[Andrea57]

#1060694

Can we talk about this GDATF? Better yet, why isn’t your organization discussing this very threatening medication?

This does not bode well for us Levo users who continually are dismissed about this and other complaints actually written right into Synthroids’ own patient handout. Why are doctors so dismissive of these and other side effects with T4 only?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3765368/

[Liz1967]

#1184185

This study pretty obviously has some major flaws, but rather than my pointing them out (boxes of levothyroxine? Patient demographics?), I thought I would post an article from 2014, including comments by a Physician specializing in thyroid disease. Also I am sure you are aware that levothyroxine is chemically identical to the T4 your body makes.

“The Italian study was just published, and is titled “Levothyroxine and lung cancer in females: the importance of oxidative stress.” You can read the PDF of the study at the Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology website.

What the Italian study seems to be suggesting is that levothyroxine increases oxidative stress – a process that impairs the body’s ability to detoxify and repair damage. Oxidative stress is a factor in disease, and in this case, they found a small increased risk of lung cancer that could be — but is not demonstrated to be — due to oxidative stress from levothyroxine.

The lungs require thyroid hormone to function properly. Hypothyroidism is associated with a variety of dysfunctions in organs, glands and tissues. The researchers stated in their conclusions, however, that they cannot exclude the idea that the hypothyroidism itself may be a contributing factor to an increased risk for lung cancer, and not the levothyroxine used to treat it.

I asked Harvard-trained physician Richard Shames, MD, author of a number of books on thyroid disease, including the most recent Thyroid Mind Power, to comment on the study.

Having read carefully the original Italian research article, I am not impressed.
First of all I’m not impressed with the original Italian research paper. This was the most simple and bare-bones correlation of total amount of levothyroxine sold in Italy with the total number of women in Italy who have lung cancer. Such gross correlations do not necessarily have anything to do with “cause.” The authors implied that the correlation has something to do with levothyroxine somehow causing lung cancer, but this research is far from actually showing it.

The blogger suggests that patients should choose a more natural approach to treating low thyroid, or at least use some alternate medicine other than levothyroxine.

With little research, we don’t know whether that might also ’cause’ cancer, either from the same issue of oxidative stress or from some other unproven reason.

The research focuses on “oxidative stress.” First of all, it is far from clear that the most common low-dose treatments with levothyroxine are themselves a major cause of oxidative stress. Second, it is far from clear that oxidative stress is a major cause of lung cancer. Third, it is even further from clear that avoiding levothyroxine treatment will help prevent this highly unlikely lung cancer cause.

Basically, this cancer discussion is best put way on the back burner until more and better research is in.

As much as I might agree with the idea of not always using levothyroxine alone, I cannotsupport the findings as a rationale for that conclusion. Moreover I believe it is a disservice to the public if “levothyroxine causes lung cancer” is used as a scare tactic, or as a reason for choosing alternative treatment for low thyroid.”

[Kimberly]

#1184186

Andrea57 wrote:

Can we talk about this GDATF? Better yet, why isn’t your organization discussing this very threatening medication?

We welcome discussion of any and all articles published in well-established, peer-reviewed, scientific journals. However, keep in mind a couple of of important principles related to research studies:

1. There is an old adage, “correlation does not imply causation”.

2. Even for a study that was well-designed to determine causation (which this one was not), our Board of Directors would look for the results to be reproduced (“replicated”) by other researchers before changing our recommendations on treatment options.

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