By Gabi Giacomin
Being the parent of a child with Down Syndrome you have probably been told by other parents and Drs of the need for regular thyroid tests and medication if necessary.
You may have been led to believe this was the most important thing you could do for a child with Down Syndrome, your child will now develop properly and the risk of brain damage or poor growth is reduced as long as they take their thyroid medication.
However, like all drugs, there are side effects. Some of which parents and Drs don’t tell you about. Has anyone told you about the long term effects of thyroid medications? Most likely not.
According to the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry Neurology (2010), data collected from longitudinal studies between 1992 and 2008 from 499 people with an average age of 76.9 years has revealed that people taking thyroid medication long term progressed to an Alzheimer’s diagnosis ‘more rapidly than those not taking medication’.
As you may also know, people with Down Syndrome develop Alzheimer’s Disease earlier than typical people. Is long term thyroid medication use ideal for our children?
If your child is taking thyroid medication, maybe the next best thing is to work on the gut to reduce their autoimmunity and get them off it.
There is a wealth of information on reversing Hashimoto’s naturally in the world of medical research. I have spent the last four years working on improving gut health to support the thyroid of people with Down Syndrome naturally. It is now an option which wasn’t available four years ago and I would love to work with you on this if you need support.
“The theoretical existence of a link between thyroid hormone supplementation via prescribed medications and AD development is well-founded. Thyroid agents are simply preparations of natural or synthetic thyroxine (T4) or triiodothyronine (T3) designed to mimic the action of endogenous T4 and T3 in the body (Gold Standard, Inc., 2008). The probable roles of endogenous thyroid hormones in AD pathophysiology have already been established, primarily in the area of beta amyloid plaque accumulation (Jaffe et al., 1994; Latasa et al., 1998; Lima et al., 2001; Mallet et al., 2002; O’Barr et al., 2006; Travis, 1999). Therefore, thyroid medications could affect plaque deposition in the same ways, expressed by three primary physiological mechanisms.”
“A review of recent literature reveals inconsistency concerning the impact of thyroid dysfunction on cognitive decline. Studies have found both hypo- and hyperthyroidism to be related to increased dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) risk. It is important to consider both forms of thyroid dysfunction because although hypothyroidism is most common epidemiologically (Hollowell et al., 2002), treatment of this disorder with thyroid medications can often result in hyperthyroidism secondary to overcorrection (Choi and Manning, 2009).”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2820146/
