"Desiccated thyroid extract a safe alternative to levothyroxine in hypothyroidism" - results of a study presented at Endo 2013

[puncturedbicycle]

From Coalition for Better Thyroid Care (on their Facebook page):

healio.com/endocrinology/hi...

[helvella Administrator]

Not sure what is new about that compared with the published paper?

If you haven't, worth a look here:

thyroiduk.healthunlocked.co...

Rod

[puncturedbicycle in reply to helvella]

Presumably because it was presented yesterday at the Endo expo - ? The feature is entitled "Highlights from Endo 2013".

[helvella Administrator in reply to puncturedbicycle]

I was rather hoping that the assembled company of endos had stood as one and given the authors the longest standing ovation in history of endocrinology conferences.

Or some extra information had been presented. One can, after all, imagine that the 50% or so who preferred desiccated might have chosen to switch over permanently.

Rod

[puncturedbicycle in reply to helvella]

At the very least, the 'new' article is brief and has a positive breakdown/headline. When I print it and bring it to my endo/gp they will have no excuse not to read it there and then.

While the results of the study may not be singing the praises of NDT (and I agree that it was bizarrely restricted to small numbers for too short a time), this article is bringing NDT out of the shadows (where it still is for many doctors), confirming it will do no harm, saying NDT can help some people lose weight and that about half the people who tried it preferred it, and doing it all in a concise way (the paper itself is nine pages long). And does it bump up the 'legit factor' that it was presented at the Endo expo and published in a medical magazine? I don't know.

In any case, they saw fit to put it on their fb page so I thought it might be worth sharing.

[helvella Administrator in reply to puncturedbicycle]

I certainly like that the first paragraph of the full paper includes this sentence:

There is an ongoing demand for pharmaceutical companies to continue manufacturing DTE, which is now standardized by measuring T4 and T3 content (U.S. Pharmacopeia [USP]35-NF 30).

The authors are very well aware that desiccated thyroid is frequently dismissed on grounds of non-standardisation. I feel that awareness is why they made sure this was unavoidable right at the start.

Rod

[Jane104]

You can also read it here:

dropbox.com/s/xb9kt2w90ygnn...

[helvella Administrator in reply to Jane104]

Thanks Jane.

[Jane104 in reply to helvella]

Feel free to share.

[Clarebear]

It took me 14 months to get well on NDT. If I had been part of that pilot study I would probably have bee one of the people who didn't get on with it which would have been a huge shame

[puncturedbicycle in reply to Clarebear]

Yes, it was a funny way to approach it. I've not read the whole paper in detail but the breakdown says it included people who have been on t4 for six months, which is not long enough to know how you feel on it. Then they were given NDT for only a short time, which is also not long enough to know how you feel. But I feel that if it is a positive study which will encourage doctors to look at NDT as though it is a proper medicine instead of some kind of useless health food supplement then it must be a minor step in the right direction.

[Ploggy123 in reply to puncturedbicycle]

An endocrinologist giving a talk this evening played down the positive pitch suggesting that it only indicated small weight loss benefits but no neurocognitive benefits then mentioned the different constituent make-up between pigs and humans!!!!!! We're all doomed methinks. But no. Like you I'll focus on the positive aspects of the study. Somebody has to.