 You have a health problem and you want it analyzed and treated, if not cured. So, after a long wait, the day finally arrives for your appointment with the specialist. You sit down, and he introduces himself. But first, the preliminaries: he needs to fill out the electronic medical record. So, he whacks away on the laptop, filling in every box and line. He is required to do this by his employer. Wait a minute, you say! I am employing him! This is my chance finally to get to the bottom of this problem!
His employer considers the electronic medical record as legal proof of complete evaluation, a mechanism for legal protection. But, how does this help you? How does this get you closer to your quest? You thought that the medical record was a cogent evaluation of your health problem. Sorry, not true! So, he continues to ask questions: “Are you sexually active?” “How many times have you had sex during the last week?” “Masturbation?” “Do you have any firearms in the house?” “Do you spank your children?” After the electronic medical record is filled out, he turns to you and asks: “What brings you in today?”
He appears distracted. He hurries on. Remember, he works for his employer. He needs to produce. That means seeing more patients during the business day. The documentation that he has produced results in a “superbill”, which is a receipt that is electronically sent to the billing department from his laptop. Although your problem remains, the specialist has conducted what his employer needs in order to generate cash flow. There has been disposition of your case without any measurable benefit to you.
And you don’t have “health insurance”, you have “medical insurance” regardless of the name change over the previous 15 years. You need to find a health professional trained in functional medicine, perhaps including bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, whether a Naturopath or MD or DO. You need someone who will listen to you carefully, someone willing to spend the time and effort to look carefully into your situation. You need someone who works for you. Agreed? Do you have a question that you’d like Dr. Odom to answer? Submit your question here and look for Dr. Odom’s answer in a future post. 
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 The anti-aging movement got its initial boost after the publication in 1990 in the New England Journal of Medicine of an article by Daniel Rudman, MD, professor of medicine and academic endocrinologist, whose career focused on the aging of the endocrine system and the resulting hormone deficiencies. His landmark article, "Effects of Human Growth Hormone in Men Over 60 Years Old", concluded that "Diminished secretion of growth hormone is responsible in part for the decrease of lean body mass, the expansion of adipose-tissue mass, and the thinning of the skin that occur in old age." (N Engl J Med 1990; 323:1-6.)
Us "anti-aging" or preventive medicine doctors rely on the increasing scientific evidence that optimizing hormones creates physical well-being. We see prevention of continued decline and even restoration of lost function. Conventional medicine, however, refuses to accept this simple concept. Mainstream medicine is stuck on the idea that pharmaceuticals are the best answer to life’s woes as we strike middle age. Increasingly alien molecules, totally not found in nature, are somehow going to ease the diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and other maladies that strike us later in life. I have a patient who was doing very well on my bio-identical hormone program, who needed to see me, but could not due to distance. His new "provider" asked him why he was taking thyroid. He answered, for age-related decline. She told him that thyroid function does not go down with age. Huh?!
Let’s look at the scientific literature. “Serum TSH concentrations decrease in healthy elderly subjects due to an age-related decrease in TSH secretion by the pituitary.”[1,2,3] So, pituitary gland function declines with age, including production of the hormone (TSH) that stimulates the thyroid to produce more of what the thyroid gland makes, T4. The T4 is inactive, acting as an available store, and accessible for conversion throughout the body into the active form, T3. But, this T4 to T3 conversion occurs less and less efficiently as we age, also.[2] “After exclusion of.... confounders, most studies show similar results: A clear, age-dependent decline in serum Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and (free) T3 ....”[2] In the elderly, “Thyroid hormones levels are usually within the lower part of normal values reported in the general population.”[4] “There is evidence that the decreased thyroid hormone levels observed in aging are due to lower TSH concentrations, and that lower TSH concentrations may be linked to an impaired pituitary activity.”[5] But, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, T4 to T3 conversion is vital as well, with “the net result of this decreased de-iodination with advancing age is a clear, age-dependent decline in total and free T3 levels...”[2]
Bottom line, in most humans, thyroid function declines with age. Exceedingly long-lived individuals do not show a decline of thyroid function.[7] Regarding the management of chronic health conditions, the sad reality about the current medical system is this: You get processed, but no benefit. In return for allowing the clinic to update your electronic medical record, and get access to your insurance money, you get a few prescriptions for pharmaceuticals that “manage” your problem. Who is satisfied with all this: the “provider’s” employer, who ends up with liability coverage and profit. Do you have a question that you’d like Dr. Odom to answer? Submit your question here and look for Dr. Odom’s answer in a future post. Bibliography:
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