I spent a good part of yesterday reading about a few things that encourage or discourage thyroid activity. It looks as though this subject is significantly more complicated than most people seem to consider it. Between all the minerals, amino acids and binding proteins to create it, convert it, ferry it around and escort it into cells for use, then its interactions with catecholamines, leptin, estrogen and progesterone, and the conversion of some to inert molecules (rT3 and 4) to keep it from overtaxing a stressed body -- WHEW....
To think that the usual analogy people use to describe thyroid sufficiency is an automobile engine: that's WAY too simple. If a patient seems to have low metabolism from an underactive thyroid, just throw ONE little chemical at it and expect everything to run fine again? The multiple hormones that the thyroid makes and converts, and all the things they interact with, makes the appropriate comparison something more like an entire ECOSYSTEM. For that to work properly, you need the right proportions of various gases in the atmosphere, the presence of water with the right living things in it, the right minerals in the soil, the right plants and bugs growing in that soil, the right animals in the right population sizes, some eating the plants and some each other.... See what i mean?
Thyroid hormones also "regulate protein, fat, and carbohydrate metabolism, affecting how human cells use energetic compounds," to quote Wikipedia. HOW, i haven't found yet. I may end up an amateur endocrinologist (perish the thought) by the time i'm finished ferreting out what i want to know. Suffice it to say, my experiences lately are leading me to believe that the body REQUIRES more hormone when more carbohydrate is consumed. Lower thyroid activity in a low-carb diet is apparently NOT pathological, just like insulin-resistance is physiologically appropriate in the ketotic state.
No wonder there's such a wide range of "normal" test results for TSH, T4 and T3 -- there are SO MANY variables for how much is needed!
[sigh] Well, back to my reading....
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