Ray Peat on thyroid

"Stresses of different sorts increase the formation of serotonin and the various pituitary hormones, leading to adaptive changes in the organism, but at the cost of causing inflammation and degeneration. Studies of several of the pituitary hormones have shown age-accelerating effects, leading to edema, inflammation, fibrosis, and decreased longevity. W.D. Denckla’s experiments showing the great life extending effect of removing the pituitary gland, while supplementing thyroid and glucocorticoid hormones, suggest the possibilities inherent in finding ways to prevent the over-production of serotonin and its associated hormones and cytokines."

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Several people in the 1930s and *40s showed that hypothyroidism caused atherosclerosis, and that thyroid supplementation corrected it. In people whose thyroid gland was removed, their serum cholesterol increased as their rate of metabolism slowed, and when they were given desiccated thyroid to normalize their metabolic rate, their serum cholesterol was immediately correspondingly normalized."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Milk provides lactose, which is metabolized quickly into glucose, and small amounts of other substances, including progesterone and thyroid hormone, that favor its efficient use."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the liver provides about 70% of our active thyroid hormone, by converting thyroxine to T3, but it can provide this active hormone only when it has adequate glucose. Frequent snacks--for example, sipping a few ounces of orange juice about every hourkeeps the T3 level up by providing glucose to the liver."

- Nutrition For Women

"Stress will cause a rise in estrogen and a loss of anti estrogens such as thyroid, progesterone, and (in men) testosterone. Male apes who are bullied have decreased levels of testosterone, and this effect persists long after their environment has improved. The stress of subjugation seems to lead to an adaptation of passivity. Their passivity prevents further injury, but we dont know how stressful their continuing submission is."

- Nutrition For Women

"Energetically, the estrogen-dominated metabolic state is less efficient than the oxidative state which is dominated by thyroid and progesterone (or testosterone). The estrogen state, like the rats state of learned helplessness, is parasympathetic, in the sense that many chemical balances have moved away from the mobilized sympathetic or adrenergic state. The estrogen state, for example, depresses blood sugar, while the mobilized state spares glucose by oxidizing fat."

- Nutrition For Women

"The first time I took enough desiccated thyroid to make my heart speed noticeably, there was a pleasure pushing up from my abdomen through my chest, making me want to smile and laugh. When I have watched suicidal women using thyroid or progesterone, there is a transformation (under an hour with progesterone, a few hours or longer with thyroid) from weeping to smiling and laughing; they speak of unbearable pain being replaced by pleasure."

- Nutrition For Women

"Additionally, when the mothers general health is so poor that nutrition just during pregnancy cant overcome the lifelong deprivation, the use of hormones could keep the mother in good health during pregnancy, and act as a buffer between the fetus and the mothers metabolic instability. In some areas, thyroid hormone would be crucial. In every area, for a large percentage of women, progesterone can improve gestation."

- Nutrition For Women

"Thyroid hormone and Vitamin A promote protein metabolism and antagonize some of estrogens effects. In fact, hyperthyroidism is known to be able to cause estrogen levels to fall below normal."

- Nutrition For Women

"The idea of physiological compensation is sometimes overlooked in interpreting endocrine interactions, with confusing results. The brain-pituitary system (not just the hypothalamus, since the whole brain and sensory system participates as reflex setter) is probably the main regulatory or compensating system. If estrogen is injected into an animal, the level of thyroid stimulating hormone rises (Brown-Grant, J. Endocr. 35, 263, 1966). This should be taken as a hint that the peripheral effect of estrogen can be compensated for by thyroxin. If thyroid functioning is borderline, it would also suggest that elevated estrogen might be uncompensated peripherally. There are many known examples of metabolic or functional opposition of estrogen and thyroid."

- Nutrition For Women

"Thyroid hormone is necessary for respiration on the cellular level, and makes possible all higher biological functions. Without the metabolic efficiency which is promoted by thyroid hormone, life couldnt get much beyond the single-cell stage. Without adequate thyroid, we become sluggish, clumsy, cold, anemic, and subject to infections, heart disease, headaches, cancer, and many other diseases, and seem to be prematurely aged, because none of our tissues can function normally."

- Nutrition For Women

"Cysteine, an amino acid which is abundant in muscle and liver, happens to block synthesis of the thyroid hormone. When we are starving or under stress, cortisone causes these protein- rich tissues to be consumed. If metabolism continued at a normal rate, stress or hunger would quickly destroy us. The cysteine which is released from muscle, though, inhibits the thyroid, so metabolism is slowed."

- Nutrition For Women

"Cortisone also inhibits the thyroid. Any stress, including heavy exercise, will cause this protective slowing of metabolism. The slow heart beat of runners is largely the result of this adaptive hypothyroidism."

- Nutrition For Women

"When we eat large amounts of muscle meats or liver the high concentration of cysteine suppresses the thyroid. Heart, eggs, skin (gelatin) and milk are more favorable to the thyroid. Other anti-thyroid foods are peanuts, soybeans, raw cabbage, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, unsaturated oils (such as safflower, corn, cottonseed, and soy oils), and an excess of iodine."

