I don't know about those with healthy thyroids, but dietary stresses may well play a role in the production of reverse T3, which means that Free T3 can be low and cause the symptoms of hypothyroidism. Certainly it's a noted and documented side-effect of low calorie dieting.
At any rate, I'm a RT3 monster. When I'm on T4 only my Free T3 is below normal, I can't lose weight, I get cold easily, I have all my old hypothyroid symptoms. I take thyroid meds with T3 now and it helps, but I still create a ton of RT3 out of the T4 in my meds.
I have to wonder what test subjects your studies used? Young, healthy, college-aged kids or middle-aged and/or post-menopausal women? I'm reasonably certain the low-carb, thyroid problem isn't an issue for everyone, just a select group of us and one of the symptoms is LDL cholesterol climbing.
We've had a number of people who had this happen and when they start taking some T3, their cholesterol numbers drop by 100 points or more. Dr. Davis, cardiologist, has also recognized the importance of T3 and heart disease/cholesterol. Along with all that reverse T3 there may also be leptin resistance as well, which hampers the weight loss and probably contributes to insulin resistance.
It is a very confusing subject because thyroid issues seem to afflict middle-aged women far more than anyone else. I don't see that any of your study abstracts address that population.
Anyway, I've been raising my carbs somewhat. I am eating 50-100 carbs every other day (alternate day fasting). I've noticed my blood glucose is surprisingly good, better than it was on low carb alone. Maybe it's the fasting, maybe it's that
insulin resistance and RT3 are linked. Who knows which way the arrow points, however.
It's rather expensive but I might just get another RT3 test done to see if my trial on higher carb is helping with that. My last test had me just under 300.
I also agree with Paul Jaminet's comments. But I haven't read everything yet.
Quote:
In other places you set up straw men, eg “The belief that, in healthy individuals, carbohydrate restriction can consistently cause the symptoms of hypothyroidism” – no one has asserted this. The problem of high LDL on low-carb diets, which is one of the low T3 effects, seems to occur in maybe 2% of low-carb dieters. We are dealing with a minority population. However, if protein were restricted alongside carbohydrate, the problem could probably be induced in close to 100% of people. One of your cites (Otten MH, et al. The Role of Dietary Fat in Peripheral Thyroid Hormone Metabolism.) notes: “The decrease of T3 (50%) and increase of rT3 (123%) in the all-fat diet equalled changes noted in total starvation.
|
Yup. You seem to equivocally state that low carb diet can't be a problem for anyone because of the studies you cited. That'd be just fine if we were all exactly like the test subjects.
Sheesh... never thought I'd find myself agreeing with Paul Jaminet.