Natural desiccated thyroid for the treatment of hypothyroidism?

Heald, Adrian H., Taylor, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3436-422X, Premawardhana, Lakdasa, Stedman, Mike and Dayan, Colin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6557-3462 2024. Natural desiccated thyroid for the treatment of hypothyroidism? Frontiers in Endocrinology 14 , 1309159. 10.3389/fendo.2023.1309159

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Abstract

Primary hypothyroidism affects about 3% of the general population in Europe. Early treatments in the late 19th Century involved subcutaneous as well as oral administration of thyroid extract. Until the early 1970s, the majority of people across the world with hypothyroidism were treated with natural desiccated thyroid (NDT) (derived from pig thyroid glands) in various formulations, with the majority of people since then being treated with levothyroxine (L-thyroxine). There is emerging evidence that may account for the efficacy of liothyronine (NDT contains a mixture of levothyroxine and liothyronine) in people who are symptomatically unresponsive to levothyroxine. While this is a highly selected group of people, the severity and chronicity of their symptoms and the fact that many patients have found their symptoms to be alleviated, can be viewed as valid evidence for the potential benefit of NDT when given after careful consideration of other differential diagnoses and other treatment options.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher:	Frontiers Media
ISSN:	1664-2392
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 January 2024
Date of Acceptance:	6 December 2023
Last Modified:	24 Jan 2024 10:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/165797

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