Misinformation and confusion seem to be the rule concerning HCG-thyroid conditions. This stems from outdated notions about the link between overweight and thyroid deficiency. Dr. Simeons had already cleared up this confusion more than 50 years ago. Here is what he said and what it means for the HCG diet.
Regarding the Thyroid Gland
Quotes from Pounds and Inches (1954):
When it was discovered that the thyroid gland controls the rate at which body fuel is consumed, it was thought that by administering thyroid gland to obese patients their abnormal fat deposits could be burned up more rapidly. This too proved to be entirely disappointing, because as we now know, these abnormal deposits take no part in the body’s energy turnover – they are inaccessibly locked away. Thyroid medication merely forces the body to consume its normal fat reserves, which are already depleted in obese patients, and then to break down structurally essential fat without touching the abnormal deposits. In this way a patient may be brought to the brink of starvation in spite of having a hundred pounds of fat to spare. Thus any weight loss brought about by thyroid medication is always at the expense of fat of which the body is in dire need.
While the majority of obese patients have a perfectly normal thyroid gland and some even have an overactive thyroid, one also occasionally sees a case with a real thyroid deficiency. In such cases, treatment with thyroid brings about a small loss of weight, but this is not due to the loss of any abnormal fat. It is entirely the result of the elimination of a mucoid substance, called myxedema, which the body accumulates when there is a marked primary thyroid deficiency. Moreover, patients suffering only from a severe lack of thyroid hormone never become obese in the true sense. Possibly also the observation that normal persons – though not the obese – lose weight rapidly when their thyroid becomes overactive may have contributed to the false notion that thyroid deficiency and obesity are connected. Much misunderstanding about the supposed role of the thyroid gland in obesity is still met with, and it is now really high time that thyroid preparations be once and for all struck off the list of remedies for obesity. This is particularly so because giving thyroid gland to an obese patient whose thyroid is either normal or overactive, besides being useless, is decidedly dangerous.
AND
When a patient first presents himself for treatment, we take a general history and note the time when the first signs of overweight were observed. We try to establish the highest weight the patient has ever had in his life (obviously excluding pregnancy), when this was and what measures have hitherto been taken in an effort to reduce. It has been our experience that those patients who have been taking thyroid preparations for long periods have a slightly lower average loss of weight under treatment with HCG than those who have never taken thyroid. This is even so in those patients who have been taking thyroid because they had an abnormally low basal metabolic rate. In many of these cases the low BMR is not due to any intrinsic deficiency of the thyroid gland, but rather to a lack of diencephalic stimulation of the thyroid gland via the anterior pituitary lobe. We never allow thyroid to be taken during treatment, and yet a BMR which was very low before treatment is usually found to be normal after a week or two of HCG plus diet. Needless to say, this does not apply to those cases in which a thyroid deficiency has been produced by the surgical removal of a part of an overactive gland.
Low Thyroid Weight Gain
Dr. Simeons mentioned the technical term, myxedema, to explain weight gain associated with low thyroid. The technical details on myxyderma are as follows:
Edited from Dorland’s Medical Dictionary for Healthcare Consumers
Myxedema – a condition resulting from advanced hypothyroidism, or deficiency of thyroxine; it is the adult form of the disease whose congenital form is known as cretinism. It may be caused by lack of iodine in the diet; by atrophy, surgical removal, or a disorder of the thyroid gland; by destruction of the gland by radioactive iodine; or by deficient excretion of thyrotropin by the pituitary gland. It is marked primarily by a growing puffiness of the skin, nonpitting edema, abnormal deposits of mucin in the skin, and distinctive facial changes such as swollen lips and a thickened nose.
Edited from Wikipedia
Myxedema describes a specific form of cutaneous and dermal edema secondary to increased deposition of connective tissue components (like glycosaminoglycans, hyaluronic acid, and other mucopolysaccharides) in subcutaneous tissue as seen in various forms of hypothyroidism and Graves’ disease.
What All This Means
The recommendations by Dr. Simeons are very clear. Weight gain from low thyroid is due to excessive fluid from edema (swelling) caused by deposition of connective tissue components (i.e., mucin). The accumulation of excessive abnormal fat and low thyroid are not linked. Those who have been taking thyroid preparations for a long time generally respond less well to the HCG diet protocol. So-called thyroid conditions often clear up while on this diet.
I hope this all was not too technical. So many people keep asking the same questions over and over about HCG thyroid conditions, that I felt this post would be of help. It seems to me that, in spite of the fact that little has changed over the past 50 years regarding our understanding of fat gain and thyroid conditions, confusion about it just won’t go away.
With an HCG thyroid update,
Dr. D