- Nutrition For Women

"When a baby is being born, or when a person is experiencing other stress, such as an infection, or when a person gets old, the best known thyroid hormone, thyroxine, is not changed to the more highly active form, T3 (triiodothyronine) in the normal way. In these emergency conditions, reduced oxygen consumption is a useful adaptation,"

- Nutrition For Women

"Many people whose thyroid gland is suppressed by stress cannot respond to synthetic thyroxine, T4, since the same stress can block its conversion to T3. Natural thyroid, USP, is the most generally effective,"

- Nutrition For Women

"Contrary to popular ideas about thyroid, the gland will resume its functioning after stopping the use of a supplement even if it has been suppressed, and sometimes taking thyroid will increase the glands function to normal. Taking thyroid will sometimes help thin people gain weight, by improving protein metabolism, and it often helps people to sleep more soundly."

- Nutrition For Women

"The dopamineserotonin antagonism (e.g., in the control of prolactin secretion) can be modified by progesterone, thyroid, and other factors."

- Nutrition For Women

"Most of the known biochemistry of lithium happens to overlap the actions of progesterone, e.g., aldosterone antagonism. However, while lithium has an anti-thyroid action, progesterone supports secretion of thyroxine, and apparently inhibits the formation of reverse T3, that chemical blocks the action of thyroid hormone."

- Nutrition For Women

"An excessive estrogen/progesterone ratio is more generally involved than either a simple excess of estrogen or a deficiency of progesterone, but even this ratio is conditioned by other factors, including age, diet, other steroids, thyroid, and other hormones."

- Nutrition For Women

"Various nutritional, hormonal, or toxic states interfere with respiration in different ways: for example, vitamin E deficiency, estrogen excess, toxic thyroid, and DNP (the formerly popular cancer-causing reducing drug) cause oxygen to be consumed without producing the normal amount of useful energy. Vitamin B2 or copper deficiency can prevent consumption of oxygen. Cancer (contrary to a tenacious establishment doctrine) involves a respiratory defect, and causes a tendency toward hypoglycemia which is often compensated by the conversion of protein to sugar, leading to the terminal wasting state (cachexia)"

- Nutrition For Women

"Stress inhibits the thyroid, and can lower progesterone (and/or testosterone) while raising estrogen. Recent work by Siiteri and his group shows a hormonal involvement in various autoimmune diseases. Females are much more susceptible to these sicknesses than are males."

- Nutrition For Women

"Strickler found that only 10% of his patients with menopausal symptoms such as flushing, could feel and benefit from estrogen when it was alternated with a placebo. These studies, and a few dozen others, have convinced me that the symptoms of menopause result mainly from a progesterone deficiency, relative to the estrogens. The 10% who really feel better from estrogen possibly have an estrogen deficiency, but this has not been determined, and several other things could account for the lift they feel for example, a healthy thyroid gland will respond to elevated estrogen with an increased output of thyroxin, which at least would make the person feel different, and might raise blood sugar, increase alertness, etc."

- Nutrition For Women

"Besides the nutrients needed to regulate the estrogen level (protein and B vitamins) and nutrients needed by the thyroid (e.g., iodine, manganese, and cobalt), special attention should be given to the anti-stress vitamins which are involved in progesterone synthesis (vitamin A, pantothenic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E) and to the nutrients that are known to be wasted by excess estrogen: folic acid, zinc, and vitamin B6, particularly."

- Nutrition For Women

"High cholesterol usually indicates low thyroid function. When thyroid is low, cholesterol isnt converted efficiently into progesterone. The real cause of heart attacks seems to be hypothyroidism and its effects, including loss of magnesium."

- Nutrition For Women

"There are several dietary practices which will promote the formation of progesterone, but the most effective is to use liver once a week, to use eggs daily, and to avoid foods which inhibit the thyroid, such as raw cabbage and broccoli. Butter contains some progesterone."

- Nutrition For Women

"Meat eaters would normally get 1/4 to 1/2 grain of thyroid in their food every day if the whole animal were used."

- Nutrition For Women

"A diet high in animal protein with other nutrients, including an appropriate amount of desiccated thyroid if refined proteins are used, can cause an immediate im provement in many diseases which are specifically produced by stress"

- Nutrition For Women

"An excess of iodine from bread or kelp is much more likely to interfere with the thyroid when the diet contains a large amount of unsaturated fat, such as safflower or soy oil, because these combine with iodine to form substances which inhibit the thyroid."

- Nutrition For Women

"Hypothyroidism can mimic the neurological problems of MS, but neurologists are generally willing to diagnose a condition as MS without giving thyroid tests."

- Nutrition For Women

"Polyunsaturated oils inhibit the immune system and so probably suppress symptoms. The steroids (e.g., progesterone) and thyroid hormones normalize the immune system when they are present in normal amounts."

- Nutrition For Women

"Unsaturated fatty acids inhibit some immune functions and also inhibit the thyroid gland and directly inhibit cellular respiration."

- Nutrition For Women

"thyroid therapy would be desirable in cancer, especially if there is cachexia. Gerson2 and Tallberg3 have reported good results from using th yroid as part of supportive therapy."

- Nutrition For Women

"The relevant effects of thyroid (especially with progesterone, to promote tissue response to thyroid, and to block cortisone production) however, are stimulation of protein synthesis and the prevention of lactate formation - or the stimula tion of its oxidation, either by the tumor itself or by other tissues, to prevent its entry into the Cori cycle, for gluconeogenesis."

