EXACT THYROID DOSES NEEDED.

Report #6177 4/25/94

A recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows how important it is for all people who take thyroid pills to have blood tests at least once a year.

Taking too much thyroid hormone causes your bones to lose calcium and break with the slightest trauma. Taking too little thyroid hormone causes fatty plaques to deposit in your arteries. Your body does not maintain the same requirements for thyroid hormone year in and year out. What may have been the correct replacement dose last year may not be correct this year. Until the last fifteen years, doctors didn't have an accurate test to tell then whether a person was receiving the correct dose of thyroid hormone. Now we have a blood test called TSH that can measure the effects of thyroid hormone with great accuracy.

Your brain produces a hormone called TSH that cause the thyroid gland to produce the thyroid hormone called T3. Then the thyroid gland releases T3 into your bloodstream where it circulates to your brain and stops your brain from producing TSH. Blood levels of Thyroid hormone are controlled by a brain hormone called TSH. Doctors can draw blood and measure the amount of TSH. When TSH is too low, you are taking too much thyroid hormone and increasing your risk of osteoporosis. When the TSH is too high, you aren't taking enough thyroid hormone and are increasing your risk for arteriosclerosis.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News