The Thyroid Sourcebook for Women

The Thyroid Sourcebook for Women

by M. Sara Rosenthal
The Thyroid Sourcebook for Women

The Thyroid Sourcebook for Women

by M. Sara Rosenthal

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Overview

The Thyroid Sourcebook for Women is an indispensable resource for the one in eight American women who suffers from chronic thyroid disorders. This new edition features the latest research on thyroid disorders, including hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and thyroid cancer, and their effect on women's health and lives. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of the latest medications and treatments, while addressing critical concerns for women such as fertility, pregnancy, postpartum thyroid disorder, menopause, depression, and weight gain. It also offers candid appraisals of major alternative therapies.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780071460644
Publisher: McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date: 01/21/2005
Series: Sourcebooks
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 304
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

M. Sara Rosenthal, Ph.D., is a bioethicist and medical sociologist. She is author of several widely recommended health books. She is the director of the University of Kentucky Program for Bioethics and Patients' Rights and an assistant professor of bioethics in the Department of Behavioral Science at The University of Kentucky College of Medicine. She is also consulting bioethicist for several thyroid patient organizations. For more information, visit sarahealth.com.

Read an Excerpt

THE THYROID SOURCEBOOK FOR WOMEN


By M. Sara Rosenthal

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2005M. Sara Rosenthal
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-146064-4


Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

All About Eve—and the Thyroid Gland


At least one in ten women can expect to suffer from some sort of thyroid disorder during her lifetime. Whether thyroid disorders strike at puberty, during peak reproductive years, during or after pregnancy, around menopause, or after the age of sixty, a woman's body is uniquely—and dramatically—affected. The most common thyroid disease (Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which causes an underactive thyroid gland) occurs three times more frequently in women than men, affecting roughly one in five women. The second most common thyroid disease (Graves' disease, which causes an overactive thyroid gland) occurs much more frequently in women. Thyroid nodules (lumps) and thyroid cancer are also much more common in women than men.

Thyroid disease can aggravate all kinds of health conditions that typically plague women, ranging from gynecological problems to eating disorders, depression (particularly postpartum depression), heart disease, and osteoporosis. Because thyroid disorders can affect one's appearance, women may suffer from body image problems or low self-esteem as a result of a change in appearance.

Women are more susceptible to autoimmune diseases in general, which means that the body attacks its own tissue. Lupus, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis are all examples of autoimmune diseases that strike women almost exclusively. Two of the most common thyroid disorders—Hashimoto's and Graves' disease—are also autoimmune. Stress, familial inheritance, and environmental factors such as smoking are believed to be the particular triggers of autoimmune diseases in women.

There is a separate issue with respect to thyroid disorders and women that affects a woman's emotional and physical health: validation. Since so many symptoms of thyroid disease are vague (see Chapter 2) and can be masked by other women's health problems (or ignored because of the existence of other health problems), many women suffer from these five horrible words: "It's all in your head!" Misdiagnosed thyroid disorders can worsen existing health problems and lead to unnecessary suffering. Many women continue to report that they find their health practitioners are dismissive of women's health interests, which can lead women down a frustrating path of "doctor bouncing" in order to obtain an accurate diagnosis of a thyroid disorder (discussed in Chapter 11).

This chapter is your starting point. It explains what your thyroid does, what your ovaries do, and how your unique physiology can be affected by a thyroid disorder. Symptoms of thyroid disease and the types of thyroid disorders that occur are discussed in Chapter 2. If you're suffering from a thyroid disorder, take heart: it's not all in your head—it's all in your neck. And it's treatable—which is something that cannot always be said about other women's health problems.


What Is a Thyroid?

The word thyroid was coined in the 1600s and is Greek for "shield" because of its shieldlike butterfly shape. Your thyroid gland is located in the lower part of your neck, in front of your windpipe (see Figure 1.1), and it makes two thyroid hormones (the word hormone is Greek for "stimulator")—thyroxine, known as T4 (because it has four iodine atoms) and triiodothyronine, known as T3 (which has three iodine atoms). Thyroid hormone (the two hormones are referred to in the singular) is then secreted into the circulatory system and becomes widely distributed throughout the body; it is one of the basic regulators of the function of every cell and tissue within the body, and a steady supply is crucial for good health. In essence, your thyroid affects you from head to toe—including skin and hair! (See Figure 1.2.)