- Nutrition For Women

"Once we accept Warburgs thesis, that damaged respiration is the prime cause of cancer, the therapeutic use of thyroid in cancer seems obvious"

- Nutrition For Women

"Many women with abnormal Pap smears, even with a biopsy showing the so-called carcinoma in situ, have returned to normal in just two months with a diet including the following: 90 grams of protein, 500 mg. of magnesium as the chloride, 100,000 units of vitamin A, 400 units of vitamin E, 5 mg. of folic acid, 100 mg. of pantothenic acid, 100 mg. of B6, 100 mg. of niacinamide, and 500 mg. of vitamin C, with thyroid and progesterone as needed. Liver should be eaten twice a week. Some of the women apply vitamin A directly to the cervix."

- Nutrition For Women

"All of the effects of prolactin excess (including amenorrhea) which respond to an increase of the DOPA/ serotonin ratio can be obtained to some extent by other, more easily available, materials. Vitamin B6 , thyroid, and progesterone all have this action"

- Nutrition For Women

"Since tryptophan promotes formation of serotonin which stimulates release of prolactin, and prolactin activates the formation of sebum (oil) by the skin, large amounts of milk could promote a tendency toward acne, when there is a deficiency of B6, thyroid, progesterone, etc."

- Nutrition For Women

"Fasting and stress suppress the thyroid, and thus can aggravate many symptoms. Thyroid function isnt always restored when the fast ends."

- Nutrition For Women

"Caffeine stimulates the thyroid"

- Nutrition For Women

"If gas is a problem even when change of diet isnt responsible, a thyroid deficiency should be considered. Lack of stomach acid is typical in hypothyroidism, but is only one aspect of a generalized digestive depression."

- Nutrition For Women

"Athletic training is known to slow the pulse. Cortisone, produced by stress, inhibits the thyroid gland. (When the thyroid is low, less oxygen is needed, so this is a useful adaptation for increasing endurance.) These hormonal changes are now known to produce sterility in both men and women"

- Nutrition For Women

"In the 1930s, it was known that thyroid hormone increases the metabolic rate and raises the body temperature. Since serum cholesterol decreased in proportion to the increase of metabolic rate by thyroid supplementation, it was suggested that measuring cholesterol could be used to diagnose hypothyroidism."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When the pure substance thyroxin became available and displaced the use of powdered thyroid gland to treat hypothyroidism, it led to two very important misconceptions that were incorporated deeply into the practice of medicine. It was decided that no more than 5% of the population was deficient in thyroid hormone, and experiments were used to argue that thermogenesis and increased metabolic rate and oxygen consumption weren’t important effects of the hormone, because the liver was the only organ that increased its oxygen consumption when thyroxin was added, and because added thyroxin decreased the brain’s oxygen consumption. The error was in defining thyroxin as the thyroid hormone. The liver is the main organ that converts thyroxin into the active thyroid hormone, triiodothyronine, T3, so it was able to respond metabolically to thyroxin."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The reaction against Broda Barnes’ use of temperature to diagnose hypothyroidism was partly motivated by the belief that a subnormal temperature is protective. This deep belief has probably contributed to the official preference for use of the relatively inactive thyroxin rather than the thermogenically active thyroid, USP, and T3, and to the lack of interest in the association between hypothermia and chronic infections, heart and circulatory problems, kidney disease, chronic inflammatory disease and other problems that increase with aging."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In one study (Alhazmi, et al., 2018), T3 was four and a half times higher in people living at a high altitude, T4 was about three times higher, and TSH (a promoter of inflammation) was reduced by more than 25%. The high altitude studies show very convincingly that a high metabolic rate is strongly associated with greater longevity and better health."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Respiratory and circulatory problems increase with menopause, corresponding to increases in inflammatory cytokines and cortisol, and decreases in progesterone and thyroid hormone. Both thyroid and progesterone are thermogenic, and lower estrogen levels."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The standard treatment for atrial fibrillation is destruction of part of the conduction system of the heart, called ablation, which costs more than $25,000 in the U.S., and results in a very high percentage of heart failure. Correction of the problematic prolonged QT interval with thermogenic agents such as progesterone, thyroid, and aspirin (Korkmaz-Icéz, et al., 2016) isn’t of interest to the profession."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Probably because of aspirin’s anti-fever effect, the medical culture tends to think of it as antithermogenic, despite its known stimulation of mitochondrial oxygen consumption. Like thyroid hormone, aspirin prevents stress-induced loss of sodium, which is an important part of our temperature and energy regulating system."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Nutritional thermogenic factors include sodium, calcium, vitamin D, carbohydrates, especially sugar, and protein, which interact with our endogenous energy regulating factors, especially thyroid and progesterone."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"It’s important to minimize low level stressors and injuries, and to optimize the protective factors, such as light, carbohydrate, thyroid hormone, carbon dioxide, and a sense of a meaningful future."

- November 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When the body’s anabolic hormones, especially the thyroid hormone T3, are decreased, more events become stressful."

