“Expert” Claims Cure For Thyroid Disease!

So there I was, standing in line at Walmart, waiting to pay for my hair spray. As I checked out the scenery, such as it was, a Woman’s World magazine leapt to my attention.

Oh, it wasn’t the cover picture of Oprah. I mean, the magazine rack looked like an Oprah retrospective, or family album or some such.

No, it was the headline: “Doctor-recommended home THYROID CURE! Weight gain, fatigue, poor concentration? SOLVED!”

Thyroid cure? Solved? And my 30+ years of research hadn’t come across even a hint of a cure?

I paid for my hair spray–and the magazine–and hurried home to read this amazing story.

YIKES! And again I say, YIKES!

Misinformation as far as the eye could see. Bad enough the author sallied forth to explain what she obviously didn’t understand, but an editor let her get away with it! Sheesh!

Explaining all the errors would take a book, so I’ll just hit the highlights. (Lowlights?)

First, she recommends iodized salt, ignoring a strong correlation between the use of iodized salt and the occurrence of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, the auto-immune form of hypothyroidism.

Regular table salt has the life processed out of it, so it’s a bad deal all on its own. Adding iodine compounds the problem.

Yes, thyroid people need iodine, but not the stuff in table salt. No way, no how.

She goes on the say you should always add protein to your high-carb meals. Well, as a matter of fact, you should avoid high carb meals. And her premise that protein interferes with thyroid function is bogus.

The part about cooking broccoli instead of eating it raw is excellent advice. Oh, look! A bright spot!

She adds the suggestion to top it with butter rather than oleo. Oh, be still my heart; another bright spot! Her reasoning gets a little shaky, but the fact is, butter enhances health while oleo is poison. All of it–no matter what the ads say.

She then goes on to say smoking causes thyroid problems. It surely makes them worse, even on a second-hand basis–and especially hyperthyroidism and Hashi’s–but science offers nothing to suggest a causative role. And her suggestion you stay on a prescription medicine longer than FDA guidelines should scare the socks off any reasoning person.

She concludes the article by saying a half-hour’s relaxation each afternoon should fix things up in a couple of weeks.

You know, we thyroid people have enough problems with people not believing just how sick we are–simply because we don’t look sick. Now some know-nothing “expert” tells the world we would be fine and dandy if we just took a break every day.

There used to be a rule that people taking pen to hand should write about things they knew and understood. Apparently, that’s another good idea that bit the dust.

Sigh.