BTA/BTF guidelines - more info

[AmandaK]

Further to my post yesterday about BTF and mixed messages, I have sourced the full 2006 document which includes the referencing (it would be useful if someone could follow up on these):

british-thyroid-association...

(NB these guidelines are posted on the BTF website: btf-thyroid.org/index.php/t...

So it would appear that there have been no further guidelines since 2006.

I've also come across a website that purports that the originator of the TSH and T3 tests (Dr Utiger) urged doctors not to use the TSH test as the definitive diagnosis of thyroid problems, but to look at body temperature and other symptoms:

tpauk.com/forum/content.php...

It would be useful to be able to obtain the primary sources for his statements as this would provide a much stronger argument.

[helvella Administrator]

The 2006 document still has the same glaring typo/mistake on page 56 that it has had since first published.

I did manage to get it changed on the ACB site - but the it somehow reverted.

One of the big issue is that the medical establishment almost invariably talks about primary hypothyroidism and ignores secondary/tertiary (collectively known as central). They seem to have the view that cases are rare and tend to be obvious. I suggest they are far more common and there is a scale between imperceptibly slight to severe. Further, that mild central hypothyroidism could actually explain (to some level) quite a few of the 'fail to fully recover' cases.

Rod

[humanbean in reply to helvella]

I read page 56 and couldn't see the typo. Please put me out of my misery!

[helvella Administrator in reply to humanbean]

Nor have any of the medics who have read it in that period! Seven years of ignoring an error - or not seeing it at all.

Look at the units for the tests - typical ranges.

FT3 is in same units as TT3 and TT4.

[humanbean in reply to helvella]

Thanks. I would never have spotted that!

[helvella Administrator]

There was another post about Utiger some time ago:

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

Rod

[AmandaK in reply to helvella]

If my (hazy) memory serves me, didn't the doctors at the Scottish Parliament committee dismiss the T4 to T3 conversion argument? If so, then should the fact that Dr Utiger was the person who originally discovered the T4/T3 link be made known to the committee? That would expose the fact that Dr Utiger's research and theses have been - and still are - being cherry-picked. Or that in the passage of time his wider work has been eclipsed... (or maybe overturned by new research?)

It would be really useful if one of the sympathetic doctors to the cause could provide a review of Werner & Ingbar's 'The Thyroid: A Fundamental and Clinical Text', Volume 549 which was edited by Dr Utiger and his colleague (and available on Amazon Books). It also references Dr Utiger's research.

Amanda