- November 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Some of the factors that cause atrophy of the thymus gland include cortisol and other glucocorticoid hormones, estrogen, prostaglandins, polyunsaturated fatty acids, lipid peroxidation, nitric oxide, endotoxin, hypoglycemia, and ionizing radiation. Progesterone and thyroid hormone support restoration of the thymus gland, providing protection by opposing all of those agents of atrophy. An increase of sugar in the diet can correct some of the metabolic changes of aging"

- November 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Memory and attention are impaired by even a slight thyroid deficiency. The Russian paradigm, with its emphasis on energy and inhibition, suggests that thyroid function should be carefully examined in cases of hyperactivity."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"The changes Meersons group has seen in high altitude therapy resemble the changes that occur during supplementation with thyroid and antioxidants. The lower concentration of oxygen in tissues at high elevation would increase the antioxidant reserves of the organism, making it more resistant to stress. Decreasing the use of dietary unsaturated fats similarly protects against oxidative stress."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"Extracts of glands and other tissues have been used for generations to treat nervous diseases (e.g., Filatov, 1945). Thyroid, with or without gonadal extracts, has been widely used to treat nervous and mental disease."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"the most important factors that can be optimized with existing resources. Healthier pregnancies will result in healthier and happier postpartum life. Some of these factors would be sunlight, vitamin D, milk, cheese, eggs, fruits and well cooked vegetables, fibrous foods, and optimizing thyroid function and pregnenolone and progesterone (which support mitochondrial function, protecting against aldosterone, parathyroid hormone, excess serotonin, CRK, and cortisol, besides increasing allopregnanolone), and using the safest antiinflammatory and antiserotonin drugs, such as aspirin and cyproheptadine, when they are needed."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Antiexcitotoxic substances include progesterone, memantine, minocycline, and agmatine. A high ratio of CO2 to lactate, reducing intracellular pH, is important for preventing excessive excitability. Thyroid hormone, besides directly increasing energy and the CO2/lactate ratio, tends to increase the brain’s temperature, and to increase the ratio of progesterone to estrogen."

- May 2018 - Ray Peats Newsletter

"‘When cells are respiring vigorously, all of the oxygen reaching the mitochondria is immediately used, so the oxygen concentration near the respiratory enzymes is close to zero. If something interferes with the mitochondrial oxygen consumption (for example lack of thyroid hormone or the presence of too much polyunsaturated fat, or nitric oxide, or carbon monoxide), the local oxygen concentration increases, because it isn’t being used."

- March 2021 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The oxidative processes that support purposive, creative functioning of the organism, optimize CO2 by inhibiting carbonic anhydrase; this enzyme is inhibited by thyroid hormone T3, progesterone, urea, caffeine, antipsychotic drugs, and aspirin. Agents that tend to cause reversion to the primitive anaerobic energy production activate the enzyme—serotonin, tryptophan, cysteine, histamine, estrogen, aldosterone, HIF, SSRIs, angiotensin, and parathyroid hormone, for example."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Drugs and nutritional supplements frequently contain microparticulate titanium dioxide (a Group 2 carcinogen, according to JARC) and silica, to make attractive tablets. Those things are sometimes even included in encapsulated vitamins and powdered thyroid, to speed filling and reduce static electric charges."

- March 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Since thyroid hormone is needed for oxidative metabolism everywhere in the body, its deficiency makes brain cells slow to relax, delaying the onset of sleep, and can even prevent the deepest restorative sleep. Since all cells are regulated by excitatory and inhibitory processes, hypothyroidism can create a bias toward excitatory states, leading to abnormal secretion and proliferation, for example."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Thyroid hormone, by promoting the oxidation of glucose, and increasing ATP, is extremely important for the ability to achieve and maintain the needed deep sleep."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"hyroxin, T4, helps to reduce the nocturnal level of the proinflammatory thyroid stimulating hormone, TSH, but 5 or 10 mcg of the immediately active T3 at bedtime will usually produce sleep within a few minutes."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Acetazolamide, agmatine, amantadine, aminoguanidine, antibiotics (minocycline, tetracycline, etc.), antihistamines, aspirin, bromocriptine, DCA, emodin, glucagon, glucose, memantine, methylene blue, niacinamide, T3 (triiodothyroinne), vitamin D, vitamin E."

- March 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Diabetes and hypothyroidism are very closely related, since the use of glucose is required for the activation of the thyroid hormone, which is required for the efficient use of glucose."

- July 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When the demands on a healthy organism are very intense or prolonged, stress hormones will block the thyroid action, causing this reductive shift to occur, activating the basic survival processes of cell renewal or reproduction."

- July 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The active thyroid hormone, T3, is destroyed locally by a specific deiodinase, prostaglandins are produced by cyclooxygenase, estrogen by aromatase, and nitric oxide by its synthase. These enzymes are activated by chemical reduction of their disulfide groups, converting them to thiols,"

- July 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Keeping energy efficiency high, while reducing wasteful excitations, has a long history in health optimization. Avoiding excessive polyunsaturated fats and phosphate in the diet, and regularly getting the essential nutrients needed to maintain thyroid and progesterone production, is simple. Choosing foods that contain substances that protect against the many known pro-inflammatory, age-accelerating processes is relatively simple—citrus fruits, for example, contain a great variety of substances related to nobiletin, naringin, fisetin, and quercetin,"

- January 2021 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The active thyroid hormone was observed to almost instantly increase cells’ oxygen consumption, and estrogen as quickly increases cells’ uptake of sugar and water. These changes are far too quick to be the result of communication with the cell nucleus leading to the synthesis of new proteins."

