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Creator of TSH test said body temperature is better

When you go to the doctor and s/he checks to see if your metabolism might be causing your symptoms, your doctor usually checks your TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone).  If your TSH is in the normal range your doctor is likely to conclude that “Your thyroid is fine.”  Typically, that means your doctor feels your metabolism is fine and can’t be the explanation for any of your symptoms and you won’t benefit from thyroid treatment.  However, that’s not the automatic conclusion recommended by the creator of the TSH test.

Robert D. Utiger, MD was a pioneering doctor in the field of endocrinology.  His life was largely devoted to academic medicine and research.  He was director of the General Clinical Research Center at the University of North Carolina and later was a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

In 1965 he published the landmark article: “Radioimmunoassay of Human Plasma Thyrotropin”.  Thyrotropin is another name for TSH.  This study kicked off the use of the TSH test as a useful tool to help evaluate thyroid dysfunction. It is one of the most widely ordered tests in all of medicine today.

Dr. Utiger,

  • developed the test for TSH
  • developed the test for T3
  • helped discover the importance of T4 to T3 conversion
  • awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the American Thyroid Association (ATA)
  • became the Editor-in-Chief of the journal of the ATA

Interestingly, with all his background in research on thyroid hormones and thyroid tests he said he hoped that doctors will still practice medicine and treat the patient not the TSH.  He said that still the best test is evaluating body temperature and heart rate and a therapeutic trial of T3.

He felt that the best way to tell if someone’s metabolism might be causing his/her symptoms is to measure the body temperature and consider trying him/her on a test of T3.

About the Author:

Denis Wilson, MD described Wilson 's Temperature Syndrome in 1988 after observing people with symptoms of low thyroid and low body temperature, yet who had normal blood tests. He found that by normalizing their temperatures with T3 (without T4) their symptoms often remained improved even after the treatment was discontinued. He was the first doctor to use sustained-release T3.

2 Comments

  1. Shasha December 10, 2012 at 5:12 pm - Reply

    Hi, Gluten may make antibodies to the thyroid and pituitary that makes TSH. A low TSH doesn’t mean they don’t need thyroid medicine…maybe the pituitary is not making TSH due to gluten’s affect. Getting free T4 and free T3 in range is better. I had a temperature of 97.4 or lower. The doctors wanted to take away my thyroid medicine…said they would lose their job if they didn’t. I have MS…to take away the thyroid medicine would make the MS kick in. Many MS people are in wheel chairs and have bad bed sores. They may have a strange TSH so doctors withhold thyroid medicine. I got bedsores within 10 minutes when heavy metals blocked my thyroid and was ok when I did EDTA/DMPS IV chelations to remove heavy metals. Carpal Tunnel maybe due to low thyroid also. To go by TSH when heavy metals are causing a problem and to remove their thyroid medicine…causing bedsores/carpal tunnel/MS to kick in and let them be in a wheel chair instead of giving them Armour thyroid is sad.

    I know one MS women who had hyper thyroid…they killed her thyroid and then didn’t give her any replacement maybe due to TSH number. They also didn’t give Vit B12 shot . She was shivering. They give her thyroid tests every 3 months at the nursing home. To me she could get out of that wheel chair if she got Armour thyroid, Vit B12 methlycobalamin shot, Celiac diet for her Crohn’s disease and LDN and now bioidentical hormones since she is older. She tells me she is not Celiac…but blood tests and biospies may not work to diagnose Celiac. Celiac maybe the number one cause for low thyroid.

  2. J Franklin March 27, 2014 at 2:03 pm - Reply

    there is no cause for thyroid except your genes. celiac is linked to the thyroid as it thinks the protein is the same one as the one for the thyroid. there are triggers. viruses is one and hormones fluctuating can be another.
    my mum had menengitis and i just triggered my hashi`s by getting pregnant. so to different triggers but one end. we both had hashi`s celiac and RA, rhuematoid Arthritis. the difference is she did not find out this but i did. knowledge is power– power to stay well.

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