Good stuff. One of your best. I wonder if there is something about Brits of the old type that make them simply better at short autobiographical works of this sort. A kind of PG Wodehouse effect where people can describe lifestyles associated with the upper class in ways that have a folksy appeal.
I worried that there were far too many words, but I couldn't see how to shorten it without losing some of the message. But yours is the second comment in a few minutes about it being well-written, so perhaps there is some virtue in verbosity after all.
Upper class!!? I'm from a farming village in the North of England... And hurled untimely from academia because of my laziness and drinking; forced into the real world to scrape a living as a programmer, like a dog. Middle middle class at best....
My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.
If when you say "whiskey" you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation and despair and shame and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
But if when you say "whiskey" you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.
This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.
The problem with all these standard measures is that none of us ever take our baselines before the insult occurs to our systems. Anything involving hormones and receptors will have some statistical messiness where perhaps you need more thyroid and perhaps as a teenager before alcohol were producing more, And after years of abuse, are now producing only a so called normal amount, which is too little for you.
And yes, many of the effects of chronic alcohol abuse are permanent and irreversible. Sensitive organs like the liver, thyroid and brain don't bounce back the way more robust organs might.
Really good article. I recently started experimenting with TyroMix (3 mcg T3, 6 mcg T4). If 1 grain of T3 ~12.5 mcg and 1 grain of T4 is 50 mcg and the human body makes about 4 grains per day, then we make about 50mcg T3 and 200mcg T4.
I take 1 drop of TyroMix with each of my 3 meals plus an additional drop right before bed, so I am supplementing approximately 1 full grain of T3 and 1/2 grain of T4. I do feel better but I am still quite tired. I plan to titrate up another half grain of T3 (2 more drops of TyroMix). Apparently it takes ~2 weeks for a new homeostasis to be found, so I'll see how it goes between now and end of September.
Good luck, keep experimenting, and remember at all times that, in this area as in so many areas, no-one knows what they're talking about, everyone is mad, everyone's got an agenda, and qualifications are worse than useless.
So you basically went on "thyroid replacement therapy?"
I wonder if that old timey doctor was right and all of America is hypothyroid, or if it's something else with similar symptoms.
I kinda suspect that it's the latter. Yea the blood tests are often useless, but "thyroid supplementation fixes it" doesn't mean it was "hypothyroid." Could be something else that's just being countered by high(er) thyroid.
Or could be something upstream of thyroid that's broken, and supplementing directly just cuts out the middle man? Or would that still be defined/detectable as hypothyroid?
This is a vast rabbit hole.... How long have you got? The last time I got obsessed with this sort of thing I made a subreddit as a place to keep interesting articles (https://www.reddit.com/r/thethyroidmadness/)
In short there are several well-known forms/causes for classical hypothyroidism.
I don't think Broda Barnes was right about an epidemic of hypothyroidism in any of its classical forms, we can detect them and we'd have probably noticed.
But I think he *was* seeing an epidemic of slowing metabolism. His thyroid test was to measure the waking temperature. He was probably the first person to notice the temperature drop in modern people that I've now heard of from several probably-independent sources.
And I'm even reasonably happy to believe that his treatments helped his patients, he was a careful and clever man, and he kept good records and was a bit data-obsessed.
But I'm not convinced that it worked for the reasons he thought it worked.
I've been wondering for a long time if there's a resistance form of hypothyroidism (like insulin resistance is "type 2" diabetes). There are various genetic defects that can do that, but they're very very rare for obvious reasons.
John Lowe thought there was such a form and it was widespread. But he couldn't explain what was causing it or why it had suddenly appeared.
But of course it doesn't need to be resistance in the sense that the hormones aren't communicating with the cells properly, it could be that the metabolic machinery itself is broken and can't respond properly.
Either way that probably implies some sort of environmental poison.
Like you, I'm not saying it's seed oils. That would be a totally unjustified leap of faith, a dodgy inference unworthy of a philosopher. But it's bloody seed oils isn't it?
That's where my money is. Seems the symptoms would be just like he found, except he just didn't know about it at the time. Heck, even now most people don't know. But Herman Pontzer, who's pretty Nice and Presentable and Mainstream and stuff has validated this empirically - people's metabolisms and core body temperatures have dropped. He's even speculated about the role of fatty acids in this and talked a bit with brad from Fire in the Bottle on Twitter.
> So you basically went on "thyroid replacement therapy?"
Yes, although I think my thyroid and all the associated control machinery was fine. I've been thinking of it for years as 'stimulating my mysteriously sluggish metabolism, don't know why it works', a bit like you might need to press down really hard on the accelerator pedal if your piston rings were shot.
Good stuff. One of your best. I wonder if there is something about Brits of the old type that make them simply better at short autobiographical works of this sort. A kind of PG Wodehouse effect where people can describe lifestyles associated with the upper class in ways that have a folksy appeal.
> Good stuff. One of your best.
So kind, thank you!
I worried that there were far too many words, but I couldn't see how to shorten it without losing some of the message. But yours is the second comment in a few minutes about it being well-written, so perhaps there is some virtue in verbosity after all.
