A Question Regarding Lithium

During the past 24 hours a Natural Health News reader was searching for information about the use of lithium and any connection it may have with Alzheimer's Disease.

Lithium is often used in mental health for people with the alleged diagnosis of Bipolar dis-order or also referred to as manic-depressive illness.

Using lithium has some serious side effects to consider, the major one leading to severe thyroid problems. Regular blood testing is required. Lithium toxicity is a risk as is retention with diuretic use or kidney function issues.

Proper function of the thyroid is important in aging and memory issues. I have mentioned many times that in the past those physicians who were well educated about aging and dementia routinely prescribed vitamin B12 shots and natural thyroid.  Dementia was very infrequent during this time, about 40-60 years ago.  Some more informed physicians today are returning to this protocol.

Acute Lithium Intoxification

Taking Too Many Pills

There is a recent TV commercial for Crestor that has a woman explaining about how her doctor put her on the drug to help her reduce LDL, or what is marketed as " bad cholesterol".

When I hear this commercial I want to have equal time to explain something very important to doctors and to women.   Since I don't have the gazillions of disposable income that the PhRMA companies have, I don't have a snowflake's chance in hell of this, so I'll address it here.

One of the most problematic health issues today is thyroid function.  Part of the problem is that it is not only overlooked as important in today's Big Insurance+Big PhRMA controlled medical care, but it is also porrly diagnosed.

Yes, folks, the TSH test won't tell you " squat" !

What also is missing is that thyroid dysfunction cause your cholesterol level to rise.

Since this concept is basic physiology why is your doctor pushing a drug on you to lower cholesterol when properly evaluating thyroid function is a much better place to start?

This is also very much related to gall bladder function which can be resolved without "cutting it out" !

Another generally overlooked is the vital part sound nutrition plays in the prevention and treatment of disease, yet mainstream media continues to ignore this vital concept.

Recently, the New York Times also looked at the issue of pushing pills, especially as the vultures from PhRMA and the buzzards from Big Insurance begin their efforts to round you up for the kill, following the passing of the so-called "health" bill. (Just recall that HillaryCare wanted everyone to be taking Prozac, and we know what a disaster the SSRI drugs have become.)

Risks Seen in Cholesterol Drug Use - "With the government’s blessing, a drug giant is about to expand the market for its blockbuster cholesterol medication Crestor to a new category of customers: as a preventive measure for millions of people who do not have cholesterol problems."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/business/31statins.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

And so did the London Daily Mail

D. Mail 29.3.10 "A NATION OF PILL-POPPERS"
Dept of Health data reveals we each pick up more than 16 prescriptions a year on average, twice as many as 20 years ago. The boom is partly put down to a profit-hungry pharma industry inventing & exaggerating ailments & then blitzing doctors to boost sales. The NHS spent £22million a DAY on prescription drugs in England in 06 - a 60% rise in real terms on 10 years earlier.
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(A colleague's comment: Prof. Michael Oliver, emeritus professor of Cardiology at Edinburgh University, wrote in the British Medical Journal in March last year that healthy older people are being turned into patients by GPs who are too quick to prescribe pills for high blood pressure, cholesterol & mild diabetes. The standard for these is based on much younger people's needs. The professor stated that few older people are allowed to enjoy being healthy as a bureaucractic demand for documentation can lead to over-diagnosis, over-treatment & unnecessary anxiety - known as "the medication of health." GPs are pressurised by the government to hit targets & this has overtaken personal advice from GPs. Incentives known as "Quality & Outcomes Framework" mean a proportion of GP practice-income is dependent on hitting targets. He questions whether patients are warned about medications' side-effects & whether older people could be allowed to return to their previous unencumbered & reasonably fit lives.

Please note that our organization offers an excellent thyroid testing kit, and health and nutrition counseling,
http://leaflady.org/detect.html

Thyroid and Heart Connection: Known for Decades

UPDATE 3 July, 2010
Larry Frieders, the compounder, THYROID MADNESS DEFINITION:

1.Treating hypothyroid patients solely with T4-only meds (synthroid)
2.Dosing solely by the TSH and the total T4, or using the outdated "Thyroid Panel"
3.Prescribing anti-depressants in lieu of evaluating and treating the free T3
4.Telling thyroid patients that desiccated natural thyroid like Armour is "unreliable", "inconsistent", "dangerous" or "outdated".
5.Making lab work more important than the hypo symptoms which scream their presence
6.Failing to see the OBVIOUS symptoms of poorly treated thyroid, and instead, recommending a slew of other tests and diagnoses.

9/23/08 - I am pleased to see this topic in the medical article arena. I'd like it more if I saw it in mainstream news. This way there might be some hope that patients would pressure their doctors to run annual thyroid panels, especially for the over 35 crowd, as the AMA recommended about 15 years ago or more.

