Thyroid Hormone Supplementation - T3/T4; How's it Made?

Yes, Gary, that does help! Thank you!

I see myself in what you have said about what people sometimes think about the processing on Armour.  In my long 'career' having health challenges, I've gone to many chiropractors, and twice they have been graduates of Palmer and have both sold the same brand of supplements, which have included glandulars to support/supplement what the human/patient's body is needing, per their testing/diagnostics. I believe I had asked in 1991 when I went to the first one, how they were made and it perhaps influenced what I thought about the production of Armour.  So, again, thank you for the education from within your industry.  

We're all where we are on the continuum of knowledge and what matter is that a person is wanting to go further, not where they are, in my book!  (And I know you and Allan are very into education of the patient, pharmacists typically are, at least in the compounding world I'm finding.)  

As you said in the podcast you did with us at Lumigrate, Gary, a lot of your patients have fibromyalgia, and hence you're doing a lot of prescriptions for thyroid and you can more readily go to the expense to have your batches tested to be certain they are accurate. So whether someone has FM or not, they're getting that advantage of your larger manufacturing capacity and standards for quality assurance.  

Thanks again for the question and answer, Gary. I certainly am deepening my education about these things and by having it here, so many others can as well. Someone in your business might be so immersed for so long in what has become 'everyday' to you, but to me, it's really pretty much all things I want and need to learn -- and many others are wanting to do so as well today, as the medical system 'change of life' is happening.

I'll be sure to get the link to this to the woman I had the conversation with in order to answer the question I couldn't, and I'm sure she and others will appreciate our sharing our dialogue about this.  She also is a medical worker and consults in the mental health arena so this is how change happens! ~~ Mardy

PS -- ONE MORE QUESTION -- is the T3/T4 the way you make it then considered a 'biologically identical'?  I know the health care reform bill used the word 'biologically similar' when it referred to funding things, so maybe there's a distinction there I need to wrap my head around as well.

In other words, what term would you use in describing the T3/T4 that's in the compounded medications you make and ship from ITC?

Mardy,

The T4/T3 we compound here at ITC is "bio-identical thyroid" which means
the T4 and the T3 are exactly the same as the T4 and T3 the human body
makes.

As I have said before it is also natural because "T" stands for the
amino acid Tyrosine and the 3 or 4 stand for the number of iodine molecules. Both
tyrosine and iodine are found in nature and are the natural sources that
are used to make the T4 and T3 we use to make our T4/T3 and our T3
compounds.
Gary

 , Thanks Gary!

And might I remind people that we've selected a large, well-known, respected nationally known compounding and natural wellness pharmacy to represent their area of health care at Lumigrate, and I've written elsewhere about the importance of utilizing the local compounding pharmacy in my geographic community, not only for purchasing supplements and getting medications/hormones compounded, but to connect me to the providers in my community who 'think like I do'.  So in addition to possibly looking at ITCs website and considering using them or another national natural wellness pharmacy provider, please Search or let your fingers do the walking in the phone book to locate your local pharmacies and pharmacists in this growing specialty niche of medicine. THANKS to Gary and his RPh partner and co-president Allan Jolly along with the team at ITC, for providing the guests and customers of Lumigrate.com with this education.  ITC has a long history of being closely associated with a group of providers who knew what to do about environmental illness/chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia, etc. so they have a particular expertise within that specialty, reflected in their products. They also serve veterinarians, as do local compounding pharmacists, as a sidenote.  I thought this was important to add in here.  

One benefit I see from a glandular preparation for thyroid hormone supplementation is that it contains other elements that T3/T4 preparations do not have. I have read many times about T1 and T2 hormones from the thyroid. It is not fully known what they do; they may support T3 and T4 or have a separate role of their own.

Also, the thyroid secretes calcitoin that participates in placing calcium in the bone, the opposite of what parathyroid hormone does.

Glandulars also contain the associated minerals, vitamins and amino acids, and probably other unknown substances that assist in thyroid function, and are therefore more complete in supplying nutrition and hormonal support to the thyroid.

I do understand that products like Armour are standardized only for their T3 content and what amount of the other factors mentioned are present is unknown. I do agree that bioindentical T3/T4 are vastly superior to synthetic T4 alone, or in combinartion with T3. I just feel that the bioindeticals are incompete.

Gary, I would appreciate your comments on these thoughts.

I agree with Dr. Kennedy that Armour is better than T4 by itself. There is a lot of talk about T1 and/or T2 possibly having benefits, but I have never heard anyone be able to explain what the benefits might be. I am not saying they do not have benefits, but you would think that as long as we have known about T2 & T1 that if they have benefits we would see them.

I am not certain about the calcitonin benefit, as its function is usually not significant in the regulation of normal calcium homeostasis.

What I do know is that when Armour became scarce and we picked up many ex-Armour users, they all did just as well on our bio-identical T4/T3 and, in fact, many felt they did better.  Especially those who had thyroid antibodies.

Another issue with Armour, or even our T4/T3 compounds, is that using them once a day does not simulate what the body did as the thyroid gland produces T4 and T3 all day long in small spurts depending on the amount of TSH secreted by the pituitary. If you use T4/T3 on patients who do not do a good job of converting T4 to T3, they often do not have adequate levels of T3 to stimulate the thyroid receptors which are all T3 receptors. (There are no T4 receptors in the body, so if the T4 is not converted to T3 it does not increase metabolism.)

