Trace components of Armour

[Guest guest]

Sheila,

You wrote:

>

> Forest do not attempt to measure the amount of T2 and T1 or calcitonin

> that is in thyroid extract, and as far as I am aware, there has been no

> other attempt to find the exact amount. Where do Forest report the

> presence of these hormones as a " trace " amount?

Forest does not monitor the trace hormones in its product, but that does

not mean they have never been measured and for thyroid glands from lots

of animals. The ratios I gave you before were for a study of human

thyroids.

Here are some others:

Pileggi VJ, Golub DJ, Lee ND. Determination of thyroxine and

triiodothyronine in commercial preparations of desiccated thyroid and

thyroid extract. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1965; 25:949-56.

Mangieri CN, Lund MH. Potency of United States pharmacopoiea desiccated

thyroid tablets as determined by the antigoitrogenic assay in rats. J

Clin Endocrinol Metab 1970; 30:102-4.

Rees- RW, Rolla AR, Larsen PR. Hormonal content of thyroid

replacement preparations. JAMA 1980; 243:549.

Forest used to mention the trace hormones in its package inserts, but in

2002 they evidently took them off, perhaps because so many people were

making claims about T2. I suspect this data may still be listed in the

information for health practitioners.

>

> If you get more of T2 and T1 in a diet using animal products, why don't

> we get more T4 and T3 in a diet using animal products?

Because the percentage of T2 and T1 in peripheral tissues is much

greater, on the order of a few percent. The thyroid gland is in the

business of adding iodine atoms to thyronine. The deiodization process

that undoes this occurs elsewhere. That is why the relative

concentration of T1 and T2 in the gland is very low compared to other

tissue, hundredths of a percent at most. We do get a small amount of T4

and T3 from drinking milk and eating meat, but the concentrations are

comparable to the T2 and T1.

You are quite right that T2 does have some activity, but its effect on

TSH is about 1/200th that of T3. T2 does do some things that T3 doesn't

do, but the concentration in Armour is so low that that influence is

vanishingly small.

> It is not only the T4 and T3 in Armour that works. If it was, what

> would be the purpose of using natural extract when it is all there in

> the synthetic? ...

To get a better dose or to bypass RT3.

> ... Some people with hypothyroidism have used T2 in small

> doses and found this works for them, lone of my members used to purchase

> it for herself and her daughter, they couldn't keep well without it.

> Many body builders sites used to use it, I have no idea whether they

> still do....

Body builders now use a mix of herbals under the label T2. Sale of

actual diiodothyronine is illegal. When it was available, the source was

bovine liver, so the concentration was much higher than you find in a

thyroid gland.

Chuck