Endocrine function is closely related to heart function. This is very true for good thyroid health and good gallbladder health, among related issues.

I don't agree that the TSH alone is sufficient for good thyroid evaluation. A Free T3 and a Free T4 are very necessary. If you've never had a reverse T3 (rT3) it's not a bad idea to add that in for baseline, as it does relate to autoimmune issues that are becoming more common today.

Does Your Doctor Know About the New TSH Lab Standards?

I'd be happier too if providers would get current on the TSH et al ranges: The Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) are currently suggesting that TSH is 0.3-3.0 mU/L.
Over 13 Million Americans with Thyroid Disease Remain Undiagnosed

It is also a good idea to refer to the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry, part of the Academy of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), Laboratory Medicine Practice Guidelines: Laboratory Support for the Diagnosis and Monitoring of Thyroid Disease

"It is likely that the current upper limit of the population reference range is skewed by the inclusion of persons with occult thyroid dysfunction."

"In the future, it is likely that the upper limit of the serum TSH euthyroid reference range will be reduced to 2.5 mIU/L because >95% of rigorously screened normal euthyroid volunteers have serum TSH values between 0.4 and 2.5 mIU/L."

"A serum TSH result between 0.5 and 2.0 mIU/L is generally considered the therapeutic target for a standard L-T4 replacement dose for primary hypothyroidism."

"Thyroxine requirements increase during pregnancy. Thyroid status should be checked with TSH + FT4 during each trimester of pregnancy. The L-T4 dose should be increased (usually by 50 micrograms/day) to maintain a serum TSH between 0.5 and 2.0 mIU/L and a serum FT4 in the upper third of the normal reference interval."

Optimally, cardiologists have a lot to gain by talking cross-specialty.

Patients have much more to lose if they don't.

From this article, ranges not current with ACCE recommendations. "Normal thyroid function (euthyroid; TSH 0.45 - 4.5 mU/L), those with subclinical hypothyroidism (divided into moderate, TSH 4.5 - 9.9 mU/L, and severe, ≥ 10.0 mU/L), and those with subclinical hyperthyroidism (TSH < 0.45 mU/L)."

3 July, 2010 - And consider this article on thyroid and heart health

From Heartwire — a professional news service of WebMD

September 22, 2008 — A new study has found that older adults with severe subclinical hypothyroidism had almost double the risk of developing heart failure (HF) compared with those with normal thyroid function over a 12-year follow-up period [1]. Dr Nicolas Rodondi (University of Lausanne, Switzerland) and colleagues report their findings in the September 30, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Rodondi told heartwire that these results were in line with those of the only other study to have looked at subclinical hypothyroidism and HF incidence, which also found an increased HF risk only in those with high levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH).

The findings are important to inform the debate about subclinical hypothyroidism, he says. "There is a big controversy about whether we should screen and treat people with subclinical hypothyroidism. We know that people with overt hypothyroidism with symptoms need to get treated, but about those with no symptoms and just subclinical disease, there is debate. And within this debate about whether to treat or not is another controversy about the threshold at which you should treat."

These and other results from prior studies support the recommendations of several guidelines that those with subclinical hypothyroidism and no symptoms should be treated with thyroxine only if their TSH is 10.0 mU/L or more, Rodondi says. However, he points out that some endocrinologists disagree and advocate treating such patients at lower TSH levels. The debate is important, he says, because it is has been shown that monitoring of TSH levels under thyroxine is not always accurate in clinical practice, with overtreatment having its own attendant risks.

