What You’re Probably Still Missing In Hypothyroidism Treatment

…and other items from this week’s health science news:

T3 to the rescue?

Hypothyroidism is commonly treated with levothyroxine (T4), but many patients continue to experience fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, and cold intolerance despite normal blood test results.

In a recent study, liothyronine (T3) was added in different dosing schedules to test whether directly replacing T3 improves quality of life and symptom control. Specifically, participants were randomly assigned to T4 alone, T4 plus daily T3, or T4 plus twice-daily T3, with regular bloodwork, dose adjustments, and quality-of-life questionnaires over six months.

While it didn’t benefit everyone (suggesting there may be yet more things at hand), those whom it did benefit reported huge (positive) differences:

Read in full: Adding T3 to standard thyroid treatment may ease lingering symptoms in hypothyroidism

Related: A Fresh Take On Hypothyroidism ← she also recommends getting tested for T3 levels, which often isn’t standard, as many providers just to TSH testing as a proxy, rather than testing thyroid hormone levels directly, and THS tests aren’t a reliable marker of thyroid function, especially if you have Hashimoto’s. Further, she notes that many prescribed drugs that are actually pro-drugs*, that don’t get converted adequately if you have an underactive thyroid.

^{*a “pro-drug” sounds exciting, but it’s just what it’s called when the drug we take is not the actual drug the body needs, but is a precursor that will get converted to that actual drug we need, inside our body—usually by the liver, but not always. An example in this case is T4, which by definition is a pro-drug and won’t always get correctly converted to the T3 that a thyroid patient needs.}

Give your mouth a rest

When it comes to gum health, sometimes less is more. Less food, more gum health!

Or more specifically: intermittent fasting may help reduce gum disease.

How? Researchers (Dr. Inmaculada Cabello et al.) did a study in which participants consumed about 1,100 calories per day for two days, then 750 calories per day for three days, followed by a gradual return to normal eating; this seven-day cycle was repeated three times during the study.

The results, in few words: the fasting group showed lower levels of inflammatory markers in both their blood and gum tissues, including lower levels of C-reactive protein, a common marker of systemic inflammation, suggesting that the fasting intervention reduced the inflammatory response linked to periodontitis.

Notably, this was a short-term study looking at inflammatory markers rather than long-term effects on the gums, so this doesn’t prove long-term benefits, but it is worth bearing in mind that how we eat (and how we give our mouth time to recuperate between eating) can have an impact on oft-forgotten (unless something goes wildly wrong) aspects of health such as our gums:

Read in full: Can fasting fight gum disease? Scientists find surprising link

Related: How To Regrow Receding Gums

Anti-aging science, in the CAR-T!

Researchers (Dr. Corina Amor Vegas et al.) have been busy engineering CAR-T cells* to target and remove senescent “zombie” cells that accumulate with age and drive inflammation and tissue decline.

^{*So-called because they are Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cells, or CAR-Ts for short, or CAR as the more general form when not referring to T-cells specifically.}

As a quick recap / for any unfamilar with the idea of “zombie” cells, these senescent cells are damaged cells that stop dividing and/but remain alive indefinitely, which is protective early in life because it helps prevent cancer, but becomes harmful when these cells build up over time (and, paradoxically, can even end up contributing to cancer).

Why aging worsens it: the immune system becomes less efficient with age, so it clears senescent cells more slowly, allowing inflammatory signals to accumulate in tissues.

In experimentation, the treatment was especially effective in the gut, where it reduced inflammation, improved tissue function, enhanced regeneration, and helped improve glucose regulation:

Read in full: Teaching the immune system to fight aging

Related: The Drug & Supplement Combo That Reverses Aging

Take care!