doreen,

thought this might be of interest to you. it was posted on mary shomon's other forum ~ www.thyroid.about.com this morning.

i did not copy the entire text, but have provided the link if you would like to read it.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/...tory_11357.html

The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists' guidelines double the number of people who have abnormal thyroid function, bringing the total to 27 million, Hossein Gharib, endocrinologist at the Mayo Medical School and president of AACE, said during a teleconference from Jacksonville, Fla. This number is roughly equal to the number of people with diabetes and cancer combined, Gharib said.

The new guidelines narrow the range for acceptable thyroid function. A test used to determine levels of thyroid stimulating hormone is used to determine whether the thyroid is functioning normally, and the guidelines tighten the acceptable range from 0.5 -- 5.0 microunits per milliliter -- to 0.3 to 3.04 mu/ml.

faye