According to the American Thyroid Association, an estimated 20 million Americans have some form of thyroid disease, which causes symptoms such as extreme fatigue, depression, forgetfulness, weight gain, and hair loss. If thyroid conditions go undiagnosed, those patients--the vast majority of them women--may be at risk for cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and infertility. Unfortunately, conventional Western medicine views thyroid conditions as solely a glandular problem, and doctors are taught to employ a simplistic model of testing TSH and T4 to evaluate patients' thyroid health. By the time a true glandular disorder presents itself, many prior opportunities to address the condition have been missed. In The Thyroid Debacle, Eric Balcavage, DC, and Kelly Halderman, MD, explore thyroid disorders from a functional medicine perspective, looking to create a paradigm shift in how doctors and patients understand and approach thyroid physiology. They argue that hypothyroidism is more commonly a systemic cellular event and not a localized glandular problem, as is often presumed, and that the key is to look at root causes rather than attempt to mask symptoms with pills.
