...You Won't Want to Miss

This week, I'm taking a look at some of the books I've found useful in my search for information about thyroid disease and the endocrine system. You'll also get an introduction to my Online Bookstore, my list of personal favorites that I think people with thyroid disease would find of interest. Note: I'll never recommend a book unless I've personally read it, though I'll be happy to set up a Bulletin Board featuring your book suggestions and comments as well, so send them to me at thyroid.guide@about.com. Also, as a convenience you you, clicking on any of the book titles will bring you directly to the Amazon.com online bookstore, where you can purchase the books directly, at a discount.

First, I'd like to bring up what is one of my favorite books on the subject of hormones and endocrine disease, Screaming to be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect...and Doctors Ignore, by Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

Honestly, this book is MUST reading for every woman. My mother, who is recuperating wonderfully from breast cancer, met Dr. Vliet at her cancer support group, and was incredibly bowled over by Dr. Vliet's commitment to women's health issues, and her insistence that the typical medical establishment just isn't geared toward the uniqueness of women's hormones and their impact on health.

In addition to breaking new ground in our understanding of the relationships between hormones and women's health, Dr. Vliet is a pioneer in terms of her attitude toward treating thyroid disease. Dr. Vliet does not believe that TSH tests are the almightly indicator of a woman's thyroid health. In fact, over on the alt.support.thyroid newsgroup, we've thought about taking a refreshing quote from her book --- "We are treating patients, not lab values" -- and putting it on a tee-shirt to wear to appointments with our doctors. "I'm a patient, not a lab value!"

Dr. Vliet says that symptoms, along with elevated thyroid antibodies and normal TSH, may be a reason for treatment with thyroid hormone. Here's Dr. Vliet again.

"The problem I have found is that too often women are told their thyroid is normal without having the complete thyroid tests done. Of course, what most people, and many physicians, don't realize is that...a 'normal range' on a laboratory report is just that: a range. A given person may require higher or lower levels to feel well and to function optimally. I think we must look at the lab results along with the clinical picture described by the patient...I have a series of more than a hundred patients, all but two are women, who had a normal TSH and turned out to have significantly elevated thyroid antibodies that meant they needed thyroid medication in order to feel normal. This type of oversight is particularly common with a type of thyroid disease called thyroiditis, which is about 25 times more common in females than males...a woman may experience the symptoms of disease months to years before TSH goes up..."

Despite the fact that Broda Barnes was an M.D., his book Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness is the bible for alternative medicine's view of hypothyroidism. Frankly, I think Dr. Barnes was a pioneer in identifying the many ways thyroid problems affect us that conventional medicine today doesn't recognize. If you've ever wondered if hypothyroidism is causing certain symptoms, or how it may be affecting you, this book is excellent.

It also describes the controversial -- but still used by some -- Barnes Basal Temperature method of diagnosing hypothyroidism. Amazingly, Dr. Barnes also describes an optimal diet in his 1976 book that is remarkably similar to the popular "Zone" diet which is finding favor with many people with hypothyroidism today, 20 years later.

Dr. Barnes really often seems to be one of the only doctors who truly understand the impact of thyroid disease on overall health and the difficulty medicine seems to have with it. Here's a quote from his book.

"It may seem almost incredible that scientists can sit quietly on earth and follow the activity of the heart of a man walking on the moon and yet they have had so much difficulty in measuring the amount of thyroid hormone necessary for health and in developing effective and reliable tests to determine when thyroid function is inadequate."

Dr. Barnes is also one of the doctors who regularly prescribed Armour Thryoid, the naturally- derived T4/T3 drug, for his patients instead of the sythetic T4 only preparations (i.e., Synthroid, Levoxyl, generic levo-thyroxine) that are currently popular. He says in the book: "[Synthetic] thyroxine...proved to have only one-tenth to one-twentieth of the metabolic activity of the natural Levo-thyroxine."

Dr. Barnes also felt that doctors needed to gauge symptoms as well as blood tests when treating patients. Again, from his book:

"The efforts though the various tests to measure thyroid activity by determining the amount of hormone stored in the gland or alternatively the amount present in the bloodstream fail to do what really counts: provide an indication of the amount of thyroid hormone available and being used within cells throughout the body. They are somewhat akin to trying to get an idea of a thrifty man's spending habits from the amount of money in his wallet or the size of his bank account. The amounts of money in wallet or bank account, like test for the amount of hormone in gland or bloodstream, tell us nothing about how much is being spent."

To help you learn more about this book, I've posted additional information for your reference: More information on the book and author, and the book's Table of Contents.

Finally, Solved: The Riddle of Illness (Second Edition), by Stephen Langer, M.D. and James Scheer highlights the authors' tremendous knowledge of nutritional medicine. If you want information on how to supplement your thyroid hormone treatment with nutritional approaches, this book has excellent information. From the book:

"Certain facts of life about nutrition and the thyroid have been known for the past twenty or thirty years. Yet they have never seen print in anything but medical publications, and there only rarely. One of this book's missions is to fill in the broad knowledge gap -- to make you and your doctor aware that how and what you eat may be slowing down or speeding up your thyroid or even injuring it."

Too many doctors tell you there's nothing you can do except take your thyroid hormone to be well. But this book allows you to help enhance your wellness by providing the proper nutrition your thyroid needs. In many ways, it really is an update of the Broda Barnes book. Dr. Langer considers Dr. Barnes work the inspiration for his current practice and this book.

A very useful part of this book is the final chapter, "For Doctors Only." If you have an open- minded physician willing to be a partner with you in your wellness, giving her or him a copy of this chapter could be useful.

To help you learn more about this book, I've posted additional information for your reference: More information on the book and author, and the book's Table of Contents.

If you have other books you'd like to mention, please drop me a line at thyroid.guide@about.com!

Quote "There's a lot of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't had the time to enjoy it." --Josh Billings

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