denise
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- Oct 18, 2013
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I came across this in another thread:
I hadn't read this before, about aspirin mimicking thyroid, so I stayed up way too late last night trying to read about it and went to sleep very confused.
I found this quotation by Peat:
But I also found all kinds of other contradictory (or at least confusing) stuff. Here's a list of things I've read, in no particular order. I'm not sure how relevant any of this is or what to make of it:
- An account of an overdose of aspirin causing a thyroid storm.
- a study in Lancet about long-term use of aspirin (for rheumatoid arthritis) causing lower levels of FT4 and TBG compared to normal values.
- Anecdotal accounts by people who say that short-term aspirin use brought on hypo symptoms in some cases but hyper symptoms in others.
- A study that showed that treatment for one week with aspirin decreased total T4, total T3, free T3, and TSH.
- A UK site says that high-dose use of aspirin (>2g/day) can cause analytical interference (increased FT4 by displacement) when testing for thyroid function. (So aspirin doesn't actually affect anything but just looks like it does.)
- Another article that mentions that the Total T4 reading can be skewed by large doses of aspirin (without affecting thyroid function).
- From the book Aspirin and Related Drugs (you can find this on Google Books):
So has anyone else read up on this or understand it better? Or have any personal experience with aspirin affecting their thyroid function either way?
unexamined_whimsy said:I have experimented with Aspirin (up to 3gm/day) too for reducing estrogen but all it led to was a worsening of symptoms just like thyroid. After all, aspirin mimics the thyroid pretty closely and indeed there are old studies of its effectiveness as an ersatz for thyroid. I think in susceptible individuals thyroid elevates SHBG which is followed by an increase in testosterone and therefore increase in the amount of aromatization to estrogen. It appears that in such cases the increase in progesterone cannot compensate and so must be supplemented if you want to increase the metabolic rate consistently. This is probably at the heart of why many of us don't respond to thyroid in a straight-forward manner.
Perhaps in the medium to long term, the course of thyroid+progesterone can be replaced by thyroid-only, apart from which I really see no options besides Big-Pharma aromatase inhibitors in quelling estrogen.
I hadn't read this before, about aspirin mimicking thyroid, so I stayed up way too late last night trying to read about it and went to sleep very confused.
I found this quotation by Peat:
Since [aspirin's] effects on the mitochondria are similar to those of thyroid (T3), using both of them might improve brain energy production more than just thyroid. (By activating T3, aspirin can sometimes increase the temperature and pulse rate.)
But I also found all kinds of other contradictory (or at least confusing) stuff. Here's a list of things I've read, in no particular order. I'm not sure how relevant any of this is or what to make of it:
- An account of an overdose of aspirin causing a thyroid storm.
- a study in Lancet about long-term use of aspirin (for rheumatoid arthritis) causing lower levels of FT4 and TBG compared to normal values.
- Anecdotal accounts by people who say that short-term aspirin use brought on hypo symptoms in some cases but hyper symptoms in others.
- A study that showed that treatment for one week with aspirin decreased total T4, total T3, free T3, and TSH.
- A UK site says that high-dose use of aspirin (>2g/day) can cause analytical interference (increased FT4 by displacement) when testing for thyroid function. (So aspirin doesn't actually affect anything but just looks like it does.)
- Another article that mentions that the Total T4 reading can be skewed by large doses of aspirin (without affecting thyroid function).
- From the book Aspirin and Related Drugs (you can find this on Google Books):
Aspirin does affect thyroid function tests and changes include competitive inhibition of thyroid hormone binding to serum carrier proteins. Thus serum protein-bound iodine concentrations fall, although free thyroxine levels remain unaltered or only slightly increased. The thyroid uptake of iodine is decreased, as is the clearance of iodine. Aspirin also affects the peripheral metabolism of thyroxine and blunts the response of the release of TSH. Aspirin also inhibits the hepatic conversion of thyroxine to T3.... Despite these changes, patients remain euthyroid.
So has anyone else read up on this or understand it better? Or have any personal experience with aspirin affecting their thyroid function either way?