Will a New Drug Melt the Pounds? It May, but Doctors Urge Caution

New York Times ^ | 5 December 2004 | GINA KOLATA

[Old Phone Man]

But what are the side effects?

Does it make your arms and legs fall off, cause you to sprout a 3rd eye on your buttocks, and grow long toenails?

[John Valentine]

I wonder what cause this recent explosion of thyroid problems.

I'm not a doctor and I don't have any special expertise in this other than as someone who has lost about 50% of thyroid function. I sometimes wonder if it is exacerbated by overweight itself, in other words if there could be some kind of negative feedback mechanism.

Even keeping that possibility in mind, after talking to the doctors about my medical history I had symptoms consistent with some loss of thyroid function as many as thirty five years ago when I was still quite thin by any standard.

What causes it and why didn't we see it long ago? I don't think anyone knows. But I suspect that there were lots of diseases that were diagnosed with archaic terminology like "vapors" and "bad air" and the like that could have been thyroid conditions. People certainly had goiters that were diagnosed.