- January 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The reductive balance is an important cell organizing factor, for example governing the conversion of the relatively inactive estrone into the powerful estradiol. (This is where a vicious circle of excitation, fatigue, and degeneration often starts, that requires the intervention of stabilizing substances, such as carbon dioxide, thyroid hormone, sugar, and progesterone.)"

- January 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Since the metabolic rate must be in balance with the availability of fuel, the thyroid hormone, which directly activates the respiratory enzymes, is especially important. Just as it wouldnt be possible for an animal to hibernate in a hyperthyroid state, a basic mechanism for dealing with stress in non-hibernators is to lower the production of thyroid hormone. Nitric oxide blocks the formation of thyroid hormone in response to thyroid stimulating hormone"

- January 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In animals, cholesterol is the basic sterol molecule, which is massively converted into other substances, including the steroid hormones. Thyroid hormone and vitamin A are required for this conversion."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Progesterone also allows the thyroid gland to secrete its hormones, especially when the thyroid function has been inhibited by estrogen"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Measuring the amount of thyroid hormone in the blood isnt a good way to evaluate adequacy of thyroid function, since the response of tissues to the hormone can be suppressed (for example, by unsaturated fats)."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"The thyroid gland secretes about 3 parts of thyroxin to one part of triiodothyronine, and this allows the liver to regulate thyroid function, by converting more of the T4 to the active T3 when there is an abundance of energy. Glucose is essential for the conversion"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"If Cytomel is used, it is efficient to approximate the physiological rate of T3 formation, by nibbling one (10 or 25 mcg.) tablet during the day."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"By the 1930s, it was well established that the resistance of the organism depended on the energy produced by respiration under the influence of the thyroid gland, as well as on the adrenal hormones, and that the hormones of pregnancy (especially progesterone) could substitute for the adrenal hormones"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"In a sense, the thyroid hormone is the basic anti-stress hormone, since it is required for the production of the adrenal and pregnancy hormones."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"The stress which can cause a cortisone deficiency is even more likely to disturb formation of progesterone and thyroid hormone, so the fact that cortisone can relieve symptoms does not mean that it has corrected the problem."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Although cortisone supplementation can help in a great variety of stress-related diseases, no cure will take place unless the basic cause is discovered. Besides the thyroid, the other class of adaptive hormones which are often out of balance in the diseases of stress, is the group of hormones produced mainly by the gonads: the reproductive hormones."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Thyroid and pregnenolone and vitamin E are as important for male fertility as thyroid and progesterone and vitamin E are for female fertility. (For example, supplementary thyroid and pregnenolone can raise a mans sperm count, by overcoming the effects of stress.)"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Many researchers (before the late 1940s) found that about 40% of the people in the U.S. showed evidence of deficient thyroid function (low oxygen consumption and high serum cholesterol), and benefitted from taking a thyroid supplement."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"W. Donner Denckla suggested that there is a death hormone in the pituitary gland, which appears at puberty and initiates the process of aging by suppressing the use of oxygen. He maintained that merely providing thyroid supplement wouldnt protect against it, and that it was a distinct hormone, although it tended to appear in tissue extracts in association with prolactin and growth hormone. Although I think there is still a lot to be learned about the pituitary hormones, I dont think Denckla discovered anything except puberty."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Since the body normally produces about 4 mcg of T3 in an hour, taking 10 or 20 mcg at once is unphysiological."

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"Thyroid tends to lower cholesterol by converting it into pregnenolone and other steroids,"

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"Thyroid is the main regulatory and adaptive substance for respiration."

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"I had some probable melanomas years ago, and I found that progesterone and DHEA and increased thyroid caused them to disappear quickly."

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"In my teens and twenties, I needed about 8000 calories per day when I was physically active, about 4000 to 5000 when I was sedentary, but after I took thyroid, I needed only about half as many calories. Thyroid is the basic regulator of blood glucose, and it causes it to be fully oxidized for energy, so that it produces ATP efficiently, on relatively few calories."

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"The actual level of estrogen rises all through the reproductive years, and at menopause, the reduction in antiestrogenic factors, such as progesterone, thyroid, and DHEA, leads to increased effects of estrogen."

- 2001 - February

"ntiendorphin, antiexcitotoxic, anticholinergic, antiserotonergic, antiprostaglandin, and antiglucocorticoid drugs have been used with good effect in various degenerative nervous diseases, but all the so-called anti drugs are imprecise antagonists, and have many side effects. The natural antagonists and nutrients are usually helpful. Protein, sodium, magnesium, carbon dioxide/bicarbonate, progesterone, thyroid, vitamins, etc., can be curative in many brain diseases,"

- 2001 - February

"There are many antiestrogenic systems ( thyroid, progesterone, testosterone, sulfation, methylation, glucuronidation, antiinflammatory factors, etc.) and the varied, specific nature of the organism’s response to stimulation is probably sufficient to account for the different’ outcomes, such as masculinity or feminity, tumefaction or growth, alertness or mania."

- 2000 - March

"Thyroid hormone, palmitic acid, and light activate a crucial respiratory enzyme, suppressing the formation of lactic acid. Palmitic acid occurs in coconut oil, and is formed naturally in animal tissues. Unsaturated oils have the opposite effect."

