Weight Gain and synthetic thyroxine

[Guest guest]

Weight Gain and the TSH:

Prevention Writer’s

Good Deed

Dr. C. Lowe

Contact: editor@...

drlowe@... www.drlowe.com See Prevention online at

http://www.prevention.com/cda/article/thyroid-and-weight-gain/

b9fc94882de7a110VgnVCM20000012281eac____/health/healthy.lifestyle

In

the August 2008 issue of Prevention

magazine, writer

n Kesner[1]

brought an important

issue to Prevention

readers’

attention. The issue is one

of

extreme concern to many hypothyroid patients— that is, weight gain

despite “in-range” TSH levels.In addressing this issue, n

Kesner cited an

important

study. The study vindicates countless hypothyroid patients who have failed to

convince their clinicians that their weight gain was not from lack of exercise

or fattening food intake. Literally hundreds of patients have told me they

complained to their4

clinicians about

accumulating fat after going on T

replacement—the

thyroid hormone therapy that keeps the TSH in range. Invariably, the patients

have expressed frustration at their clinicians’ cavalier assurance: “Your

TSH is in range, so your thyroid is fine; you just need to exercise more and

cut back on calories.”

That

many patients have found these assurances frustrating is understandable. Some

of the patients, for example, were actively teaching aerobics classes

several

time each week, and they subsisted on a virtual caveman diet. An example I’ll

never forget was an intelligent 35-year-old man who was very physically active

because he trained management executives. He was concerned about the 50 lbs,

mostly belly fat, that he 4

had gained within two

years after starting T replacement with Synthroid. He was highly motivated to

lose the belly fat, as he felt it might affect his credibility with the

executives he trained. As part of the executives’ training, he included

presentations on the exercise of will power and tempered restraint in dealing

with employees. “Every time I do a presentation on will power and

restraint,” he said, “I’m distracted by the thought that the

executives in the audience are questioning whether I can restrain myself from

eating too much.” After he had begun to gain weight, this man—who

already worked out four days each week at a gym—increased his visits to

six days each week. He worked out with weights for an hour, and for another

hour, he cross-trained at high intensity on several aerobic exercise machines.

Unfortunately, none of this helped him lose the extra weight. The solution for

him was to switch to natural

desiccated

thyroid, taking enough to suppress his TSH level. Within three months, he lost

all his excess weight. At one year follow-up, his abdomen

was

flat, his family physician told me the man was apparently healthy in every

respect, and in a phone conversation, the man told me that his extraordinarily healthy

condition was entirely consistent with the will power and restraint he taught

executives.

continued………………….http://www.thyroidscience.com/editorials/lowe/wt.gain.tsh.lowe.11.08.pdf