Thyroid Weight Loss and Bad Science are a Bad Combination

The latest greatest study in the Journal of Pediatrics concludes that thyroid problems don't siginificantly contribute to weight problems.  WHAT?  That's the conclusion the authors came to when they treated kids with the least effective thyroid treatment available (levothyroxine).  Not only did they use the thyroid least likely to produce results, they didn't use anything but the TSH level to determine the effect of their care.  THe TSH level is useful in some cases to follow the course of treatment but always needs to be seen with the free T3 and free T4 components in the blood as well.  The TSH can be completely "out-of-whack" if the brain is not optimally functioning and can be very misleading in terms of creating a normal thyroid state.  If the researchers had used the TSH, free T3 and free T4 they would have had a more reliable method for deciding whether or not the thyroid treatment had a beneficial effect.  I have to suppose they are heading down this path because it's what they've always done.

The poor kids haven't gotten the benefit they could have if they were taking amixed natural thyroid like Westhroid or Armour. The only conclusion I can make is that levothyroxine doesn't benefit kids just like it doesn;t benefit adults.  I could've saved them a couple of bucks had they asked.  Bad science is just a bummer!