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What does the thyroid have to say about our health? Dr. Amanda Frick, Thorne’s Vice President of Medical Affairs, returns to the podcast to share her Thyroid Test results and helps host Dr. Robert Rountree understand what his own thyroid biomarkers mean.
During this episode you’ll learn about:
Resources to topics mentioned in this episode:
Products mentioned in this episode: Thyroid Test; Selenium; EPA, DHA, and Omega-3 Fatty Acids; Basic Nutrients 2/Day
Subscribe to More Content
Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. You can also learn more about the topics in the episode by checking out the latest news, videos, and stories on Thorne’s Take 5 Daily blog.
During this episode you’ll learn about:
Resources to topics mentioned in this episode:
Products mentioned in this episode: Thyroid Test; Selenium; EPA, DHA, and Omega-3 Fatty Acids; Basic Nutrients 2/Day
Subscribe to More Content
Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. You can also learn more about the topics in the episode by checking out the latest news, videos, and stories on Thorne’s Take 5 Daily blog.
Dr. Robert Rountree INTRO
This is the Thorne Podcast, the show that navigates the complex world of wellness and explores the latest science behind diet supplements and lifestyle approaches to good health. I'm Dr. Robert Roundtree, Chief Medical Advisor at Thorne and Functional Medicine Doctor. As a reminder, the recommendations made in this podcast are the recommendations of the individuals who express them and not the recommendations of Thorne. Statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Thorne Podcast. This week we're going to be shedding some light on the ins and outs of Thorne's Thyroid At-Home Test Kit and to help you follow along, in addition to our regular audio episode, we're also releasing the video from this recording as well, so be sure to check that out on Thorne.com or on our YouTube page so you can follow along as we go over the results and see all of the graphs and charts. Joining me once again to talk about the thyroid test is my friend and colleague, Thorne's Vice President of Medical Affairs, Dr. Amanda Frick. Welcome back, Amanda. How are you?
Dr. Amanda Frick
Hey, Bob. I'm well. How are you?
Dr. Robert Rountree
I'm pretty good. So, Amanda, you and I have both taken this thyroid test from Thorne. We're going to walk our listeners through the results in a bit. But first of all, why would anyone want to take this test? Maybe it's not as obvious as the Sleep Test or the Gut Test. What are the indications for doing the tests?
Dr. Amanda Frick
That part is tricky because you could have, you know, thyroid issues can manifest from so many different things. But I think commonly people would start thinking about thyroid health if they have some fatigue, maybe dry skin, dry hair, brittle nails, some energy issues, some people may experience weight gain, although, you know, I think that falsely gets attributed to thyroid health more than it should. But I think those are some of the things I probably fatigue would be my number one thought.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Absolutely. Yeah. And I do see a lot of people who have mysterious fatigue that seems to come on for no reason. There's no obvious cause. In fact, I just saw somebody like this very recently who said, Well, I have really, really severe fatigue and it just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm in good shape, etc. And and I immediately thought thyroid and low and behold is thyroid tests were abnormal. So, I mean, that was great. And I can tell you his I hate to say this, but his mainstream doctor totally missed it.
Dr. Amanda Frick
How do you not… How do you miss that? Sorry.
Dr. Robert Rountree
But a lot of doctors just don't. It's thyroid is is not on their their mind. You know, they would think, okay, well, let's look for anemia or fatigue. Let's look for anemia. Let's look for major disease, liver disease, kidney disease, something more serious. But especially in men, I would say docs don't tend to think of the thyroid as something happening in men.
Dr. Amanda Frick
I mean, hate to celebrate a finding, but the good news is now you have so many options for your patient.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Well, I got to say, when that happens, I think I love this because it's actually something I can treat. And I know it's going to make a difference because, you know, a lot of things we see in medicine, you know, your response is going to be more subtle. It may take longer, but thyroid, you can say this is what you're going to experience.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, it's really easy. A plus B is definitely going to help C, that's for sure.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Great. So I guess one of the points that we're making here is that you can't always rely on your family doctor to immediately think thyroid. And for that reason, it's nice to have another option if you believe that you might have a thyroid problem and that's being neglected by your regular doctor because this is something you can do yourself.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Well, that's a bonus. But I think that the other thing is, you know, even if your doctor does run thyroid, they if you're lucky, they maybe run three different measures. But a lot of doctors are only going to run a TSH. Right. So they're only checking that one thing. You're just getting so much more data from the home test and you can do it yourself. So I feel like there's two pluses there.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Yeah, there's a lot rolled into the thyroid tests. We'll actually show people all the different markers that are involved. But I would say if you do this through a regular lab, it actually ends up being fairly expensive to get all the markers that are rolled into this test. So it's actually a pretty good deal.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, I think it is. And it doesn't take vials of blood. It takes drops of blood.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Yeah, a few drops of blood. So, Amanda, why don't you tell us what the experience was like of the test? I mean, even starting from the unboxing, right? I know they do that with a lot of other tech products. So what was it like from unboxing to your experience of performing the test at home?
