Thyroid Conditions Are Reaching Epidemic Levels and the Medication Is Not Working

“Your health lies within your own two hands, and the choices made will determine your outcome.”

“21 Million Americans May Take a Hypothyroidism Drug They Don’t Need. As many as 90 percent of those who take levothyroxine [Synthroid] may have been unnecessarily prescribed the hypothyroidism medication”[1] says an article from the Yale School of Medicine website.

Where does this huge number come from? Low thyroid function affects 20-25% of the female population, and 1 in 8 will develop a thyroid condition in their lifetime. Women are 6 to 8 times more susceptible to the development of a thyroid condition than men.

The shocking fact is that nearly half of all women and a quarter of all men in the US will die with evidence of an inflamed thyroid. On a global scale, a staggering 200 million people have problems with their thyroid glands. In the US alone, the instance of thyroid disease is running close to epidemic levels, which is equally as worrying as the fact that 60% remains undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.[2] “The prevalence of goiter in areas of severe iodine deficiency can be as high as 80% of the population.”[3]

What are the possible causes of thyroid cancer?

According to The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine, one of the causes can be PFAS. PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” are a vast group of synthetic compounds with a robust carbon-fluorine bond that resists easy degradation in the environment. These substances, in use globally since the 1940s, can migrate into soil, water, and air. They find application in consumer products like non-stick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and stain-resistant fabrics, providing resistance against grease, water, and oil.

The Mount Sinai researchers investigated associations between plasma PFAS levels and thyroid cancer diagnosis. “The results showed that exposure to perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (n-PFOS, a group of chemicals under the PFAS umbrella) led to a 56 percent increased risk of thyroid cancer diagnosis. Additionally, the researchers conducted the analysis again in a subgroup of 31 patients who had at least a year between their enrollment in BioMe and their diagnosis of thyroid cancer, to take into consideration the time lag between exposure to PFAS chemicals and developing a disease. From this second analysis, there was also a positive association between the exposure of n-PFOS and the risk of thyroid cancer.”[4]

Whether it is PFAS or something else, the fact is that thyroid cancer is on the rise in the US, having tripled in the last 40 years. It is estimated that nearly 57,000 new cases of thyroid cancer will be diagnosed, and since the disease is more common in women, more than 42,000 of those diagnoses expected to occur in females; it is the 8th most common cancer diagnosis in the United States, mainly driven by increases in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), which is the most common type.

It has been unclear whether this trend represents a true rise in thyroid cancer cases, or if some or all of the increase could be explained by over diagnosis of small, low-risk thyroid tumors. In Canada, there is great variation in thyroid cancer incidence rates among provinces, with an increased incidence mostly affecting women aged 40-60 years. Since the provinces have such variation within one country, the conclusion would suggest over diagnosis.

Chemotherapy and radiation are ineffective against thyroid cancer, so when cancer is found, the treatment too often is the removal of the entire thyroid gland, which means thyroid medication for life. According to the Mayo Clinic, a thyroidectomy can be used for the removal of all or just a portion of the gland from cancer. This is followed by taking radioactive iodine therapy (RAI), also known as radioiodine remnant ablation (RRA). “RAI or RRA is administered to destroy remaining (or remnant) thyroid cells after surgery.”[5] And as a result, patients have to take synthetic thyroid hormone Synthroid® for the rest of their lives.

The problem usually starts right at the check-up. According to Dr. Peter Ubel, scientist at Duke University, “the problem with all that neck checking—there’s no evidence it saves lives. But there is solid evidence that it leads to diagnoses of non-threatening thyroid cancers. Here’s a picture showing the dramatic increase in cancer diagnoses over the last four decades (the two rising lines) and the unchanged percent of Americans dying of thyroid cancer (the completely flat line at the bottom):”[6]

“So why would drug companies care about thyroid cancer diagnoses? Because once people have thyroid surgery, they usually need to take thyroid replacement pills. Or if they get thyroid radiation, they take medications like Thyrogen, manufactured by Sanofi Genzyme, one of the corporate sponsors of the thyroid screening public service announcements.”[7]

Why medication is not working?

Treatment of subclinical hypothyroidism with levothyroxine, though commonly practiced, is not associated with improvements in quality of life or thyroid-related symptoms, according to a new meta-analysis.

Twenty-one randomized clinical trials including 2,192 participants with subclinical hypothyroidism, thyroid hormone therapy was not significantly associated with improvements in general quality of life (standardized mean difference −0.11) or thyroid-related symptoms (standardized mean difference 0.01).

Findings: Among non-pregnant adults with subclinical hypothyroidism, the use of thyroid hormone therapy was not associated with improvements in general quality of life or thyroid-related symptoms. These findings do not support the routine use of thyroid hormone therapy in adults with subclinical hypothyroidism.

It is not just that medication is not improving the quality of life; it can be harmful, too. According to a cohort study among 65 931 “patients 65 years and older, a low TSH level from either endogenous or exogenous thyrotoxicosis was associated with higher risk of incident cognitive disorder. Iatrogenic thyrotoxicosis is a common result of thyroid hormone therapy. With thyroid hormone among the most common prescriptions in the US, understanding the negative effects of overtreatment is critical to help guide prescribing practice.”[8]

Studies have shown that the treatment of thyroid disorders with medication alone can have less favorable outcomes than with thyroid nutritional supplementation, which in turn can produce less favorable outcomes than combining support for both the thyroid and adrenal systems. In fact, the Thyrodine, Adrenal Gland and HGH+ treatment, when combined, may support the pituitary adrenal axis and contribute to improvement of thyroid-gland symptoms, particularly individuals with subclinical thyroid conditions.

“When a thyroid condition is suspected, the adrenal function should be measured and appropriately managed to obtain maximum therapeutic effect. (…) The reasoning is simple: When the adrenals have been weakened by chronic stress, emotional stress, trauma, or chemical stressors—such as food, the environment, and medications—this stress causes stimulation of cortisol and, over time, reduces TSH and T4 to T3 conversion and increases conversion to reverse T3. This effect causes the patient to feel even more fatigue and exhaustion.”[9] Treatment may be as simple as reducing the stress factors to reduce the disease progression.[10] Also whole raw desiccated thyroid gland (hormone free) concentrate  can help to achieve optimal thyroid balance and aids in the function of the thyroid gland.

Never begin any thyroid hormone medication without thoroughly proper lab testing or with borderline lab results. It is important to determine what is causing the symptoms of thyroid deficiency; there are many causes that can cause similar symptoms as hypothyroidism. Nature is holistically in a state of balance, without a lifetime dependency of prescription medication with side effects. In reality, your health lies within your own two hands, and the choices made will determine your outcome.

Additional Reading:

References:

[1] Backman, Isabella. 2023.

[2] According to the American Thyroid Association (ATA), an estimated 20 million Americans have some form of thyroid disease but the numbers are much higher with those border lined with hypothyroidism, the numbers could reach over 60% of the USA population.

[3] Vanderpump, Mark P.J. 2011. 40.

[4] Mount Sinai Press Release. 2023.

[5] Brady, Bridget. 2016.

[6] Ubel, Peter. 2018.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Adams, Roy et al. 2023.

[9] Wellwood, Christopher, and Sean Rardin. 2014.

[10] Ibid. Figure 1 shows the feedback mechanisms and potential thought process when treating these types of patients.