- 2000 - July

"Heart failure, shock, and other problems involving excess lactic acid can be treated successfully by poisoning glycolysis with dichloroacetic acid, reducing the production of lactic acid, increasing the oxidation of glucose, and increasing cellular ATP concentration: Thyroid, vitamin B1, biotin, etc., do the same."

- 2000 - July

"Therapeutically, even powerful toxins that block the glycolytic enzymes can improve functions in a varety of organic disturbances associated with (caused by) excessive production of lactic acid. Unfortunately, the toxin that has become standard treatment for lactic acidosis--dichloroacetic acid--is a carcinogen, and eventually produces liver damage and acidosis But several nontoxic therapies can do the same things: Palmitate (formed from sugar under the influence of thyroid hormone, and found in coconut oil), vitamin Bl, biotin, lipoic acid, carbon dioxide, thyroid, naloxone, acetazolamide, for example."

- 2000 - July (1)

"Since I had become a sound sleeper as soon as I began taking thyroid, and had seen that thyroid alone would cure most people’s insomnia (sometimes, as one doctor described his experience, better than morphine) I began to understand that the adrenalin which disturbed sleep was an indicator of defective energy production, and that the things which restored sleep—thyroid, salt, sugar, protein, and progesterone, for example—were acting directly on the cells’ energy production."

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Since elevated adrenalin tends to raise blood pressure, I began explaining the effects of salt and thyroid to friends who were over 80. They found that they slept better, had more regular heartbeats, and didn’t suffer from swollen feet when they ate a normal amount of salt. Jt didn’t cause their blood pressure to rise."

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Low thyroid function involves reduced formation of carbon dioxide, and the body fluids dont retain as much sodium as in normal individuals. Both urine and sweat tend to contain abnormally high sodium concentration in hypothyroidism. Because CQ2 is central to the regulation of pH, and hydrogen ion excretion (acid urine) is one mechanism involved in sodium retention, the CO2 deficiency of hypothyroidism is probably closely connected with the inability to retain adequate sodium."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"Although carbon dioxide probably associates with most of the amino groups in the body, only a few of these reactions have been studied. For example, it is known to bind to insulin, affecting its conformation. I think this is likely to explain some of the effects of the thyroid hormone in diabetes, since thyroid increases the production of carbon dioxide."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 3

"When rats have their thyroid glands removed, they become nearsighted, but if their pituitary glands are removed at the same time, they dont develop myopia. Hypothyroidism ts classically associated with myxedema, in which the tissues become overloaded with the glycoproteins or mucins. Several pituitary hormones are known to stimulate the overproduction of mucins."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 3

"The thyroid hormone is the most important promoter of carbon dioxide formation."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 3

"The safest and most effective interventions will be those which support our basic. organizational fields (sodium, carbon dioxide, balanced proteins, fruits, thyroid, pregnenolone, for example), and dont introduce distortions, as some drugs, foods, hormones, and supplements do."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 2

"Estrogen is produced in fat (Stiterti and MacDonald, 1973, Vermeulen, 1976) which tends to increase with age, when thyroid and progesterone are deficient."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The active thyroid hormone, T3, declines with aging, and this necessarily lowers production of pregnenolone and progesterone."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"By the age of 50, men often show an excess of both prolactin and estrogen, and a deficiency of thyroid and testosterone. This is the age at which enlargement of the prostate often becomes noticeable."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"many of estrogen’s most important actions dont involve the receptors. A direct excitatory action on prostate cells, and indirect actions by way of the pituitary, pancreas, thyroid, adrenal, fatty acids, prostaglandins, histamine and circulation are probably essential parts of the cancenzation process."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Thyroid supplementation, adequate animal protein, trace minerals, and vitamin A are the first things to consider in the prevention of prostate hypertrophy and cancer. Nutritional and endocrine support can be combined with rational anticancer treatments, since there is really no sharp line between different approaches that are aimed at achieving endocrine and immunological balance, without harming anything."

- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Men who have had a diagnosis of scleroderma have told me that with the use of thyroid and magnesium supplements, epsom salts baths, and topical progesterone and vitamin E, their symptoms regressed. I suspect that carbon dioxide produced in mitochondria is the main factor in removing calcium from them."

- 1997 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"thyroid and magnesium are often the factors needed to normalize mitochondria and prevent calcification. In general, fatigued cells take up calcium and lose magnesium."

- 1997 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone, thyroid, bromocriptine, and other things are available to normalize the pituitary, when that ts malfunctioning."

