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Alternative Supplements - Warning
Many alternative medicines and supplements that made the popularity charts and best seller lists are commonly
believed to perform all sorts of miracles. When properly prepared these bits and pieces of plants do some of the
things they are advertised to.
In addition it seems appropriate to question the wisdom of ingesting thousands of compounds simply to get a couple of
effective ones. It also bears mentioning that dietary supplement, cosmetics and herbal concoctions are not required to
meet the standards of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The quality of supplements is up to the manufacturer
and not all of them are honourable or even careful. Batches of herbs are often imported from third world countries
where they may have been grown or harvested in questionable surroundings and treated with unknown chemicals.
Scientific studies done on these herbal supplements have shown a wide variability in the potency and content from
manufacturer to manufacturer and from batch to batch. There fore claims made on packaging and medical herbs may
be advertising slogans and should be treated with diligence.
There are no herbal or other alternative therapies that will 'cure' Hashimoto's or rebuild the thyroid or rebuild
thyroid function (except small amounts of iodine in the case of iodine deficiency). Any therapies that promise any of
these things are simply rubbish and are potentially dangerous. The only efficacious therapy for autoimmune thyroid
failure is thyroid hormone replacement. This can be by either synthetic or natural hormone. None of these hormones
is produced in plants so there are no herbal remedies for this condition. The natural hormone must be obtained as an
extract from the thyroid of some animal.
The natural development of autoimmune thyroid failure is such that the sufferers go through cycles from normal to
hyper to hypo and back again. In this developing situation, anything can produce what looks like a cure because the
person will get better - for a while - simply because that is what happens naturally.
Autoimmune thyroid over activity (Graves') is a little different. Some 20% of sufferers will simply recover if left to
themselves. The autoimmunity recedes by itself. These people can be miraculously cured by almost anything that
doesn't actually kill them. There are also a number of herbs and plant substances that interfere with some aspect of
thyroid function. These substances therefore can reduce the severity of the problem and in mild cases can probably
bring the condition under some control.
*Massive doses of iodine, for instance, will shut the thyroid down for a short period.
*Chlorate interferes with iodine uptake and can therefore limit the over activity.
*Iso-thio-cyanate in plants like cassava, ( see information on goitrogens) interferes with the organification of iodine
and can also help to limit over activity.
The problems are that these goitrogenic substances are not available in controlled doses and they are of only limited
effect. They therefore will not solve the problem for people with rampant Graves'. These people need antithyroid
drugs and probably radio iodine or surgery if they are to survive.
Homeopathy is of no use at all in treating thyroid conditions. Thyroid building compounds and or diets are sketchy or
inexact, until the Thyroid has been stabilised.
The vast majority of the herbal and related remedies that are now promoted were the foundation of the medical
treatment of thyroid disease in the past. They have fallen by the wayside because they do not work or do not work as
well as the current mainstream therapies.
Alun Stevens MSC FIAA
'Thyroid Support' Supplements May Be Risky
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD
This study was done in the USA, we found the same practice applies in Australia.
Oct. 28, 2011 - Nine out of 10 "thyroid support" pills tested by Mayo Clinic researchers contain "risky" levels of thyroid
hormones.
A wide range of supplements that claim to support or improve thyroid function are available online and in retail stores. Some
list only herbs as ingredients. Others are capsules filled with dried, ground-up thyroid gland from pigs or cows.
People take the supplements because they may feel tired, or for unexplained weight gain -- symptoms they interpret as a sign
their bodies are making too little thyroid hormone.
When a number of his patients told him they were taking the supplements, endocrinologist Victor Bernet, MD, of the Mayo
Clinic, Jacksonville, Fla., became curious. Might they contain the same thyroid hormone as Levothroid, Levoxyl, Synthroid,
Unithroid and other prescription drugs used to treat thyroid hormone deficiency?
Yes, Bernet says - and it’s risky. "Even a little too much T4 can give a person palpitations, could give atrial fib and blood
pressure issues and such," he tells WebMD. "We have people coming in feeling nervous, can't sleep, decreased exercise
tolerance, hearts running overtime."
T4 (Thyroxine) is the active ingredient in Synthroid and other prescription drugs used to treat thyroid deficiency.
Bernet and colleagues tested 10 different supplements, selected because they appeared to be the most popular products
sold for "thyroid support." Five of the products listed animal thyroid gland as an ingredient, five did not.
The result: nine of the 10 pills contained T4. At the dose recommended on the label, four of the pills delivered T4 at doses
ranging from 8.6 to 91.6 micrograms per day. A typical daily dose of prescription T4 is 50 to 150 daily micrograms, Bernet
says.
Nine of the supplements carried another thyroid hormone, Triiodothyronine, or T3. Five delivered daily T3 doses of more than
10 micrograms per day. "That's more than half of what the body would normally make in a day," Bernet says.
"Thyroid hormones are medications that should be bought only under prescription," Bernet tells WebMD. "I do not
recommend anyone take any of these supplements. ... This is a general warning to patients that 90% of those products we
randomly picked have clinically significant amounts of thyroid hormone."
Thyroid Support Supplements Legal
The supplements are legal as long as they aren't spiked with pharmaceutical drugs, according to federal law. That law,
passed in 1994, permits the sale of "a dietary substance for use by man to supplement the diet by increasing the total dietary
intake (e.g., enzymes or tissues from organs or gland)."
Firms that sell the supplements are responsible for "determining" that their products are safe and that claims made about
them "are substantiated by adequate evidence to show they are not false or misleading." But the law exempts these
supplements from having to be approved by the FDA.
"Thyroid support supplements have been around for a long time," Duffy MacKay, ND, vice president for scientific and
regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), tells WebMD. CRN is the trade group that represents the
supplement industry.
"The presence of desiccated glands in dietary supplements is perfectly legal," MacKay says. "The amounts of hormone in the
product should reflect what naturally occurs in the [animal] gland itself. ... These are not extremely high levels of thyroid
hormone."
But MacKay says his comments are limited to firms "following the rules." He condemns "spiked products masquerading as
supplements."
The FDA did not respond to WebMD's request for comment on the Bernet study findings.
Bernet says thyroid support products should be more tightly regulated. MacKay says Bernet is entitled to his opinion, but that
if he wants things changed he should write to his congressman to seek a change in federal law.
However, MacKay and Bernet fully agree on at least one major point: Anyone thinking of taking a thyroid support supplement
should talk with a medical professional, and should be sure to tell all of their doctors what they are taking.
Bernet reported the study findings in a presentation to the annual meeting of the American Thyroid Association, held Oct. 2630 in Indian Wells, Calif.
DISCLAIMER:
All material supplied by Thyroid Australia (Brisbane) is for information purposes only and does not constitute medical advice.
For medical advice please see a Doctor.