Do You Have An RT3 Problem?
When we talk about "resistance
to thyroid hormone" we are talking about people that don't respond
properly to Thyroid Hormone supplementation and appear to have
hypothyroid symptoms despite being on thyroid replacement and having
normal blood test results.
One of the most common causes of this lack of response to the thyroid hormone is something called "Reverse T3" (RT3).
At a very basic level thyroid
hormone is made of iodine among other things and the numbers that are
talked about (T4 and T3 etc) represent the number of iodine atoms in the
molecule.
T4 is the main hormone that is
produced by the thyroid gland and supplemented "Synthroid, Levoxyl,
Thyroxin etc", This hormone is totally inactive biologically and it's
only after an iodine atom is removed making it into T3 that it has an
effect on the body.
T4 is a storage hormone and
lasts for weeks in the body, T3 is the active one that deiodinates to T2
and then further to T1 which also have metabolic activities of their
own. T3 has a life of a few days in the body.
T3 is a catalyst that the body
needs for its chemical reactions to progress at the right speed,
without enough of it people are cold, tired, and lethargic.
Reverse T3 (RT3) is what is
made when the "wrong" iodine atom is removed from T4, it's a "mirror
image" molecule to T3 and is not bio-active. This in itself is not a
problem, the problem is that in excess it "fits into the T3 receptors"
and gets stuck there blocking the action of T3 on the body. This
means that your body doesn't respond properly to T3 leading to
hypothyroid symptoms despite a normal TSH and normal T3 and T4 levels in
the body. This is what we refer to as "Tissue Resistance to Thyroid
Hormone". Doctors will tell you this is very rare, this is because they
don't look for it!!
Fortunately there are ways of treating it and people can recover and feel well again.
To read more and learn what you can do, click here
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