"Indirect evidence" that thyroxine might prevent HF

Rodondi and colleagues studied 3044 adults who were 65 or older participating in the Cardiovascular Health Study, all of whom were free of HF at baseline. They compared adjudicated HF events over a mean of 12 years of follow-up and changes in cardiac function over the course of five years among those with normal thyroid function (euthyroid; TSH 0.45 - 4.5 mU/L), those with subclinical hypothyroidism (divided into moderate, TSH 4.5 - 9.9 mU/L, and severe, ≥ 10.0 mU/L), and those with subclinical hyperthyroidism (TSH < 0.45 mU/L).Over the follow-up period, 736 people developed HF events. Those with TSH 10.0 mU/L or more had a greater incidence of HF compared with euthyroid participants (adjusted HR 1.88, p=0.01). No such increased risk was seen in those with TSH 4.5 - 9.9 mU/L or in those with subclinical hyperthyroidism compared with euthyroid participants.Baseline peak E velocity — an echocardiographic measure of diastolic function associated with incident heart failure in the cohort — was also greater in those with TSH 10.0 mU/L or more compared with euthyroid participants (0.80 m/s vs 0.72 m/s; p=0.002). And over the course of five years, left ventricular mass increased among those with TSH 10.0 mU/L or more, although other echocardiographic measures were unchanged. In a further exploratory analysis, the researchers stratified people with TSH 10.0 mU/L or more into those who received thyroxine replacement therapy and those who didn't. They found that those who got thyroxine did not have an increased risk of HF, "providing indirect evidence that [thyroxine] might work to prevent development of HF in those with TSH 10.0 mU/L or more," said Rodondi. He stressed, however, that "to definitively prove a link between subclinical thyroid dysfunction and HF, a randomized clinical trial would be needed in which one group is treated with thyroxine vs placebo to see if the former reduces the risk. That would be proof of concept, but it has not been done as yet." Overtreatment with thyroxine has risks too Rodondi said their findings — that those with less severe subclinical hypothyroidism do not seem to be at risk of HF — are "important," because a high proportion of older adults fit into this category and are treated with thyroxine in clinical practice, without consistent evidence that this is of benefit. Monitoring of TSH levels under thyroxine is not always accurate in clinical practice, he explains, and it is estimated that around 20% to 30% of people receiving thyroxine are overtreated. This in itself has risks, as subclinical hyperthyroidism has been associated with atrial fibrillation and increased fracture risk. "In aggregate, our findings might help refine a treatment threshold at which clinical benefit would be expected and demonstrate a subpopulation at risk for a life-threatening condition," he and his colleagues say in their paper."Clinical trials should examine the efficacy of screening for and treating subclinical thyroid dysfunction and assess whether the risk of HF might be ameliorated by thyroxine replacement in individuals with TSH levels above 10 mU/L," they conclude.Source: Rodondi N, Bauer DC, Cappola AR, et al. Subclinical thyroid dysfunction, cardiac function and the risk of heart failure. The Cardiovascular Health Study. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2008;52:1152-1159.

Your Eyes and Cell Phone Damage

Many years ago, perhaps in the mid 90s, an attorney I know, and a HAM radio operator, was talking with me about EMF. He pointed out that for a very long time the FCC has had on its licensing exam a question regarding the fact that EMF (radio waves) are a known cause of cataract.

This article looks at the issue again and also points out the importance of keeping the cell phone as far away from you as possible.

This is the same concern in regard to cell phone effect on your thyroid gland and function.

Nutrients 4 Eye Health

Cell phones can damage eyes: Study
Prashant Rupera, TNN, Jun 23, 2010

VADODARA/ANAND: While scientists across the globe are still debating whether usage of cell phones results in heart diseases, a new study carried out by scientists at Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT) has revealed that mobile phones also affect eyes.

The scientists, who have studied the impact of electromagnetic waves on human eye, say that usage of mobile can also lead to early cataract in lens apart from affecting retina, cornea and other ocular systems of the eye.

"We are in ocean of electromagnetic signals and hundreds of signals are hitting human body every moment. It is affecting all our body parts, but we are not realising it," says professor Ved Vyas Dwivedi, head of department of ECE at CHARUSAT, who along with dean of the faculty of engineering and technology Y P Kosta and lecturer Dhara Patel carried out the study based on a mathematical model.

"The wavelength of wireless signals (which is about 2 to 2.5 cm) used for mobile phones and other wireless terminals matches with that received by the human eye. The dielectric constant (absorption capacity) of eye tissues is around 70 which is greater than unity (above 50). This means that the eye can absorb electromagnetic energy very quickly," explains Dwivedi.

During the study, scientists computed the specific absorption rate (SAR) and maximum temperature increase in the eye because of electromagnetic radio frequency fields generated by wireless terminals such as a mobile phones. SAR and temperature rise depend on the distance between eye and radio frequency transceiver (the mobile phone) and the angle between the line of sight and shortest normal path.

"The problem is not that the eye absorbs the energy, but that the heat absorbed by the eye does not get transmitted or radiated out of the body," says Dwivedi, adding that prolonged usage of mobile phones can affect retina, sclera, lens, cornea as well as vitreous humour which are parts of the human eye.

These scientists have also recommended that a mobile handset should be kept as far as possible from the eye. "It should not be used more than is necessary. A user should avoid use of mobile in rural areas or a car where the cell phone uses more power and the SAR value can be ten or hundred times higher than the normal," they suggest. This group of scientists is also planning to approach the government in collaboration with a hospital to get license to conduct tests on human to further study mobiles affect on human eye.

prashant.rupera@timesgroup.com
THE TIMES OF INDIA

Experts make Down syndrome and Alzheimer`s eye link

ODDLY IN BOTH DOWN SYNDROME AND ALZHEIMER'S, HIGH INCIDENCE OF THYROID PROBLEMS EXIST AS WELL

Eye problems can be a symptom of thyroid imbalance

Contact Lenses News :: Experts make Down syndrome and Alzheimer`s eye link