- 1997 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Although I tended to be hypermetabolic, and had been puzzled for years about the co-existence of signs of both hyper- and hypothyroidism, I finally tried taking thyroid. Immediately, I was able to sleep easily and deeply, and my need for food decreased. It was obvious that thyroid was having a quieting effect on my whole metabolism. I slept more efficiently, woke up refreshed, and had abundant energy during the daylight hours, and began looking for chores to do around the house, just for fun. Before taking thyroid, the first thing I did every morning was to drink two or three cups of coffee, but a few days after taking thyroid I noticed I didn’t think about coffee very often, and I drank about 90% less, without feeling any withdrawal symptoms."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Thyroid hormones are essential for providing the energy to keep the brain at a high energy level all the time. If these hormones are deficient, our nerves need stimulants to function normally, and our bodies ordinarily produce large amounts of adrenalin to keep us going. The result is that we gel tired and tense at the same time."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The brain is just like muscle, in having to restore its energy to relax. Many people have noticed that eating a lot of carbohydrate and/or salt makes them sleepy. Both salt and carbohydrate tend to lower adrenalin, and carbohydrate can also increase the activity of thyroid hormone, while restoring energy to the tissues."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In the last 20 years, | have seen almost everyone’s insomnia disappear when they correct their hypothyroidism, sometimes just with dietary changes, but more often with a thyroid supplement. Many times, people have told me that they get to sleep within a few minutes when they take a minimal dose of thyroid at bedtime. By increasing the rate of energy production,"

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When cells dont have enough energy — whether from inadequate fuel, overwork, lack of oxygen, or poisoning they take up water. Too much water tends to excite the cells, and can even stimulate cell division. The hyperaclive state of a muscle cell, cramping, causes energy to be spent. What is too often overlooked is that the cell needs more energy to get back into its resting state, and that an abundance of glucose or other fuel, oxygen, and thyroid are needed for the cell to produce energy fast enough to become quietly relaxed."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"For many years, a few physicians have known about the quieting effects of thyroid, and have prescribed it for hyperactive kids, as well as for lethargic ones, and for otherwise healthy kids with growing pains."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The more unsaturated an oil is, the more strongly it interferes with thyroid secretion, the transport of thyroid hormone in the blood, and the response of the tissue thyroid receptors."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"thyroxine alone can be counter-productive, by competing with the respiration-promoting triiodothyronine, and by suppressing TSH secretion even when T3 is deficient. Similarly, a normal or high level of thyroxine in the blood doesn’t mean that the person isnt hypothyroid, since T3 is the active hormone. Most of our T3 is produced in the liver.)"

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Low thyroid people compensate for the deficiency of energy and glucose (and of oxygen, for reasons similar to those mentioned above) by secreting an excess of adrenalin. Their 24-hour urine metabolites of adrenalin sometimes are 30 or 40 times normal."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"here are several systems that oppose the toxic effects of adrenalin. GABA, dopamine, and adenosine have multiple anti-adrenergic effects. In many situations, the parasympathetic system is protective against adrenalin. The protective steroids also act at many levels. Magnesium, retained in the ce)l largely under the influence of ATP and thyroid, is our basic calcium blocker, or calcium antagonist. GABA and dopamine inhibit the ACTH-glucccorticoid system, and shift the steroid balance toward the protective anti-glucocorticoids, progesterone, testosterone, pregnenolone, and DHEA."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"A complete list of protective nutritional chemicals and natural drugs or analogs to our endogenous protective factors would be very long, but we should give special thought to certain ones, including succinic acid, which stimulates respiration and protective steroid synthesis; thyroid and vitamin E, which promote normal oxidation while preventing abnormal oxidation; magnesium; sodium and lithium, which help us to retain magnesium; tropical fruits, which contain GHB; coconut oil, which protects against cardiac necrosis, lipid peroxidation, hypothyroidism, hypoglycemia, and histamine damage; valium agonists, natural anti-histamines; adenosine and uridine. Visits to higher elevations, and exposure to bright, long-wave light, can cause the body to optimize its own antistress chemistry. Avoiding the sense of being trapped is a high-level adaptive factor."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Antibodies against specific tissues are probably part of a normal process to take care of damaged cells. For example, simply twisting a piece of cartilage makes it antigenic. After talking to many people who had anti-thyroid antibodies which disappeared soon after their thyroids became normal from physiological therapies, |decided that autoimmune~ antibodies were useful to indicate which organ was under stress, but shouldnt be taken as a sign of an immunological disease."

- 1992 - December - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The energy available to the white cells, and the condition of the various tissue cells, govern the processes of phagocytosis, healing, and tissue remodeling. Thyroid hormone and body temperature are important factors governing the activity of white cells."

- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The conditions governing resorption of the tadpole’s tail are probably relevant to how white blood cells function in mammals. Either cold or hypothyroidism tends to suppress or delay the phagocytic activity in the tadpole tail. With an adequate temperature and thyroid hormone, the cells selectively remove the oldest cells first, indicating that they recognize cellular age."

- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"desires reflect needs, though seldom in a fully rational way. The fact that something makes you feel better, and that you feel worse when you stop using it, shouldn’t be taken as evidence of its addictiveness, but many people feel that way about thyroid hormone, coffee, vitamins, and even the most ordinary foods."

- 1991 - June- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"While many people think of thyroid as a kind of stimulant, because it can cure the coma or lethargy of myxedema, this is a very misleading idea. In hypothyroidism, the brain exciting hormones adrenalin, estrogen, and cortisol are usually elevated, and the nerve-muscle relaxant magnesium is low. Normal, deep sleep is rare in a hypothyroid person. The correct dose of trilodothyronine (the active thyroid hormone) with magnesium is a reliable treatment for insomnia, cramps, and anxiety, whether these symptoms are caused by fatigue, or aging, or alcohol withdrawal."

