Skip to content

Tag: epilepsy

Hypothyroidism, Insulin resistance and Metformin: read this brilliant information!

This interesting page has been updated to the present day and time. Enjoy!

*****************

The following insightful post was written by UK hypothyroid patient Sarah Wilson. 

My daughter (25) has epilepsy. What’s that got to do with being hypothyroid and Natural Thyroid Hormones (NTH. also known as Natural Desiccated Thyroid or NDT)? Quite a lot, by the look of things.

My daughter’s epilepsy is triggered by unstable blood sugars. And since taking Metformin (medication to improve blood sugar control), she has significantly reduced the number of seizures. Being a good hypothyroid Tiger-mother, I have been doing mega amounts of research and we got to the Metformin approach through reading hundreds of academic medical journals. What I found along the way got me thinking about NTH and Hypothyroidism.

I have a strong hunch, backed up by some meaty academic evidence, that when patients develop hypothyroid symptoms, they are actually becoming insulin resistant. There are many symptoms in common between women with PCOS and hypothyroidism–the hair loss, the weight gain, et al. http://insulinhub.hubpages.com/hub/PCOS-and-Hypothyroidism A hypothyroid person’s body thinks it is going into starvation mode and so, to preserve resources and prolong life, the metabolism changes. If hypothyroid is prolonged or pronounced, then it is entirely feasible that even with the reintroduction of thyroid hormones, that chemical preservation mode becomes permanent. To get back to normal, they need a super “jump-start” to kick the metabolism back into action. The super-kick start is effected through something called AMPK, which is known as the “master metabolic regulating enzyme.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMP-activated_protein_kinase

Guess what? This is exactly what happens to Diabetes patients when Metformin is introduced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metformin

If you are technically minded then you might want to read these articles. http://www.springerlink.com/content/r81606gl3r603167/ and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2011.04029.x/pdf

They are a bit tough-going on the science but worth ploughing through. Why?  Note the following comments/partial statements:  “Hypothyroidism is characterized by decreased insulin responsiveness”; “the pivotal regulatory role of T3 in major metabolic pathways”; “The effect of thyroid hormone on basal metabolic rate was recognized more than a century ago”

The community knows that T3/NTH makes hypothyroid patients feel better – but the medical establishment is scared of T3/NTH – probably because they don’t understand how it really works. The medical establishment might find an alternative line of argument about impaired metabolism more palatable if we can show them this real proof that the old desiccated thryoid treatment **was/is** having the right result – the i.e. the T3 is jump-starting the metabolism by re-activating AMPK. If Metformin (or one of the other anti-diabetic meds) could actually also do the same thing for hypothyroidism without the “dangers” of NTH, they they should be jumping at the opportunity.

The great news is that Metformin is very cheap, stable and has very few serious side effects (and certainly none on the heart). To use the car engine metaphor, if glucose is our petrol, AMPK is the spark plug and both T3 and Metformin are both ignition switches. Sometimes if you have flat batteries in the car, it doesn’t matter how much you turn the ignition switch or pump the petrol pedal, all it does is flatten the battery and flood the engine. Dr. Skinner in the UK has been treating “pre-hypothyroidism” the way that some doctors treat “pre-diabetes”. Those hypothyroid patients who get treated early (before the wretched blood numbers get into the magical range) probably haven’t had their AMPK pathways altered and the T4-T3 conversion still works. The use of drugs as prophylactics is well understood by the medical establishment (e.g. baby aspirin for hearts), so there is no reason therefore why thyroid hormone replacement therapy shouldn’t logically be given to ward off a greater problem down the line.

It’s my belief that there is clear and abundant academic evidence that the AMPK/Metformin research should branch out to also look at thyroid disease.

As a supplementary on the history. I have PCOS; my female relatives have PCOS; my mother has just developed breast cancer which we are certain is related to the oestrogen dominance/insulin resistance. My daughter also has had Coeliac Disease since weaning (and oh boy, that was a fight to get a diagnosis but we got there). My daughter was showing lots of PCOS symptoms (some of which are of course hypothyroid symptoms) alongside the Estrogen, but because there were no cysts…no diagnosis, which is not correct by the Amsterdam criteria, but there we have it. So we moved “off topic” in PCOS terms, did a 9 month experiment of adding and subtracting one thing at a time to get to a (more) stable outcome. We never got the PCOS diagnosis but we did end up with T2DM Type 2 Diabetes) by the backdoor and the Metformin. We had two stupid consultants who reduced her to tears – their logic was unbelievably crass and at odds with long standing proof: “there isn’t a tap in your neck which stops the sugar getting to your brain you know” grrrrr. I have since found the links between people with T1DM (Type 1 Diabetes) who inject insulin and hypothyroidism too.

So my idea is that we need to talk to the medical profession in a language they relate to. They think Natural Desiccated Thyroid is voodoo, so they switch off. YET the NDT is doing something very, very scientific: the direct T3 is kicking the closed -own metabolic process back into life, just like Metformin does for insulin resistance. Who says there isn’t more widespread T4 resistance? There is serotonin resistance!  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17250776

http://web.archive.org/web/20130426233947/http://www.hotthyroidology.com/editorial_79.html Take a look at page 63.

