Irwin Column: Hypothyroidism

The thyroid gland is a small organ that resides on the front of your throat, just adjacent to the voicebox. Although tiny compared to some other organs, the thyroid has a very important function: to make thyroid hormone. This hormone (which is actually not one, but rather a few different, collective, hormones) has the responsibility of controlling the body’s metabolism. Everything from the speed with which a person loses weight or digests food to a person’s mood or heart rate can be impacted by offset concentrations of thyroid hormone.

In medical speak, the prefix “hypo” means underactive (and “hyper” means overactive). Hypothroidism is a condition by which the thyroid gland produces an inadequate amount of hormone. This is the most common of all thyroid conditions, affecting an estimated 10 million Americans and up to 10 percent of all women. Because the severity of the condition can vary, some patients have such slightly decreased amounts of thyroid hormone that they don’t even know it. These cases of “subclinical hypothyroidism,” when taken in conjunction with the more obvious cases, may yield a prevalence much higher than previously thought. Truthfully, we don’t know how common hypothyroidism is, but we believe it’s more common than the medical data suggests.