Dr. Amanda Frick
I have a I get to be biased because I've seen so many of these before, but even even with my bias, I love this test kit. I think it's so well put together. It looks really nice. Got a plastic box. It's very easy to find what you need in there, right? So there's a couple of lancets which are the the little devices that cause a poke for your finger so you can draw the blood and a little blood spot card that has kind of black circles in it, which you used to say like color inside the lines when we would, when we would talk to our patients about doing them. But everything you need is there as well as gloves, gauze, Band-Aid. And it's packaged in a nice little plastic clamshell box and it's easy to put everything back into. So that part is really nice.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Along with a little instruction book, I might add. Yeah, yeah, that's a good part and I definitely recommend reading the instructions several times so you don't end up sitting there with blood dripping off your hands going, What do I do here? Like, you know, if you're ready for the sequence, then it's no big deal.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, there are some important parts in that booklet too that talk about if you're taking a thyroid medication or if you're taking other hormones and how you should plan taking the test. So that's also really important to read through ahead of time.
Dr. Robert Rountree
And I have had people who are on thyroid medicine do the tests and forget to hold their medicine that morning so it can skew the results if you just took your thyroid medicine an hour beforehand. Yeah. So that is something to keep in mind. The other thing that I urge people to do is keep their hands warm, you know, especially if you live in a cold climate, that's not a big an issue this time of year in this part of the hemisphere. But if you live in a cold climate and your hands are constricted from the cold, it might make it a little harder to draw blood. There are some tricks you can do to make sure there's plenty of blood flow in your fingertips, like holding your hands under cold water or under a warm blanket or something like that. For people that have trouble getting blood.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, I used to tell my patients that they could stand up and sort of move their arms around and get blood flowing. And then it's it's harder when you're sitting. So if you stand up and then the the card is on a table sort of below your heart level, then you can stand up and squeeze down and then it kind of gets less messy too otherwise it tends to sort of run on your finger a little, but I think that's another good one. Just do it standing up and then you can really easily angle it down your fingertip onto the card.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Terrific. So any other tips or tricks that people should know about?
Dr. Amanda Frick
I don't think so. I think you covered it like warming up your hands. You can massage the finger, sort of like help help the blood flow get to the end of your finger. I tend to do that before I use The Lancet. So it's already sort of there. You can see the color change before you do The Lancet, because sometimes the most uncomfortable part is just squeezing to get, to get the blood spots out.
Dr. Amanda Frick
It's not the finger poke, it's the squeeze.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Yeah. Okay. So if your hands are a little bit red already, that means there's good blood flow and you shouldn't really have any problem filling up all the circles on the on the square.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah. Sometimes it takes a second to get started. I think people panic when the first one comes out a little slow. So if the first circle isn't quite full or seems like there's not enough there, it's okay. Just move on to the next one. They'll get better as you go.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Okay? And even people that are squeamish getting blood drawn, I found this is not a big deal. It's actually a little bit easier than going in to a formal phlebotomy center, you know, and having somebody stick a needle in you, especially if they miss. Yeah, yeah, it happens very often. Yeah. Very not fun. All right. Well, we need to take a short break now. When we come back, we're going to show you our test results and we're going to walk you through what they mean, exactly what we're looking at. So for those of you who are listening on audio, only the next part is where we're switching to the video option on YouTube or on our website. So it would be beneficial if you can actually tune in to that and you can find the links to do so in the show notes.
AD READ Healthy Aging
I would absolutely recommend Thorne products to friends and family. I've always struggled with energy levels pretty much my entire life. I've just noticed a huge difference with Thorn Products, especially taking the melatonin and five HTP. I feel like I have more energy. I definitely get better sleep life is short, so I want to be able to have the energy and the focus to go out and tackle the goals that I have and do all the things that I love.
