Tim O'Shea's "The Doctor Within"

Excerpt: (the entire article is very interesting, and also, the entire site)

http://thedoctorwithin.com/index_fr.php?page=articles/all_women.php

HYPOTHYROID? GUESS AGAIN

The thyroid, the adrenals, and the ovaries. Closely connected, in a thousand ways. Another award-winning snap misdiagnosis of the 90s has been "hypothyroidism." To push Synthroid, a powerful thyroid mimicker, many women are told they are thyroid deficient, for the flimsiest of reasons. Fatigue is the usual complaint. Obesity is another. A borderline thyroid level in one blood test is enough to trigger a lifetime of problems, starting with a prescription for Synthroid. Perhaps the thyroid levels were just temporarily low when the blood sample was taken. Perhaps the thyroid was a little sluggish. Doctors have known for years that iodine is necessary for a functioning thyroid. Do doctors recommend that safe mineral supplement first before trying the overpowering drug Synthroid? Never. Most doctors don't even look at blood levels of thyroid hormones at all; but diagnose hypothyroidism by symptoms only! (Lee, p147) No matter; once Synthroid is served up every day, your thyroid's going night-night. And your problems are just beginning, because you're now aboard the Drug Express. To say nothing of the hormonal confusion that is now created when every molecular message that the other glands send to the thyroid system requesting an answer is ignored.

Empirically, who gets diagnosed hypothyroid, women or men? Let's see, why would that be?

Thyroid and estrogen are natural antagonists: opposite effects. Thyroid builds bone, estrogen stimulates bone loss. Thyroid stimulates metabolism and burns fat; estrogen stores fat. With estrogen dominance, thyroid function is inhibited, causing lower thyroid activity. This doesn't necessarily mean the thyroid can't do its job, like the doctor presumes. It just means with all the excess estrogen in the picture, thyroid hormone is kept in the background - another one of the body's give-and-take feedback loops, about which we know so little. Again the sledgehammer arrogance comes barging onto the scene with the pretense that synthetic thyroid hormone - Synthroid - is going to "fix the problem."