dose iodine without provoking increased antithyroid antibodies. This is my observation from clinical practice. Obviously, it would be nice to have supportive studies in the medical literature.”
And practical tips “with iodine (12.5 mg/day or above) and magnesium (1200 mg per day) should reverse autoimmune thyroiditis.”
This magnus opus should find its way into medical school training. Every medically trained person who consults with patients should have this guidebook. People who have had to advocate for themselves to get better treatment will also find this book invaluable. The questions of thyroid cancer and hyperthyroidism are also covered. In fact, it is easy to find a chapter that covers just about any thyroid question. A work well done, Dr. Dach!
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