Hypothyroidism: Is It Possible or Probable? Part 2

Let's pick up where we left off last time. We were looking at how a doctor decides to make a diagnosis of hypothyroidism by gathering information from research articles. This happens despite the fact that doctors are not very qualified to analyze the quality of the study from which they are gathering the information. Just as many people take a blind leap of faith in their doctor, your doctor is a taking a blind leap of faith in the research team that performed and published the study.

So how can you feel comfortable that a doctor can make a diagnosis with a high confidence of probability? By following some very fundamental rules of making a diagnosis:

1. The human body is a closed, contiguous system. Everything has some effect on everything else. Though an easier route to take, you should not look at individual parts of the whole (concentrating on a "problem thyroid gland" instead of looking at how the thyroid gland is affected by other parts, as well it affects other parts).
2. A single physical exam finding, lab test, symptom, etc. means nothing on its own. Gathering all the pertinent information will develop a better picture of what is truly going on in the person (making a diagnosis on a low TSH without correlating it with other findings is diagnosing from possibility, not probability).
3. Most people don't follow the textbook. Doctor's study disease processes (pathology) and are looking for a certain presentation that a person with a certain disease "should" have. This is rarely the case. Most people have only portions of what they "should" have according to their diagnosis, along with some extra findings that don't exactly fit the mold.

If your doctor always keeps these things in mind, s/he will turn over more rocks to uncover significant findings, relate it back to the entire person and piece them together to come up with the answer to the most important question of them all..."So what's your story?"

Once your doctor knows "your story," they can make their diagnosis from a standpoint of probabilities.

One final note: I said last post that I was going to making things more clear, while I kind of rambled on without giving an example. I promise to be behave and make it all a little more simple in Part 3.

technorati tags: diagnosis of hypothyroidism thyroid gland problem thyroid gland

If You Want to Lose Weight, Don't Be a One Trick Pony

So many lunges, crunches and the better half of your day on that treadmill. You ask your doctor, you ask your trainer, you ask anyone that will listen..."Why can't I lose the weight?" Everyone seems to have an opinion, but most of them revolve around the same premises. Workout harder/longer and eat less?

Maybe you've tried that and it didn't work. Maybe running marathons daily on an empty stomach doesn't fit with your goal of losing weight in a healthy way.

When it comes to your body, there is no one solution for any problem. So to say the best way to lose weight is to _________, you are really underestimating the complexity of human physiology.

The people that I have helped reach their health goal (in this case losing body fat), understand that there are many different ways to achieve their goal. When it comes to the human body, doing more variables is better than doing more of one single thing.

Your thyroid gland (your metabolic regulator) is a perfect example of this. Your thyroid gland responds differently to different stimuli, and can influence the way other parts of your work.

Here's an example. You are trying to stay healthy and get your goal of 100 ounces of water per day (I am happy so far). To meet this goal, you fill up a large plastic bottle and make sure it is done by the end of the day. You have to leave it in your car during the day because of work, so it gets a little heated up. You don't care about drinking some hot water if it will help you lose weight.

While you are doing this one thing right (drinking plenty of water), you are not doing everything right.

First problem: If you are filling up straight out of the tap, you are getting more than just water. 2 sides that come with your watery meal is chloride and fluoride (both halogens). In your body, these similar structures compete with other similar structures (like iodide) to bind with other structures. Iodine/iodide are important part of the formations and utilization of thyroid hormone, or the hormone responsible for your metabolism. You would be better served if you either drank spring water, or had some sort of filtration device.

Second problem: The plastic bottle that you are using can leech off chemicals that are very similar in chemical makeup of estrogen. Estrogens and their stunt doubles are fat soluble, and can build up in large amounts if you are storing excess fat. The more there is in the body by either taking in too much, storing too much, or not eliminating enough, the more likely that they will bind to thyroid hormones (because estrogens increases thyroid binding globulins, or TBGs) at a level that slowly catches up to you and causes problems. Definitely get your bottle out of the car, since heat really leeches off those estrogen mimickers. Better yet, use a glass bottle. Problem solved.

In order to get the best results, you should have a complete strategy that really emphasizes a lot of the little things. You will see your efforts go much further than killing yourself by doing one or 2 things (which may even hurt you in the long run).

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