Dr. Mark Hyman

And then they don't look at the whole picture.

They don't tell the whole story.

You want to look at the actual thyroid hormones because TSH is just checking your brain and seeing if it's making the stimulant for your thyroid, the thyroid stimulating hormone.

But the T3...

If you have low T3, that's the active hormone that actually does the work in the body.

Maybe low because there's a conversion problem from T3 to 4.

And that can be for a lot of reasons like selenium deficiency or mercury poisoning or yeast overgrowth or toxins.

A lot of things can affect it.

And you also have a high reverse T3, which again is another test we do.

which is kind of like a break on your thyroid that can happen from chronic disease.

So you might have normal-looking thyroids, but your reverse T3 is high and your basic thyroid is not working.

You can also have thyroid antibodies.

A lot of people have thyroid antibodies, which we check, and 13% of function members have elevated thyroid antibodies.

And I bet you a lot of those people are not treated

There are incidental findings that they didn't know they had that are causing subtle symptoms.

It could be, oh, my hair's a little dry or my nails are cracking or my skin's dry or a little fluid retention or a little depressed or my cholesterol's a little high or I'm a little constipated or my sex drive's a little low or very, very like subtle symptoms of thyroid dysfunction or I'm not sleeping.

And you might have an autoimmune thyroid condition that's not even actually showing up on the other test.

And so your TSH could look normal, but you're basically low thyroid function.

So you might feel these symptoms, right?

Brain fog, fatigue, weight gain, constipation, depression, but you're told that, you know, it's normal and maybe it's in your head.