Re: Thyroid and Psychiatry

[Guest guest]

what is interesting too, is that he has done case studies on people with bipolar

etc - some of whom recovered very well when before treatment they had normal tsh

etc

http://www.psycheducation.org/thyroid/data.htm

you may have heard of this dr who wrote this letter:

http://www.psycheducation.org/thyroid/studies.htm#samples

Chris

>

> This is a very interesting site (to me anyway) talking about the links between

thyroid and psychiatry

[Guest guest]

also - the following makes me wonder if that's why i get more benefit out of t4

alone than anything else.

http://www.psycheducation.org/thyroid/details.htm

T4 acts directly on the brain, not just via T3

Generally it's taught that T4 thyroid hormone works by getting converted to T3.

This makes people wonder about the logic of using very high doses of T4. Why

don't you just give T3?

Well, as the diagram below (next section) shows, thyroid hormone actions and

regulation are extremely complex. But a new study (Caria, 2009) makes it clear

that thyroid hormone, in the T4 form, acts directly on the brain. Indeed, this

research shows that a region of the brain which seems to play a central role in

mood, the hippocampus, is directly regulated by T4. And T3 had the opposite

effects, acting more like epinephrine in this region. At least in rats.

These data are consistent with the idea that T4 does not have its effects by

changing the entire thyroid system, including the pituitary release of TSH.

Maybe the effect is more direct, and maybe some people need a lot of that effect

for some reason. In that case, high-dose thyroid might produce an effect which

cannot be gauged by measuring TSH. That's important, you see, because

endocrinologists and primary care doctors get very anxious about the idea of

psychiatrists giving thyroid hormone at doses that completely suppress TSH. They

think that's unwise in principle, not just because of the possible risks of

atrial fibrillation and decreased bone density (those risks are discussed in

detail on the high-dose thyroid page).