Also see:
The Thyroid and Atherosclerotic Arterial Disease
Hypothyroidism Causes Shrinking of the Thymus Gland
Thyroid Status and Cardiovascular Disease
High Cholesterol and Metabolism
The Truth about Low Cholesterol
Inflammatory TSH
“Normal” TSH: Marker for Increased Risk of Fatal Coronary Heart Disease
The Cholesterol and Thyroid Connection
High Blood Pressure and Hypothyroidism
A Cure for Heart Disease
Low Blood Cholesterol Compromises Immune Function
“Broda Barnes, more than 60 years ago, summed up the major effects of hypothyroidism on health very neatly when he pointed out that if hypothyroid people don’t die young from infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, they die a little later from cancer or heart disease.” -Ray Peat, PhD
“A high level of serum cholesterol is practically diagnostic of hypothyroidism, and can be seen as an adaptive attempt to maintain adequate production of the protective steroids. Broda Barnes’ work clearly showed that hypothyroid populations are susceptible to infections, heart disease, and cancer.” -Ray Peat, PhD
“One of my recurring objects of thought has been the slowness with which raw knowledge is assimilated. For example, I have been thinking about Broda Barnes’s work on the prevention of heart disease with thyroid extract. He did solve much of ‘the riddle of heart attacks,’ but recent statements by the Heart Association show that the dominant forces in the health business haven’t learned anything at all from his work, which he began 50 years ago. His work is clearly presented, not hard to understand, and it is scientifically so sound that no one challenges it, at least not on the scientific level. It is ignored, rejected by people who choose not to be bothered to read it. How many people have died from heart disease, since his work first became available? (And how many more from cancer, tuberculosis, and other diseases he showed occur mainly among hypothyroid people?)” -Ray Peat, PhD
“Barnes, and Barnes point out that the tremendous rise in heart attacks in the 20th century has been due to survival of hypothyroid patiens who formerly who have died at an early age from one of the infectious diseases.” -Barnes and Barnes in “Hope for Hypoglycemia”
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Prior to the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, individuals with a low metabolic rate would die of a variety of infections, including tuberculosis, because thyroid deficiency results in increased susceptibility to infection as Broda Barnes’ work discusses. The introduction of antibiotics began saving the lives of those with a low metabolic rate.
These individuals that no longer die due to infection are now prone to getting other complications from a slowed metabolism like diabetes, heart attacks, stroke, cancer, and other chronic degenerative conditions that pervade modern life. The work of thyroid expert Broda Barnes, MD, PhD makes this point very clear.
After several years of analyzing 70,000 autopsies from the town of Graz, Austria where autopsy of all who died was mandated by law, Dr. Barnes discovered that prior to 1945 when antibiotics were introduced people dying of tuberculosis had stage four atherosclerosis in their coronary arteries. After the introduction of antibiotics which prevented these deaths, deaths from heart attacks increased significantly from one in 125 deaths to one in 14 deaths.
Barnes also found that those who died from a heart attack had evidence that they had had tuberculosis in their lungs. Hypothyroidism, in Barnes’ opinion, was the cause of both conditions. Barnes’ medical practice points to hypothyroidism’s role in the other major killers these days – stroke, diabetes, and cancer.
There has been a marked shift in death from infectious disease to death from chronic degenerative diseases as result of the introduction of antibiotics. The same underlying issue that killed people from infection (low metabolism) prior to 1940 is now killing people later in life from degenerative diseases. Supporting the health of the thyroid and metabolism is at the forefront of maintaining optimal health.
Another important note is that Dr. Mark Starr indicates that the intervention by antibiotics in the “survival of the fittest” began the perpetuation of a population that is progressively more and more hypothyroid and susceptible to disease. The passing down of dysfunctional energy producing DNA may be playing a role in health and disease in today’s population.
Resources:
Barnes BO, Ratzenhofer M, Gisi R. The role of natural consequences in the changing death patterns. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1974 Apr;22(4):176-9.
Broda Barnes, MD and Lawrence Galton, “Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness”
“The Thyroid and Atherosclerotic Heart Disease”, Menof 1973
