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Comment by narrator | Hacker News Reader

Synthroid, synthetic thyroid horomone, is the 2nd most prescribed drug in the U.S [2]. Like all other drastically rising health problems in the United States, it happened all by itself, doctors are mystified, anyone with an explanation is criticized as an opportunist.

[1] https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/patient-advocate/the...

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Part of the reason does include better blood testing and the definition of hypothyroidism changing. American Endocrine Society has adjusted the bounds of the amount of T4 present in the blood upwards throughout the years, increasing the number of people who are affected by hypothyroidism with no meaningful change to the population.

In what way is that an issue?

Practically everything on that list is associated with diseases that become more prevalent with age. Hypothyroidism is no exception: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279005/

So, basically, because fewer people drop dead in their 50s due to heart disease or cancer, we see way more prescriptions for chronic, systemic diseases from later in life. There is a high probability that anyone taking one of those drugs on the list is probably taking multiple drugs on that list.

I don't see a problem here.

If you want to claim a chemical basis, you're going to need to prove a much stronger correlation in the younger age cohorts. Since different places banned this at different times, you should see hypothyroidism drop at different times. Has that happened?

This is a really weak and dismissive explanation. The rates of chronic illness - especially if we include mental illness, have been steadily going up in all age cohorts.

That’s also what I’d expect to see in any successful and continually advancing system of biological understanding and medical treatment.

alongside better medicine, more widespread testing, and a better understanding of the human body. Some things we might have just put down as "old age" have names and medicines that help now, when we didn't have it before. We were pretty silent about mental illness at one time - of course being open about it is going to seem like an increase.

> The rates of chronic illness - especially if we include mental illness, have been steadily going up in all age cohorts.

Obesity has been on the rise, especially in younger cohorts, and we know that all kinds of chronic illness is correlated with that.

And, as I pointed out, bans on these chemicals have been staggered. If the chemicals are causative, you should see it in the data.

HPV vaccine comes online--cervical cancer cases collapse in the cohort. HRT is abandoned--breast cancer cases decrease with a step function. etc.

These things are not invisible.

My understanding is radioactive fallout is a likely contender, as children exposed during peak testing have been getting older.

Not the case?

It's been one of the most prescribed drugs for decades.

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