Dr. Robert Rountree
And we're back. So we're going to start with my results. And this is what you see when you log in. You'll see your name. And then on the left menu, test results. And then I click on the one for thyroid, the panel analysis. And this is what the markers look like. So what we see is my TSH, which is thyroid stimulating hormone. And just a quick overview for those of you who don't quite understand how the thyroid thing works, your pituitary gland makes thyroid stimulating hormone that travels a short distance to the thyroid gland and it activates the gland to make a hormone called T4 levothyroxine. And then levothyroxine is released into the bloodstream. It's converted by an enzyme that takes out one of the iodine. So T4 means that it's got four iodines on it and an enzyme called iodenase removes one of the iodines and converts it into the active form, T3. We really want to know all of these markers. We want to know TSH, free T4 and free T3. And that might seem like an obvious thing, but it's it's actually not that obvious. A lot of doctors will only measure TSH, and maybe I'll I'll get Amanda to talk a little bit about why that is not adequate, because I know you've you've worked with a lot of patients that have this problem, but we want the overview. We want to see all of the above. We want to know how the gland is working and making T4 and we want to know how active that enzyme is and converting the T4 into T3. So in my case, everything looks good. My TSH is right in the middle at 2.2, my T4 right in the middle at 1.4 nanograms in my T3 at 3.7 Picograms and notice Picograms is a much smaller quantity. So it's actually a much tinier amount. That's the active hormone at that T3. That's what's working in the brain. That's really a significant part of a thyroid function. If a person's thyroid function is low is suboptimal, then they can feel depressed. And so that's why we want to know that because maybe their energies okay, but their mood isn't great. So looking at all these markers is important. We also want to know if the body is making antibodies against an enzyme called thyro-peroxidase, which is an enzyme that's active in the thyroid gland. And if we're making antibodies against it, actually, it's one of the first signs of autoimmune disease, not just thyroid autoimmune disease, but all kinds of autoimmune diseases. Hence the value of looking at TPO antibodies and get a lot of mainstream doctors don't do this as a routine. I, I routinely order it and I think it should be part of the routine. But that's why we include that as part of the overall profile. So, Amanda, any comments about why we want to do more than just measure to say, why did I even think that that's a valuable thing?
Dr. Amanda Frick
That part I can't answer for you.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Why are they stuck on that? I don't know.
Dr. Amanda Frick
I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of obvious.
Dr. Robert Rountree
You want to do more, right?
Dr. Amanda Frick
Like always, always do more. That's what I was going to say. I think there is some kind of mentality of less is more somehow or a lot of things, I understand cost sensitivity. I think at one point maybe there was insurance sensitivity about what would be covered, but I don't think that that's so much an issue anymore. One thing I wanted to talk about because I felt like I had this conversation a lot with patients is not understanding what it means, you know, hypos I right versus hypothyroid and TSH High versus TSH low. So what I would always say, because I think it helped get it through, is like TSH is like the volume knob and then T4 is what's coming out of the speakers and then T3 is what you're doing with the music. But if your tag is going up, your brain is trying to turn the volume up on your thyroid. So when thyroid function is low, your brain's asking for more activity and so it's turning up the volume on TSH. So high TSH indicates low thyroid function and that's your brain giving the message that it wants more. And then of course, the opposite is true. So if your thyroid is over functioning, your brain is going to try to turn the volume down and tell the thyroid to slow down because too much is going on. And so that makes TSH lower. So low TSH is hyper thyroid or too much thyroid function. But yeah, I think that's why it's important to look at all of them. And like you said, with the antibodies, you want to look at that first, you could be seeing an antibody change before it's affecting TSH. So you're almost getting a sneak peak from that perspective. And then if something is wrong, there's a lot of reasons why thyroid could be not functioning properly, but an antibody problem is a totally different approach than maybe a nutrient problem or some other underlying issue. So why not have all of the information that you could need to to sort of move forward to fix what the problems are?
Dr. Robert Rountree
Just to tack on to that, there are a lot of studies out suggesting that if a person's TSH is slightly high, but maybe under ten, that maybe you don't need to treat it. I don't really agree with that because I've seen people whose TSH was six right, just very slightly elevated and they clearly benefited from hormone supplementation. So it really depends on the individual. And part of what helps you individualize that is if the antibodies are high. So if their TSH is up and the antibodies are high, that tells you there's something going on with this person's immune system. Right. And it makes you more likely to to see a benefit from treatment. If you can confirm that it's autoimmune thyroiditis as opposed to perhaps a transient increase in TSH.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, I agree. I also think that I had a tendency to take in the the subjective information from my patients, which it sounds like you do too. I wouldn't. I think a lot of doctors are like, ah your TSH is fine. You don't need any help and I would look at and be like, Well, that's probably not the case. Let's let's see what we can do here. So, you know, we all take a different view on it. But I would have I would have wanted a TSH lower than five then, particularly if I was treating, I'm aiming for a lot lower than five. So especially if they just don't feel well, there's some mainstream there are some in mainstream chat lately about it doesn't matter, you know, what your patient says. If it if the labs say this, that's what you have to do and that's.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Not what your patient says.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Exactly.
Dr. Robert Rountree
That is the opposite of personalized medicine. That's like crazy.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Let’s not do that. Yeah, but that's another beautiful thing about when you're doing it with Thorne, right? So you're filling out your health profile and you're putting in what that information is and you're adding that subjective information or the things that are bothering you. It's not just the data, it's also that part too.
Dr. Robert Rountree
So, Amanda, let's take a look at your thyroid markers and and tell us a little bit about what you were expecting to see. Were you expecting to see anything abnormal And and what did we find?