Disclaimer: I, Sarah, am not medically trained and I haven’t even got a University degree. My business, however, is researching complex financial data and since leaving school, I have probably graduated with a PhD in the University of Life. My daughter has two degrees and my husband is in IT so I’ve learned a lot about logic over the past 30 years. I think that to take this debate forward, we need someone with the credibility to do a piece of academic research and get it put into one of the highly ranked journals – even doing a relatively straightforward meta-analysis of all the published works on AMPK/T3 /metabolism would be a start. I know everyone feels desperately miserable about not being treated properly, and it is probably very sexist that us bunch of moaning women are not taken seriously. BUT perception is reality and we have to deal with that reality as best we can. And I think that our sisters in the chronic fatigue/ME camp should have reason to join us on our quest too. I wouldn’t know where to start to find out how to sponsor a university researcher but maybe we should think about that as our “big thing”.

Let’s talk.

119 replies

Thyroid Tidbits that just might tickle your fancy, give you hope, or make you laugh in derision

A GOOD REPORT ON THIS OVER-THE-COUNTER THYROID SUPPORT

A gal recently used the Contact Me form on STTM to ask if I’d ever compiled patient experiences on ThyroGold–a nonprescription, over the counter, desiccated thyroid formulated by Dr. John C. Lowe and made from the thyroids of New Zealand cows who are pasture-fed. I said no–haven’t heard yet from anyone on it long enough.

But just thirty minutes later, here comes an email from a gal who has been on it four months, feels very good with many noted improvements. She is so thankful, and stated STTM gave her the confidence to feel she could work with ThyroGold. And lo and behold, her TSH-worshipping, Synthroid-prescribing doctor is watching her progress, and pleased.

COCONUT OIL AND ALZHEIMERS

Many a thyroid patient have heard of the benefits of coconut oil, especially as a food product which can stimulate your metabolism.

But a Dr. Mary Newport discovered in 2008 that just 4 teaspoons a day of virgin coconut oil just might have the right ingredients–medium-chain triglycerides which produces ketones by the live–to stop the onset or even reverse some of the damage caused by Alzheimer’s.  She witnessed this in her own husband. You should read her story here, and more on the Coconut Ketones website here.  Since my mother, and her father, both got Alzheimers by the time they were eighty, this especially interests me!

In fact, coconut oil just night have the same successful results with Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), drug-resistant epilepsy, brittle type I diabetes, and type II (insulin-resistant) diabetes. WHOA!!

Says Dr. Newport:

Our cells can use ketone bodies as an alternative fuel when glucose is not available. Brain cells, specifically neurons, are very limited, more limited than other cells, in what kinds of fuel they can use to function and to stay alive. Normally, they require glucose (sugar), but they can also use ketone bodies. Humans do not normally have ketone bodies circulating and available to the brain unless they have been starving for a couple of days or longer, or are consuming a ketogenic (very low carbohydrate) diet, such as Atkins. In Alzheimer’s disease, the neurons in certain areas of the brain are unable to take in glucose due to insulin resistance and slowly die off, a process that appears to happen one or more decades before the symptoms become apparent. If these cells had access to ketone bodies, they could potentially stay alive and continue to function.

P.S. Did you see the “one or more decades before symptoms become apparent”? That means we need to be on coconut oil daily NOW,

ARE ENDOCRINOLOGISTS FROM ANOTHER PLANET?

A patient on STTM’s Facebook page recently reported that since her HMO would only allow her to see an Endocrinologist, off she went to the appointment.

And what does her new Endo tell her? Ready? That her TSH was fine, low T3 & T4 meant nothing, and there is NO evidence that Adrenal Fatigue is real (in spite of the fact that when she tries to raise her Armour, her heart goes wacky–a sure sign of low cortisol). She concluded that there is “nothing like being lectured on things when you know more than they do.” She felt forced to keep her mouth shut by his reactions if she did try to teach him something, and just resigned to “agreeing with everything he said and left”.

And her summary of that Endo escapade? “My dose of Armour is right, makes no difference I’m fatigued, had to quit my job, leg swelling so bad I can hardly get around. None of that mattered. ONLY the TSH test.”

And unfortunately, her comment about knowing more than the doctor is very, very common now thanks to STTM and patient groups. All we can hope for are those doctors who are humble and open-minded to what we now KNOW to be true!

TWO OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE STTM BOOK

Chapters 3 and 11

REMEMBER ME MENTIONING THE GAL WHO PUT THE STTM BUMPER STICKER ON HER HUSBAND’S CAR?

Well, he got followed into the Barber Shop this time by a male nurse! So now, he wants something to hand out to these folks who keep approaching him. haha. So she has made copies of the STTM FLYERS and he’ll have them in the car from now on. This is reaching people…one by one!

60 replies