Why is it?

It appears that Wilson's Temperature Syndrome is due to the thyroid system getting bogged down, leaving the metabolism maladaptively slow.

Every other known thyroid condition has to do with glands and how well they supply thyroid hormones to the blood stream. But WTS has to do with the tissues and how well they process thyroid hormones supplied by the blood stream.

WTS doesn't have anything to do with how well glands produce thyroid hormones, it has to do with the tissues and how they process thyroid hormones.

WTS can be thought of more as a thyroid system imbalance than a thyroid hormone deficiency. In WTS, the production of thyroid hormone is often normal, but apparently the processing of that hormone in the tissues can get bogged down, leading to an imbalance that can leave patients with low body temperatures and classic symptoms of low thyroid function.

When Dr. Wilson used blood tests to make sure there was an adequate supply of thyroid hormones in the blood stream many patients still suffered. But when he focused on correcting what might be going wrong in the tissues, many got better and many were cured.

The explanation below is based on well known thyroid physiology and how patients have responded to the WTS treatment. The explanation below is not based on what thyroid blood tests show because thyroid blood tests can't measure what's happening in the tissues and cells of the body.

The blood stream is the delivery service that delivers thyroid hormones to the tissues that have been shipped from the glands. The blood stream is a little like United Parcel Service (UPS). UPS can track almost everything about when and where an item was shipped, delivered, and every step in-between. But, UPS can't track what people do with the packages after they've been delivered and taken inside their houses or businesses.

No blood test can tell us how well the tissues are processing thyroid hormones any better than the UPS man can tell us what happens to all the packages he delivers.

The following is an explanation of Wilson's Temperature Syndrome. In other words, it's an explanation of how there could be a reversible thyroid problem that is undiagnosable by thyroid blood tests.

What was known before Dr. Wilson's work about how the thyroid system works

Under conditions of severe physical or emotional stress, the body can slow down to conserve energy. That's a normal coping mechanism. After the stress has passed the metabolism and body temperature are supposed to return to normal.

• The Hypothalamus stimulates the Pituitary gland to produce Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH).
• TSH stimulates the thyroid gland to produce T4 (thyroxine).
• T4 is the raw material used to make the active thyroid hormone T3.
• T4 is also converted to Reverse T3 (RT3) which is physiologically inactive.
• 80 percent of the active thyroid hormone T3 is produced outside the thyroid gland, in the tissues of the body.
• T4 is converted to T3 by an enzyme called 5' Deiodinase.
• This enzyme is inhibited by stress, acute and chronic illness, fasting, cortisol (steroid), and other things.
• Under stress and fasting, the body converts less T4 to T3 and more T4 to RT3 to conserve energy (with less T3, the cells of the body slow down).

What Dr. Wilson thought might explain a reversible thyroid problem undiagnosable with thyroid blood tests:

Before Dr. Wilson, it was assumed that everyone's metabolism that slowed down under stress would come back up to normal on its own. However, one doesn't have to study medicine very long to recognize that almost anything that can go wrong will go wrong in someone, somewhere at some time.

Dr. Wilson was seeing plenty of patients whose symptoms dramatically appeared after a stress and persisted long after the stress had passed.

Examples of severe stresses that can knock the body out of balance include:

• Childbirth (the #1 cause)
• Divorce
• Death of a loved one
• Job or family stress
• Surgery or accidents.

What could account for the persistent low body temperatures and symptoms?

It appears that the increased levels of RT3 (see above) in the tissues that result from an impaired conversion of T4 to T3 can then further inhibit the conversion of T4 to T3 (by hogging the 5'-Deiodinase enzyme). This appears to result in a persistent impairment in the conversion of T4 to T3 in the tissues (with even more T4 being converted to RT3, less to T3, and so on) with the body getting stuck in a vicious cycle.

This could explain a reversible thyroid condition because clearing the RT3 levels out of the tissues could reset the system so that it could function normally on its own again. And because all this happens in the tissues and cells of the body it would be essentially out of the reach of, and therefore undiagnosable by, thyroid blood tests.

The fact that people respond so well to Dr. Wilson's treatment protocol suggests that he was largely right. Before Dr. Wilson's work, the peripheral conversion of T4 to T3 was virtually never mentioned or considered. Now, almost every informed discussion of thyroid system function mentions the significance of T4 to T3 conversion.