- 1991 - June- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Camphor, adamantanamine (amantadine, Symmetrel), and local anesthetics taken systemically, can help in withdrawal from stimulants. The conventional (200 mg.) dose of camphor and adamantanamine shouldn’t be exceeded. (The hormones thyroid, progesterone and pregnenolone alone are sometimes enough.)"

- 1991 - June- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The protective hormones can be used directly, or their synthesis can be promoted by using succinic acid, thyroid, vitamin A, and the atropine type drugs, and maintaining adequate cholesterol"

- 1991 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The existence of a few systems of positive feedback (self stimulation), however, indicates that in our fundamental structure we are biased in an expansive, upward direction. Progesterone (and its precursors, pregnenolone and cholesterol) and thyroid hormones participate in some of the important positive feedback systems, involving energy production, stress resistance, and brain growth."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"I think some of the beneficial effects of caffeine result from its stimulation of the thyroid gland, and of normal respiration. While it stimulates normal respiration it has an anti-inflammatory action, which probably involves both prostaglandin regulation and an antioxidant action. It is chemically very similar to our natural antioxidant, uric acid, and it raises the level of uric acid in both the blood"

- 1990 - May - - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"in normal people a totally suppressed thyroid function takes only two or three days to return to normal when the suppressive treatment is stopped."

- 1990 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In a small percentage of hypothyroid people, treatment for a short time with thyroid supplementation can stimulate recovery of normal thyroid function, by activating the brain-pituitary system, raising blood sugar which activates the liver enzyme system that producesT3,and by lowering the anti-thyroid stress  hormones."

- 1990 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Estrogen-induced thyroid hypofunction can be compensated to some degree by various hormonal adjustments; elevated secretion of adrenalin and cortisol are common. When the compensation is inadequate, there will often be hypoglycemia and a tendency to form too much histamine. Too much adrenalin will cause cold hands and feet, too little will cause orthostatic hypotension (blacking out when you stand up too quickly) and bowel spasms,"

- 1990 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"good results with their allergy patients when they gave them supplements of vitamin A, pantothenic acid, and vitemin C. Later, thyroid extract or triiodothyronine and magnesium were added to the other supplements for patients who had problems more serious then ordinary allergies."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"We found that many people with acne, bladder or kidney infections, periodontitis and sinusitis seemed to be deficient in both thyroid and vitamin A even when they were taking supplements"

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"If thyroid and vitamin A can’t be used efficiently to form steroids, a steroid imbalance is likely."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The possibility of Vitamin A toxicity is reduced by using the thyroid hormones and vitamin E."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Vitamin A, thyroid, progesterone, and the related steroid, dehydroepiandrosterone, all oppose estrogen, which has several immunosuppressive effects, including a cortisol-like thymic atrophy, hypoactivity of T cells, and reduced production of gamma-interferon and interleukin-2, reduced natural killer cell activity, and it probably has a role in the development of some auto-immune diseases."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Two young women, who were diagnosed as having allergies and supposedly autoimmune pituitary hormone deficiency, and who each weighed around 70 pounds and was considered to be terminal (though they both ate normal amounts of food), recovered quickly with a thyroid supplement and a diet emphasizing eggs and fruit."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Thyroid function is essential to all cell processes, including protein assimilation and synthesis, formation of growth hormone, etc. Without thyroid hormone to sustain respiration, inefficient glycolysis wastes energy; unoxidized lactate provokes catabolism of liver protein. Hypoglycemia stimulates secretion of glucocorticoids, which maintain blood sugar at the expense of rapid catabolism of protein."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Triiodothyronine is often the essential factor in reversing a cachectic state. Although optimal thyroid functien can increase the metabolic rate, it is not catabolic because it maximizes bioenergetic efficiency."

- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"An acquaintance who died recently after several months of eating large amounts of linseed ol told me that it had been used by bot. W.F. Koch, M.D. and Max Gerson, M.D. I knew this wasnt true: For example, Gerson’s program evolved from a diet for migraine and tuberculosis into a cancer therapy, and involved the use of thyroid extract, liver, fresh juices, and a little butter, but over and over he said absolutely no oil."

- 1989 - February.March - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Research showing the toxic effects of unsaturated oils goes back more than 60 years. A 1985 article published in my newsletter cites some of the key references. These substances inhibit many enzymes (e.g., in digestion, in immunity, in clot removal, in thyroid function), they disrupt mitochondrial energy production, and they interfere with communication between cells. We hear very little about these toxic effects, and there is not much money available for more research in these areas."

- 1989 - February.March - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"While the thyroid hormone promotes the elimination of estrogen, it happens to be essential for the production of progesterone. Vitamin A (with cholesterol) is consumed at a high rate by the corpus luteum, when there is adequate thyroid hormone."

- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Both vitamin A and carotene, like any unsaturated oil, will tend to inhibit the thyroid, so it is important to balance supplements of vitamin A and thyroid; a sluggish thyroid will more easily be suppressed by large doses of vitamin A, but a high level of thyroid activity causes vitamin A to be used more quickly. It is an interesting expression of this biological relationship that one blood protein carries both vitamin A and thyroid hormone."

- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Epilepsy is an example of a very low energy state of brain cells. insomnia is a low energy state, and is usually cured by the right dose of thyroid hormone, with adequate glucose and other nutrients."

- 1986 - February