If you were to break down exactly how much T4 and T3 is secreted by your thyroid, you would find that 80 percent of the thyroid output is T4 and only 20 percent is T3. Although these hormones have the same effect in your body, T3 is four times as powerful as T4 and works eight times as fast. It is similar to comparing juice in a bottle and frozen concentrate. T4 works by turning into T3 by shedding an iodine atom if your body requires some thyroid hormone—fast!


Iodine

Your thyroid gland extracts iodine from various foods, including certain vegetables, shellfish, milk products, and anything with iodized salt or red dye number 3. Normally, we consume more than sufficient iodine in our daily diet. On the other hand, the diets of people in many parts of the developing world are iodine deficient, resulting in high rates of goiter (enlarged thyroid glands) and hypothyroidism.

Our thyroids are very sensitive to iodine. When a person's thyroid gland is not able to obtain sufficient quantities of iodine, the thyroid can enlarge, and the person will develop a goiter. In this case, the thyroid gland gets too little iodine and produces too little thyroid hormone. On the flip side, too much iodine increases the chance of getting thyroid inflammation, and Hashimoto's thyroiditis can develop, which also causes hypothyroidism and goiter. Although it seems odd that both too much and too little iodine can produce the same results, the reason the goiter develops in each case is different.

Women with goiters are well-known throughout history, and as discussed in Chapter 5, the thyroid naturally enlarges during pregnancy. Goiters even appear in famous paintings and portraits of women, including Rubens's Le Chapeau de Paille, which hangs in the National Gallery in London.


Goiter Belts and Iodine Deficiency

A goiter belt is not a fashion accessory. You may be familiar with the term goiter belt, which refers to regions that typically suffer from insufficient iodine. The Great Lakes region, for example, used to be a goiter belt. The term originated because inhabitants of these regions would often develop goiters from a lack of iodine. Goiter belts are located far from seawater. In regions close to seawater, iodine gets into the soil and water supply from the wind and rain off the saltwater ocean. It also gets into plants eaten by people and livestock. It then travels into the milk and meat in people's diet.

The introduction of iodized salt in our diet has virtually eliminated goiters resulting from iodine deficiency in North America. But the problem of iodine deficiency is far from solved in other parts of the world. In fact, more than one billion people are at risk for iodine deficiency–related thyroid disease. Three hundred million people in Asia alone suffer from goiters, while twenty million people suffer from brain damage due to iodine deficiency in pregnancy and infancy. This is very disturbing because these problems can be completely prevented by the simple addition of iodized salt or iodized oil (proposed in some regions) to the diet. Goiters from iodine deficiency are regularly found in Asia, Africa, South America, and especially in mountainous regions such as the Himalayas and the Andes.

The first International Goiter Congress was held in 1929 in Bern after Switzerland and the United States introduced iodized salt. Many countries soon followed suit, and iodine deficiency has disappeared in many parts of the world. But not much happened to eliminate iodine deficiency in underdeveloped nations until 1985, when thyroid specialists established the International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (ICCIDD), a group of about four hundred members from seventy different countries.

While in North America only about one in four thousand newborns is born with hypothyro
(Continues...)


Excerpted from THE THYROID SOURCEBOOK FOR WOMEN by M. Sara Rosenthal. Copyright © 2005 by M. Sara Rosenthal. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword to the First Edition          

Acknowledgments          

Introduction: A Woman's Disease          

1 All About Eve—and the Thyroid Gland          

2 Signs of Trouble: It Is Not All in Your Head          

3 Stress, Fatigue, and Depression: Do They Collide with Your Thyroid?          

4 Thyroid Disease and the Menstrual Cycle          

5 Fertility, Pregnancy, and the Thyroid          

6 Thyroid Disease and Menopause          

7 Women and Thyroid Eye Disease          

8 The Weight and Diet Connection          

9 Autoimmune Thyroid Disease          

10 Thyroid Lumps and Thyroid Cancer          

11 Thyroid Tests, Treatments, and Self-Care          

Appendix A: Thyroid Links on the Web          

Appendix B: Links for Other Conditions Related to Thyroid Disease          

Bibliography          

Index          

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