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, I wasn't expecting to see anything abnormal. I had my I had these all dynamic physical not that long ago. And I have a really great doctor who runs all the things that I want to run.
Dr. Robert Rountree
You’ve done this before
Dr. Amanda Frick
I’ve done this before. I'm an old pro, so yeah, mine looks really similar to yours. My TSH is 1.3, which is even optimal for my being fussy preference of what a TSH should look like. T3 at 3.1, T4 at 1.5 and my TPO antibodies are ten which is considered low at less than 150. So I'm happy with this. I wasn't expecting it to be anything significant, but still happy to see it nonetheless.
Dr. Robert Rountree
How often do you see people who weren't that suspicious of their thyroid? But lo and behold, you do the test and it's off. Does that ever happen to you?
Dr. Amanda Frick
It's happened, but not very often. It was more often the opposite. Someone would be really convinced something was off with their thyroid and if it was something else and the thyroid is normal, it was a a lot of convincing them that we should be looking at other things like a stress test, which maybe we'll talk about.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Which we'll talk about some other point. Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think it happened. It happens sometimes, but not very not very often. Usually. I think when some thyroid is off, people can feel something or they're going to notice something. Not always them, but usually.
Dr. Robert Rountree
So it has reassurance value. I think if somebody is saying, Oh, I read a book about thyroid and it sure sounds like I've got it.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, reassurance or we need to keep digging. And it isn't that simple though. Or there are some maybe there's lifestyle things that have to change too. So, you know, ruling out the obvious things like you said, so easy to fix and you know, you can fix it makes it a little harder when it isn't thyroid, but good thing to check the box.
Dr. Robert Rountree
I will say, though, I do see people whose markers, their hormones are all fine. The TSH, T4, T3 are all fine, but their antibodies are up. And that to me is is a good early warning system that says that something is off. Again, if you read some of the mainstream articles on that, it will say nothing to worry about. Don't even pay attention to it. You should ignore it will know that means there's been a loss of tolerance. It means that the immune system is doing something it shouldn't be doing. And there's some pretty good published studies not just one study, but several, showing that if you supplement people whose elevated thyroid peroxidase antibodies, you know, show up on this test, if you give them selenium in particular, and maybe EPA and DHEA omega three fatty acids, then you can actually bring those antibodies down. So it can be quite gratifying.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah. I mean, the other thing I think that makes sense that we forget is if I saw a patient that had antibodies I would maybe treat with different options compared to what I had in my office or I found that some patients with antibodies did not respond well to some sort of treatment options, like glandulars or certain types of thyroid hormone replacement because of the antibody. So I would sort of guide what my options were as far as treatment by having that information.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Great. I'm just curious, what kind of recommendations did you get? You had normal levels, but were there any recommendations?
Dr. Amanda Frick
I did. I got some basic recommendations. So I get a little congratulations that my tests are healthy, normal thyroid function and my recommendations for diet were follow a Mediterranean diet. So that's a standard healthy anti-inflammatory diet. We know it's good for so many things and to hydrate, which is also a fair recommendation for just about everyone. But I feel like they're spying on me because I don't do very well on that. So that was fair.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Like they knew something about you.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah. And and having a balanced exercise routine. Mine says start a balanced exercise routine. So it didn't like what I had reported I was currently doing for an exercise routine at the time that this test was collected. And then my product recommendation, I think is for basic support, because my thyroid labs were normal, I got a recommendation for basic nutrients two a day, which is a daily multi vitamin.
Dr. Robert Rountree
In other words, your results were normal. Let's keep it that way. And here are some things that we can do.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yes, exactly. I'm not off the hook. I still got to keep up on it.
Dr. Robert Rountree
All right. So just to restate what you said earlier, there's a reassurance value in doing this test. Even though everything came back normal, it was still helpful for you to look at that and go, okay, I'm doing the right thing. I'm on track. And I can relax a little bit.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Exactly. Or if I had concerns about my energy or other reasons to take the test, it would help me to know I need to keep digging and look further. It doesn't mean give up. It means this is not this is not the droid you're looking for , you’re looking for something else.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Great. All right, folks, that's all the time we have this week. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Once again, as always, if you bad and if people want to follow you, if they want to know what you're up to or you know what your work is with Thorne, what's the best way for them to stay caught up?
Dr. Amanda Frick
Probably my LinkedIn profile and there will be a Medium blog that has a little bit more about medical affairs and how that works at Thorne. And you can find that at our at our Medium blog site.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Terrific. Excellent. So that was Stan's VP of Medical Affairs, Dr. Amanda Frick, speaking about Thorne's thyroid tests. As always, thank you all for listening. If you like what you've heard, tell a friend about our show or drop us a line on Instagram. We'd love to hear your feedback. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time. Bye bye.
