Thyroid Disease Blog

I had a chance to chat briefly with Dr. Richard Shames regarding his thoughts about thyroid patients faced with radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment for their Graves' disease/hyperthyroidism. Dr. Shames is the co-author of several books on thyroid disease -- including ThyroidPower and Fat, Fuzzy and Frazzled -- and contributed his "Shames Natural Antithyroid Protocol" to my book Living Well With Graves' Disease and Hyperthyroidism.

In the US, many patients who are hyperthyroid -- including those with even mild hyperthyroidism -- are immediately offered radioactive iodine treatment. But, says Dr. Shames, for some who are not in an acute stage of hyperthyroidism, RAI may be premature.

"It's still somewhat of a shock to me how many hyperthyroid patients are told that their only real option is RAI and they must do it right away, to be followed by being on Synthroid forever after," says Dr. Shames. "This is disturbing to me because I've seen so many people do really well with one or another of the wide range of alternatives to this standard procedure."

I asked him why he thinks endocrinologists so often push for RAI ablation right away? Says Dr. Shames: Read more...

Endocrine Today has been reporting from the American Thyroid Association Cancer Frontiers in Thyroid Cancer meeting. Check out this article, talking about how thyroid cancer is on the rise. Interestingly, however, while thyroid cancer has increased more than twofold over the past 20 years, the mortality rate remains the same, at a very low 0.5 per 100,000. According to the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society, there were some 37,340 new cases of thyroid cancer and 1,590 thyroid cancer-related deaths in the US in 2008.

The question still remains as to whether there is an increase in thyroid cancer across the board, or whether there is simply better detection of thyroid cancer. In a commentary accompanying the Endocrine Today piece, endocrinologist Dr. David Cooper said that with an estimated 75 million adult Americans having a thyroid nodule, we're just finding more of the existing cancers in those nodules. For more on this issue, read Why Are More People Being Diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer?

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The Thyroid Cancer Survivors Association (ThyCa) will be holding its 11th International Thyroid Cancer Survivors Conference from October 17-19, 2008 in St. Louis, Missouri. The event is focused on those whose lives have been touched by thyroid cancer—people being tested, those newly diagnosed, long-term survivors, people with advanced disease, caregivers, and friends.

The conference includes more than 80 sessions featuring leading physicians and other specialists in the field. The latest research, advances in treatment and follow-up, insurance and employment issues, coping skills and strategies to improve well-being are all covered. The conference runs from Read more...

The Thyroid Cancer Survivors Association (ThyCa) is partnering with Lotsa Helping Hands, a free online caregiving coordination service.

Lotsa Helping Hands provides an online, centralized way to organize family members, friends, and others during times of medical crisis, or when intensive, coordinated care is needed for an aging or ailing family member of friend. It is also useful to coordinate friends or volunteers for a project, or vounteers for projects and events for your neighborhood, school, service group, faith community, or youth group. You can coordinate volunteers for meals, rides, or visits, share photos, broadcast medical status updates. The free service includes an easy-to-use calendar, plus additional resources. You create your own free private Web site. You can easily ask for help with errands and other tasks, as well as provide your friends and family with updates about your loved one.

Find out more or get started now.

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Ever wonder why drug prices seem to keep going up and up? It might be that the drug companies' budgets for lobbying are also going up and up.

According to an investigation done by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), pharmaceutical, medical device, and other health product manufacturers spent more than $189 million on lobbying in 2007. This represented a phenomenal 32 percent jump over 2006.

CPI's report, Pushing Prescriptions: How the Drug Industry Sells Its Agenda at Your Expense, finds that all the lobbying and contributions to campaigns has resulted in a quicker drug approval process, delayed entry of lower cost generic drugs to the market, more direct-to-consumer drug company advertising, and a serious conflict of interest by "making the FDA dependent on the industry it regulates for budgetary resources."

Among the top pharmaceutical lobby spenders in 2007 are several companies making thyroid drugs, including: Read more...

For the last two months, British thyroid patient advocate Diana Holmes has had discussions with the editiorial staff of the program "This Morning" ITV 1, and as a result, Diana will appear with Dr Chris on the morning of Wednesday July 30th. The program airs between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. (Diana appeared on Granada Satellite television with Dr. Chris back in 1997 and 1998, discussing the problems of diagnosis and management of hypothyroidism. He was interested in the topic back then, and after getting information on some of Diana's latest work, he is even more interested in covering this issue.)

People who are interested in the issue and want to share information with the "This Morning" team prior to Diana's appearance can telephone, text or email the program:

• Phone: 0870 333 0550 (9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Monday-Friday)
• Email: thismorning@itv.com -- put "Thyroid show with Diana Holmes" in the subject, and include your phone number in the email so that someone can call you back if necessary.
• Post/mail: This Morning, 11th Floor, LTVC, London, SE1 9LT

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Alternet has an new article by Shawna Robins, called "'Trans-Fats' Of The Skin Care World," which talks about how sunscreens -- which are riddled with various toxins -- may be hurting you as much as helping.

Interestingly, many people don't realize that the environmental estrogens and UV filters in sunscreens may have a negative effect on your health, and in particular, your thyroid. Some experts even believe that chemicals found in certain sunscreens and anti-aging skin treatments may disrupt thyroid hormone production, and even trigger early stage hypothyroidism. Find out more about sunscreen and the thyroid.

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The journal Thyroid is an excellent source of the latest studies and research on thyroid disease. Unlike the more theoretical journals, Thyroid frequently has research that has implications for your current thyroid treatment. The publisher, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is making their new July 2008 issue of the journal Thyroid available to read, free. It's a good issue with a number of interesting Read more...

Researchers looked the use of thyroidectomy -- surgery to remove the thyroid gland -- as a treatment for Hashimoto's thyroiditis. In the study, 474 patients were evaluated: 133 (28%) had preoperative diagnosis of thyroid cancer (, 316 had benign thyroid nodules or goiter, and 25 had symptoms caused by thyroiditis. Among the patients, no one experienced death or permanent surgical complications. 32.1% had transient postoperative hypocalcemia, Less than 1% had transient recurrent nerve palsy, and less than 1% had a postoperative neck hematoma. The researchers concluded that thyroidectomy can be performed in patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis with a low risk of permanent surgical complications.

A surprising finding was that a total of fifty-three percent of the patients had thyroid cancer -- many more than Read more...

Researchers looked at the impact that levothyroxine treatment has on the levels of antithyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPO-Ab) in patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Generally, while it's known that treatment can cause these antibodies to drop, the researchers wanted to have a better sense of the specific effect. The study found that 92% of the patients studied had a decrease in TPO-Ab. While the mean antibody level was 4779 IU/mL, the levels typically decreased by 8% in the first 3 months, 45% after a year. At five years, the levels were down to a mean of 1456 a decrease of 70%. A total of 16% of patients had TPO-Ab levels became negative (measured at less than 100 IU/mL). Read the full text PDF of this article now.

This study provides evidence that levothyroxine treatment Read more...