Many people over the age of 45 years do not convert T4 to T3 efficiently, especially if they have chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia. We have many patients with those conditions, and most of them do better on T3 slow release and we only add T4 to their protocol if their reverse T3 is too low and/or their T4 levels are very low.

As far as glandulars go, I agree that they may have some nutritional value. However I do not trust that the manufacturers of porcine thyroid, such as Armour, use pigs that have been raised hormone free, pesticide free, etc., and there might be more contaminants in the tablets than nutritional benefit. I prefer to use nutrients that I know are from clean supply sources to support to the body, including the thyroid gland, and I only use glandulars from New Zealand.

Thanks, I am pleased to see people utilizing this information and adding to the discussion, such as Jim Kennedy has, and I look forward to more. 

Gary

I was thinking I understood your whole response, Gary, then got to the end; I didn't realize you made anything with glandulars.  Can you please clarify? 

Back 15 years ago we were manufacturing glandulars and we only used glandulars that were imported from New Zealand. Now I rarely even recommend glandulars because of my concern about all the toxins that may be in them. 

These educated gentlemen have been discussing the real benefits and risks of pure T3, pure T4, T3/T4 combinations and Armour (porcine) thyroid preparations.

1. Bio-identical is always best
2. Always search for the purest and cleanest product
3. Never get caught up in the thought process that only one product is acceptable.  Most patients will need to be individualized.
   

Wm. Marcus Spurlock, MD

Thank you Gary and Dr. Spurlock for your comments and expertise. I certainly agree that any product should be as pure as possible. I feel that Standard Process Lab and Biotics Research lab in the US prepare quality and clean glandular nutritional products. Personally, I think that Naturethroid is a cleaner porcine thyroid replacement than Armour.

Interesting that both of you mention rT3. Most providers do not think this has any value and never test for it. Knowing the rT3 level as well as T4/T3 levels at the start of treatment and the changes in in all three after starting treatment can help determine the effect of your treatment and where you need to go next.

The hard part of correcting thyroid problems is that the thyroid is affected by so many other variables that we have not touched on here. For example hypopituitary function, hypo or hyperadrenal function, sufficient iodine availability and a lack of the necessary minerals for thyroid function and conversion of T4 to T3, such as maganese, zinc and selenium.

I am sure that you gentlemen are aware of all of these things that are often overlooked, but I wanted to bring them into 'educational play' here for others. Thyroid replacement is often initiated without finding the cause or causes of the problem of hypothyroid function. In the end, the best treatment and most critical concept to keep in mind was raised by Dr. Spurlock: do what works for each patient's individual needs.

I'm really LOVING  THIS discussion, as I believe it is stepping people through the learning process about this critical subject matter for increasing numbers of people.  

And then the next step for people is to do their best to understand what is being said here and then ask their providers to do the same.  Look in other topics in this forum, or at other information at Lumigrate by doing a Search on the word 'thyroid' or 'hypothyroid'.  Dr Spurlock has suggested a video of Dr Kent Holtorff (endocrinologist who is very expert on these matters as being discussed here) which is from an ABC News/GMA Health interview.  I believe that's going to be a new topic in this forum, rather than adding onto this so go up a level in the links and look, perhaps, if you're one to learn from short videos.  I believe it's about six minutes long.

If you look closely at the dates on this stream, there has been a recent 'wave' about thyroid which was caused by my going to a training for continuing medical education which was provided by an esteemed, large institution and it was the kind of trainings that had lead my medical conditions to go MISSED for years and even decades, at untold expense to my health and all aspects of my life!

So I simply wanted to provide the other avenue of training from the providers I am GRATEful to know, to bring their information to where people can access it, then partner with providers to get proper treatment for THEM.  Yes, on the 'individualization' discussed, above! Right on!  

  Questions have come up about iodine, related to it being referred to on this thread. Sadly, not long after Gary King and Drs. Kennedy and Spurlock had this wonderful discussion here, Gary found out he had pancreatic cancer, so we were unable to pursue information about iodine with him (as you see, he passed on 12/21/12). Doctors Kennedy and Spurlock are both interesting in presenting about that on Lumigrate in the future, and in the mean time, I found this a good resource about iodine.

 ( ITC Pharmacy sells at least two different forms of iodine, I know that in muscle testing /AK testing, one tests very positively for me and another negatively, as they have different things in them besides just the iodine. This article is a good one about iodine because it cautions people about why it is so important to have really good advise about supplementation or even foods with iodine.)      thyroid.about.com/cs/vitaminsupplement/a/iodine.htm

I do encourage people to pursue looking into using iodine as part of your wellness maintenance or functional medical approach to looking for the underlying reasons for going away from wellness to chronic illness. Try Searching "iodine supplementation for thyroid" and your regional area, or consider using a nutritional consultant who works remotely. And generally, looking for a compounding and natural wellness pharmacyin your area is a resource. Chiropractors who come from a nutritional aspect, as well. Naturopaths AND MDs who 'have gotten the memo' from outside the box related to nutrition and supplementation, particuarly when it comes to glandular health, such as with thyroid gland.