Dr. Robert Rountree OUTRO
Thanks for listening to The Thorne Podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app of choice. If you've got a health or wellness question you'd like answered, simply follow our Instagram and shoot a message to @ThorneHealth. You can also learn more about the topics we discussed by visiting Thorne.com and checking out the latest news videos and stories on Thorne's Take Five Daily blog. Once again, thanks for tuning in and don't forget to join us next time for another episode of The Thorne Podcast.
Dr. Robert Rountree INTRO
This is the Thorne Podcast, the show that navigates the complex world of wellness and explores the latest science behind diet supplements and lifestyle approaches to good health. I'm Dr. Robert Roundtree, Chief Medical Advisor at Thorne and Functional Medicine Doctor. As a reminder, the recommendations made in this podcast are the recommendations of the individuals who express them and not the recommendations of Thorne. Statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Thorne Podcast. This week we're going to be shedding some light on the ins and outs of Thorne's Thyroid At-Home Test Kit and to help you follow along, in addition to our regular audio episode, we're also releasing the video from this recording as well, so be sure to check that out on Thorne.com or on our YouTube page so you can follow along as we go over the results and see all of the graphs and charts. Joining me once again to talk about the thyroid test is my friend and colleague, Thorne's Vice President of Medical Affairs, Dr. Amanda Frick. Welcome back, Amanda. How are you?
Dr. Amanda Frick
Hey, Bob. I'm well. How are you?
Dr. Robert Rountree
I'm pretty good. So, Amanda, you and I have both taken this thyroid test from Thorne. We're going to walk our listeners through the results in a bit. But first of all, why would anyone want to take this test? Maybe it's not as obvious as the Sleep Test or the Gut Test. What are the indications for doing the tests?
Dr. Amanda Frick
That part is tricky because you could have, you know, thyroid issues can manifest from so many different things. But I think commonly people would start thinking about thyroid health if they have some fatigue, maybe dry skin, dry hair, brittle nails, some energy issues, some people may experience weight gain, although, you know, I think that falsely gets attributed to thyroid health more than it should. But I think those are some of the things I probably fatigue would be my number one thought.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Absolutely. Yeah. And I do see a lot of people who have mysterious fatigue that seems to come on for no reason. There's no obvious cause. In fact, I just saw somebody like this very recently who said, Well, I have really, really severe fatigue and it just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm in good shape, etc. And and I immediately thought thyroid and low and behold is thyroid tests were abnormal. So, I mean, that was great. And I can tell you his I hate to say this, but his mainstream doctor totally missed it.
Dr. Amanda Frick
How do you not… How do you miss that? Sorry.
Dr. Robert Rountree
But a lot of doctors just don't. It's thyroid is is not on their their mind. You know, they would think, okay, well, let's look for anemia or fatigue. Let's look for anemia. Let's look for major disease, liver disease, kidney disease, something more serious. But especially in men, I would say docs don't tend to think of the thyroid as something happening in men.
Dr. Amanda Frick
I mean, hate to celebrate a finding, but the good news is now you have so many options for your patient.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Well, I got to say, when that happens, I think I love this because it's actually something I can treat. And I know it's going to make a difference because, you know, a lot of things we see in medicine, you know, your response is going to be more subtle. It may take longer, but thyroid, you can say this is what you're going to experience.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, it's really easy. A plus B is definitely going to help C, that's for sure.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Great. So I guess one of the points that we're making here is that you can't always rely on your family doctor to immediately think thyroid. And for that reason, it's nice to have another option if you believe that you might have a thyroid problem and that's being neglected by your regular doctor because this is something you can do yourself.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Well, that's a bonus. But I think that the other thing is, you know, even if your doctor does run thyroid, they if you're lucky, they maybe run three different measures. But a lot of doctors are only going to run a TSH. Right. So they're only checking that one thing. You're just getting so much more data from the home test and you can do it yourself. So I feel like there's two pluses there.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Yeah, there's a lot rolled into the thyroid tests. We'll actually show people all the different markers that are involved. But I would say if you do this through a regular lab, it actually ends up being fairly expensive to get all the markers that are rolled into this test. So it's actually a pretty good deal.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, I think it is. And it doesn't take vials of blood. It takes drops of blood.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Yeah, a few drops of blood. So, Amanda, why don't you tell us what the experience was like of the test? I mean, even starting from the unboxing, right? I know they do that with a lot of other tech products. So what was it like from unboxing to your experience of performing the test at home?