Upper class!!? I'm from a farming village in the North of England... And hurled untimely from academia because of my laziness and drinking; forced into the real world to scrape a living as a programmer, like a dog. Middle middle class at best....
I was careful in my phrasing, "associated with the upper class". Boating, tennis, cigars, Cambridge.
Alcohol is a terrible poison.
> Alcohol is a terrible poison
My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.
If when you say "whiskey" you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation and despair and shame and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
But if when you say "whiskey" you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.
This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.
If-by-whiskey indeed.
However, I had been thinking more of the myriad known negative health effects of its consumption, including hypothyroidism.
I'm not hypothyroid. I'm not hypothyroid. I'm not hypothyroid.
Also I've hardly touched a drop these last ten years, so if that did the harm, the damage was permanent!
The problem with all these standard measures is that none of us ever take our baselines before the insult occurs to our systems. Anything involving hormones and receptors will have some statistical messiness where perhaps you need more thyroid and perhaps as a teenager before alcohol were producing more, And after years of abuse, are now producing only a so called normal amount, which is too little for you.
And yes, many of the effects of chronic alcohol abuse are permanent and irreversible. Sensitive organs like the liver, thyroid and brain don't bounce back the way more robust organs might.
Wow. That, my friend, is an epic reply. Well done!
Really good article. I recently started experimenting with TyroMix (3 mcg T3, 6 mcg T4). If 1 grain of T3 ~12.5 mcg and 1 grain of T4 is 50 mcg and the human body makes about 4 grains per day, then we make about 50mcg T3 and 200mcg T4.
I take 1 drop of TyroMix with each of my 3 meals plus an additional drop right before bed, so I am supplementing approximately 1 full grain of T3 and 1/2 grain of T4. I do feel better but I am still quite tired. I plan to titrate up another half grain of T3 (2 more drops of TyroMix). Apparently it takes ~2 weeks for a new homeostasis to be found, so I'll see how it goes between now and end of September.
Wish me luck.
Good luck, keep experimenting, and remember at all times that, in this area as in so many areas, no-one knows what they're talking about, everyone is mad, everyone's got an agenda, and qualifications are worse than useless.
So you basically went on "thyroid replacement therapy?"
I wonder if that old timey doctor was right and all of America is hypothyroid, or if it's something else with similar symptoms.
I kinda suspect that it's the latter. Yea the blood tests are often useless, but "thyroid supplementation fixes it" doesn't mean it was "hypothyroid." Could be something else that's just being countered by high(er) thyroid.
Or could be something upstream of thyroid that's broken, and supplementing directly just cuts out the middle man? Or would that still be defined/detectable as hypothyroid?
This is a vast rabbit hole.... How long have you got? The last time I got obsessed with this sort of thing I made a subreddit as a place to keep interesting articles (https://www.reddit.com/r/thethyroidmadness/)
In short there are several well-known forms/causes for classical hypothyroidism.
I don't think Broda Barnes was right about an epidemic of hypothyroidism in any of its classical forms, we can detect them and we'd have probably noticed.
But I think he *was* seeing an epidemic of slowing metabolism. His thyroid test was to measure the waking temperature. He was probably the first person to notice the temperature drop in modern people that I've now heard of from several probably-independent sources.
And I'm even reasonably happy to believe that his treatments helped his patients, he was a careful and clever man, and he kept good records and was a bit data-obsessed.
But I'm not convinced that it worked for the reasons he thought it worked.
I've been wondering for a long time if there's a resistance form of hypothyroidism (like insulin resistance is "type 2" diabetes). There are various genetic defects that can do that, but they're very very rare for obvious reasons.
John Lowe thought there was such a form and it was widespread. But he couldn't explain what was causing it or why it had suddenly appeared.
But of course it doesn't need to be resistance in the sense that the hormones aren't communicating with the cells properly, it could be that the metabolic machinery itself is broken and can't respond properly.
Either way that probably implies some sort of environmental poison.
Like you, I'm not saying it's seed oils. That would be a totally unjustified leap of faith, a dodgy inference unworthy of a philosopher. But it's bloody seed oils isn't it?
That's where my money is. Seems the symptoms would be just like he found, except he just didn't know about it at the time. Heck, even now most people don't know. But Herman Pontzer, who's pretty Nice and Presentable and Mainstream and stuff has validated this empirically - people's metabolisms and core body temperatures have dropped. He's even speculated about the role of fatty acids in this and talked a bit with brad from Fire in the Bottle on Twitter.
Quite. Abjure the polyunsaturated evil, Oh my people.
> So you basically went on "thyroid replacement therapy?"
Yes, although I think my thyroid and all the associated control machinery was fine. I've been thinking of it for years as 'stimulating my mysteriously sluggish metabolism, don't know why it works', a bit like you might need to press down really hard on the accelerator pedal if your piston rings were shot.
For sure. I am taking about 60mcg T3 throughout the day, but I have Hashimoto's. I feel amazing and have the metabolism of a kid.
PUFAs are known to suppress thyroid function and cellular respiration. Saturated fat is good for your thyroid.