The other day, I wrote about the overdiagnosis of hypothyroidism, underactive thyroid. This disorder is a very real problem, for those who have it, their lives can be severely effected. But what exactly is hypothyroidism?
Your thyroid is a small gland in your throat, just below your voice box. The thyroid is a vital gland that plays an important role in regulating your metabolism – how your body creates and uses energy. The thyroid secretes, lets out, hormones that controls that metabolism.
If you have hypothyroid, you may have these symptoms:

Constant fatigue, exhaustion
Feeling of being cold all the time, unable to warm …read more

It seems to be the disorder of the decade – doctors seem to be diagnosing more and more people with hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid, than ever before. Of course, some of this increase is expected because we’re living longer.
While some of the diagnosis are happening because our testing has become more sensitive and doctors are more aware of the problem, but experts in the United Kingdom are concerned that with the increase in treatment for hypothyroidism, many patients are being treated for a condition they don’t have.
An editorial in the journal, BMJ, Concern over inappropriate diagnosis and treatment of thyroid …read more

I honestly never knew that finger clubbing and heart disease were related. Consider this your friendly fact of the day…
“It’s one of the first things they teach you at medical school,” explained Professor David Bonthron of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine. “You shake the patient by the hand, and take a good look at their fingers in the process.” Lung cancer, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, various gastrointestinal diseases and many other conditions all result in finger clubbing. But exactly why swollen, reddened fingers should be an indicator of serious illness has remained a mystery – until now.
See a great photo …read more

Like people who have hypothyroidism, those who have no symptoms of an underactive thyroid also have an increased risk of coronary heart disease. In a recent meta study combining the results of 14 observational studies, researchers at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland found:

Subjects with an underactive thyroid without symptoms, also referred to as subclinical hypothyroidism, had a 65 percent increased risk of coronary heart disease.
Nine studies included a comparison group without hypothyroidism, matched to the hypothyroid group for age and demographic factors — those with subclinical hypothyroidism had an increased risk of 81 percent for heart disease.
In studies that …read more