Dr. Amanda Frick
I have a I get to be biased because I've seen so many of these before, but even even with my bias, I love this test kit. I think it's so well put together. It looks really nice. Got a plastic box. It's very easy to find what you need in there, right? So there's a couple of lancets which are the the little devices that cause a poke for your finger so you can draw the blood and a little blood spot card that has kind of black circles in it, which you used to say like color inside the lines when we would, when we would talk to our patients about doing them. But everything you need is there as well as gloves, gauze, Band-Aid. And it's packaged in a nice little plastic clamshell box and it's easy to put everything back into. So that part is really nice.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Along with a little instruction book, I might add. Yeah, yeah, that's a good part and I definitely recommend reading the instructions several times so you don't end up sitting there with blood dripping off your hands going, What do I do here? Like, you know, if you're ready for the sequence, then it's no big deal.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, there are some important parts in that booklet too that talk about if you're taking a thyroid medication or if you're taking other hormones and how you should plan taking the test. So that's also really important to read through ahead of time.
Dr. Robert Rountree
And I have had people who are on thyroid medicine do the tests and forget to hold their medicine that morning so it can skew the results if you just took your thyroid medicine an hour beforehand. Yeah. So that is something to keep in mind. The other thing that I urge people to do is keep their hands warm, you know, especially if you live in a cold climate, that's not a big an issue this time of year in this part of the hemisphere. But if you live in a cold climate and your hands are constricted from the cold, it might make it a little harder to draw blood. There are some tricks you can do to make sure there's plenty of blood flow in your fingertips, like holding your hands under cold water or under a warm blanket or something like that. For people that have trouble getting blood.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, I used to tell my patients that they could stand up and sort of move their arms around and get blood flowing. And then it's it's harder when you're sitting. So if you stand up and then the the card is on a table sort of below your heart level, then you can stand up and squeeze down and then it kind of gets less messy too otherwise it tends to sort of run on your finger a little, but I think that's another good one. Just do it standing up and then you can really easily angle it down your fingertip onto the card.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Terrific. So any other tips or tricks that people should know about?
Dr. Amanda Frick
I don't think so. I think you covered it like warming up your hands. You can massage the finger, sort of like help help the blood flow get to the end of your finger. I tend to do that before I use The Lancet. So it's already sort of there. You can see the color change before you do The Lancet, because sometimes the most uncomfortable part is just squeezing to get, to get the blood spots out.
Dr. Amanda Frick
It's not the finger poke, it's the squeeze.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Yeah. Okay. So if your hands are a little bit red already, that means there's good blood flow and you shouldn't really have any problem filling up all the circles on the on the square.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah. Sometimes it takes a second to get started. I think people panic when the first one comes out a little slow. So if the first circle isn't quite full or seems like there's not enough there, it's okay. Just move on to the next one. They'll get better as you go.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Okay? And even people that are squeamish getting blood drawn, I found this is not a big deal. It's actually a little bit easier than going in to a formal phlebotomy center, you know, and having somebody stick a needle in you, especially if they miss. Yeah, yeah, it happens very often. Yeah. Very not fun. All right. Well, we need to take a short break now. When we come back, we're going to show you our test results and we're going to walk you through what they mean, exactly what we're looking at. So for those of you who are listening on audio, only the next part is where we're switching to the video option on YouTube or on our website. So it would be beneficial if you can actually tune in to that and you can find the links to do so in the show notes.
AD READ Healthy Aging
I would absolutely recommend Thorne products to friends and family. I've always struggled with energy levels pretty much my entire life. I've just noticed a huge difference with Thorn Products, especially taking the melatonin and five HTP. I feel like I have more energy. I definitely get better sleep life is short, so I want to be able to have the energy and the focus to go out and tackle the goals that I have and do all the things that I love.
Dr. Robert Rountree
And we're back. So we're going to start with my results. And this is what you see when you log in. You'll see your name. And then on the left menu, test results. And then I click on the one for thyroid, the panel analysis. And this is what the markers look like. So what we see is my TSH, which is thyroid stimulating hormone. And just a quick overview for those of you who don't quite understand how the thyroid thing works, your pituitary gland makes thyroid stimulating hormone that travels a short distance to the thyroid gland and it activates the gland to make a hormone called T4 levothyroxine. And then levothyroxine is released into the bloodstream. It's converted by an enzyme that takes out one of the iodine. So T4 means that it's got four iodines on it and an enzyme called iodenase removes one of the iodines and converts it into the active form, T3. We really want to know all of these markers. We want to know TSH, free T4 and free T3. And that might seem like an obvious thing, but it's it's actually not that obvious. A lot of doctors will only measure TSH, and maybe I'll I'll get Amanda to talk a little bit about why that is not adequate, because I know you've you've worked with a lot of patients that have this problem, but we want the overview. We want to see all of the above. We want to know how the gland is working and making T4 and we want to know how active that enzyme is and converting the T4 into T3. So in my case, everything looks good. My TSH is right in the middle at 2.2, my T4 right in the middle at 1.4 nanograms in my T3 at 3.7 Picograms and notice Picograms is a much smaller quantity. So it's actually a much tinier amount. That's the active hormone at that T3. That's what's working in the brain. That's really a significant part of a thyroid function. If a person's thyroid function is low is suboptimal, then they can feel depressed. And so that's why we want to know that because maybe their energies okay, but their mood isn't great. So looking at all these markers is important. We also want to know if the body is making antibodies against an enzyme called thyro-peroxidase, which is an enzyme that's active in the thyroid gland. And if we're making antibodies against it, actually, it's one of the first signs of autoimmune disease, not just thyroid autoimmune disease, but all kinds of autoimmune diseases. Hence the value of looking at TPO antibodies and get a lot of mainstream doctors don't do this as a routine. I, I routinely order it and I think it should be part of the routine. But that's why we include that as part of the overall profile. So, Amanda, any comments about why we want to do more than just measure to say, why did I even think that that's a valuable thing?
Dr. Amanda Frick
That part I can't answer for you.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Why are they stuck on that? I don't know.
Dr. Amanda Frick
I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of obvious.
Dr. Robert Rountree
You want to do more, right?
Dr. Amanda Frick
Like always, always do more. That's what I was going to say. I think there is some kind of mentality of less is more somehow or a lot of things, I understand cost sensitivity. I think at one point maybe there was insurance sensitivity about what would be covered, but I don't think that that's so much an issue anymore. One thing I wanted to talk about because I felt like I had this conversation a lot with patients is not understanding what it means, you know, hypos I right versus hypothyroid and TSH High versus TSH low. So what I would always say, because I think it helped get it through, is like TSH is like the volume knob and then T4 is what's coming out of the speakers and then T3 is what you're doing with the music. But if your tag is going up, your brain is trying to turn the volume up on your thyroid. So when thyroid function is low, your brain's asking for more activity and so it's turning up the volume on TSH. So high TSH indicates low thyroid function and that's your brain giving the message that it wants more. And then of course, the opposite is true. So if your thyroid is over functioning, your brain is going to try to turn the volume down and tell the thyroid to slow down because too much is going on. And so that makes TSH lower. So low TSH is hyper thyroid or too much thyroid function. But yeah, I think that's why it's important to look at all of them. And like you said, with the antibodies, you want to look at that first, you could be seeing an antibody change before it's affecting TSH. So you're almost getting a sneak peak from that perspective. And then if something is wrong, there's a lot of reasons why thyroid could be not functioning properly, but an antibody problem is a totally different approach than maybe a nutrient problem or some other underlying issue. So why not have all of the information that you could need to to sort of move forward to fix what the problems are?
Dr. Robert Rountree
Just to tack on to that, there are a lot of studies out suggesting that if a person's TSH is slightly high, but maybe under ten, that maybe you don't need to treat it. I don't really agree with that because I've seen people whose TSH was six right, just very slightly elevated and they clearly benefited from hormone supplementation. So it really depends on the individual. And part of what helps you individualize that is if the antibodies are high. So if their TSH is up and the antibodies are high, that tells you there's something going on with this person's immune system. Right. And it makes you more likely to to see a benefit from treatment. If you can confirm that it's autoimmune thyroiditis as opposed to perhaps a transient increase in TSH.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, I agree. I also think that I had a tendency to take in the the subjective information from my patients, which it sounds like you do too. I wouldn't. I think a lot of doctors are like, ah your TSH is fine. You don't need any help and I would look at and be like, Well, that's probably not the case. Let's let's see what we can do here. So, you know, we all take a different view on it. But I would have I would have wanted a TSH lower than five then, particularly if I was treating, I'm aiming for a lot lower than five. So especially if they just don't feel well, there's some mainstream there are some in mainstream chat lately about it doesn't matter, you know, what your patient says. If it if the labs say this, that's what you have to do and that's.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Not what your patient says.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Exactly.
Dr. Robert Rountree
That is the opposite of personalized medicine. That's like crazy.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Let’s not do that. Yeah, but that's another beautiful thing about when you're doing it with Thorne, right? So you're filling out your health profile and you're putting in what that information is and you're adding that subjective information or the things that are bothering you. It's not just the data, it's also that part too.
Dr. Robert Rountree
So, Amanda, let's take a look at your thyroid markers and and tell us a little bit about what you were expecting to see. Were you expecting to see anything abnormal And and what did we find?
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, I wasn't expecting to see anything abnormal. I had my I had these all dynamic physical not that long ago. And I have a really great doctor who runs all the things that I want to run.
Dr. Robert Rountree
You’ve done this before
Dr. Amanda Frick
I’ve done this before. I'm an old pro, so yeah, mine looks really similar to yours. My TSH is 1.3, which is even optimal for my being fussy preference of what a TSH should look like. T3 at 3.1, T4 at 1.5 and my TPO antibodies are ten which is considered low at less than 150. So I'm happy with this. I wasn't expecting it to be anything significant, but still happy to see it nonetheless.
Dr. Robert Rountree
How often do you see people who weren't that suspicious of their thyroid? But lo and behold, you do the test and it's off. Does that ever happen to you?
Dr. Amanda Frick
It's happened, but not very often. It was more often the opposite. Someone would be really convinced something was off with their thyroid and if it was something else and the thyroid is normal, it was a a lot of convincing them that we should be looking at other things like a stress test, which maybe we'll talk about.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Which we'll talk about some other point. Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think it happened. It happens sometimes, but not very not very often. Usually. I think when some thyroid is off, people can feel something or they're going to notice something. Not always them, but usually.
Dr. Robert Rountree
So it has reassurance value. I think if somebody is saying, Oh, I read a book about thyroid and it sure sounds like I've got it.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah, reassurance or we need to keep digging. And it isn't that simple though. Or there are some maybe there's lifestyle things that have to change too. So, you know, ruling out the obvious things like you said, so easy to fix and you know, you can fix it makes it a little harder when it isn't thyroid, but good thing to check the box.
Dr. Robert Rountree
I will say, though, I do see people whose markers, their hormones are all fine. The TSH, T4, T3 are all fine, but their antibodies are up. And that to me is is a good early warning system that says that something is off. Again, if you read some of the mainstream articles on that, it will say nothing to worry about. Don't even pay attention to it. You should ignore it will know that means there's been a loss of tolerance. It means that the immune system is doing something it shouldn't be doing. And there's some pretty good published studies not just one study, but several, showing that if you supplement people whose elevated thyroid peroxidase antibodies, you know, show up on this test, if you give them selenium in particular, and maybe EPA and DHEA omega three fatty acids, then you can actually bring those antibodies down. So it can be quite gratifying.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah. I mean, the other thing I think that makes sense that we forget is if I saw a patient that had antibodies I would maybe treat with different options compared to what I had in my office or I found that some patients with antibodies did not respond well to some sort of treatment options, like glandulars or certain types of thyroid hormone replacement because of the antibody. So I would sort of guide what my options were as far as treatment by having that information.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Great. I'm just curious, what kind of recommendations did you get? You had normal levels, but were there any recommendations?
Dr. Amanda Frick
I did. I got some basic recommendations. So I get a little congratulations that my tests are healthy, normal thyroid function and my recommendations for diet were follow a Mediterranean diet. So that's a standard healthy anti-inflammatory diet. We know it's good for so many things and to hydrate, which is also a fair recommendation for just about everyone. But I feel like they're spying on me because I don't do very well on that. So that was fair.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Like they knew something about you.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yeah. And and having a balanced exercise routine. Mine says start a balanced exercise routine. So it didn't like what I had reported I was currently doing for an exercise routine at the time that this test was collected. And then my product recommendation, I think is for basic support, because my thyroid labs were normal, I got a recommendation for basic nutrients two a day, which is a daily multi vitamin.
Dr. Robert Rountree
In other words, your results were normal. Let's keep it that way. And here are some things that we can do.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Yes, exactly. I'm not off the hook. I still got to keep up on it.
Dr. Robert Rountree
All right. So just to restate what you said earlier, there's a reassurance value in doing this test. Even though everything came back normal, it was still helpful for you to look at that and go, okay, I'm doing the right thing. I'm on track. And I can relax a little bit.
Dr. Amanda Frick
Exactly. Or if I had concerns about my energy or other reasons to take the test, it would help me to know I need to keep digging and look further. It doesn't mean give up. It means this is not this is not the droid you're looking for , you’re looking for something else.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Great. All right, folks, that's all the time we have this week. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Once again, as always, if you bad and if people want to follow you, if they want to know what you're up to or you know what your work is with Thorne, what's the best way for them to stay caught up?
Dr. Amanda Frick
Probably my LinkedIn profile and there will be a Medium blog that has a little bit more about medical affairs and how that works at Thorne. And you can find that at our at our Medium blog site.
Dr. Robert Rountree
Terrific. Excellent. So that was Stan's VP of Medical Affairs, Dr. Amanda Frick, speaking about Thorne's thyroid tests. As always, thank you all for listening. If you like what you've heard, tell a friend about our show or drop us a line on Instagram. We'd love to hear your feedback. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time. Bye bye.
Dr. Robert Rountree OUTRO
Thanks for listening to The Thorne Podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app of choice. If you've got a health or wellness question you'd like answered, simply follow our Instagram and shoot a message to @ThorneHealth. You can also learn more about the topics we discussed by visiting Thorne.com and checking out the latest news videos and stories on Thorne's Take Five Daily blog. Once again, thanks for tuning in and don't forget to join us next time for another episode of The Thorne Podcast.
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