Rupp Diagnosed With Hypothyroidism

I'm 100% on board with running doc on this one.

It's extremely unlikely that multiple young healthy males with the same coach would all have auto-immune thyroiditis causing hypothyroidism. It's more likely that intense training has some effect on thyroid regulation. It's also likely that you could find an endocrinologist who would diagnose a patient with hypothyroidism with TSH and T4 levels which weren't outside of "normal" range.

That being said, I doubt taking thyroid hormone is much of a performance enhancement.

I think this is what happens: athletes are training hard - they feel tired - they get a bunch of bloodwork done - the thyroid function tests are a bit out of whack - they get diagnosed with hypothyroidism.

I bet if they cut back on the intense training all their hypothyroid symptoms would resolve.

ohio md wrote:

I'm 100% on board with running doc on this one.

It's extremely unlikely that multiple young healthy males with the same coach would all have auto-immune thyroiditis causing hypothyroidism. It's more likely that intense training has some effect on thyroid regulation. It's also likely that you could find an endocrinologist who would diagnose a patient with hypothyroidism with TSH and T4 levels which weren't outside of "normal" range.

That being said, I doubt taking thyroid hormone is much of a performance enhancement.

I think this is what happens: athletes are training hard - they feel tired - they get a bunch of bloodwork done - the thyroid function tests are a bit out of whack - they get diagnosed with hypothyroidism.

I bet if they cut back on the intense training all their hypothyroid symptoms would resolve.

What do you mean "all" the runners with the same coach? Goucher was diagnosed before moving to Eugene and training with Salazar. Magness never trained with Salazar, and from what I remember, has a pretty strong family history of auto-immune thyroiditis (correct me if I'm wrong, sjm.)

What's more, stuff like Hashimoto's is easily tested using an antibody test, something you wouldn't expect to be positive if it was just training induced.

I don't think there is some grand conspiracy here. Hypothyroidism is one of the most common conditions in the western world (including the U.S.A.) Synthroid is one of the top selling meds - something like 40 million prescriptions are filled a year. And while the diagnosis tends to skew more towards older people, it's believed that hypothyroidism is considerable underdiagnosed in young people, by virtue of the fact that they see physicians less often, and get less laboratory tests.

About 5% of the U.S. population has hypothyroidism (only 1% diagnosed!). A handful of distance runners out there have it - but it certainly doesn't seem like more than 5% of distance runners have it.

Do we know that they have Hashimoto's? Are their antibody tests positive? Everyone is speculating but we don't know the facts.

As an observer, I think it's peculiar. I don't think there is any attempt to "beat" the system, but I do believe that these runners and their coach may be fooling themselves a little bit.

ohio md wrote:

Do we know that they have Hashimoto's? Are their antibody tests positive? Everyone is speculating but we don't know the facts.

As an observer, I think it's peculiar. I don't think there is any attempt to "beat" the system, but I do believe that these runners and their coach may be fooling themselves a little bit.

Do you even read the interviews and posts on this board?

Magness has Hashimoto's, he's posted about it here. Goucher, diagnosed BEFORE he started running with Salazar, has first degree relatives (mother) with hypothyroidism.

I don't know about Rupp, but suddenly the N of 3 that constitutes some sort of charade has become and N of 1.

You should probably take yourself back to medical school and revisit some of the critical thinking skills you seem to have lost along the way. Your opinion is great, but posting your opinion as a medical doctor with zero evidence to back up any of your claims is nonsense.

hey sjm1368

was your md able to answer any the questions above?

This is probably a better thread to discuss the long term effects of putting foreign substances into your body for temporary success. Alberto is the most current living example of this. Flo Jo is probably the most extreme example of this.

"AnotherMD" is likely a saboteur from Nike!

What self-respecting MD would hang out here?

bebopp

a big side effect of chronic altitude exposure is a downregulation of body temp and thyroid production ...rupp and salazar was quoted in an article that rupp needs to sleep at the higher settings of altitude tent to maintain the altitude effect(14,000 ft) since he has been on it since high school.

this combined with a chronic caloric deficit due to hard running is probably causing his thyroid to drop and also may cause him to be hypogonadal (low testerone and low HP axis) which is making him very tired and slowing his recovery.

this whole discussion is great and it is nice to see that it has been dredged up again!

add to this the tidbit that world renowned epo doc - stray-gundersen is the "team physician" for team salazar/goucher/rupp - then kara busts out big at wc's and puts the hammer down on paula.

nothing shady going on here - absolutely nothing!

when tyler hamilton needed a buddy to be on his legal defense team - who did he turn to? good ol doc stray-gundersen!

"Medical expert Jim Stray-Gundersen, who has conducted more than 10,000 blood tests on athletes participating in doping research programs, testified during my hearing that my reticulocyte counts from these three races were so low they “are not to be believed”. Of the thousands he’s evaluated in his career, he has only seen one test come up as low as mine – and it was an instance when he knew for a fact, the sample had been “mishandled” during transport to the lab."

What does Adam Goucher have to say about this?

downregulate my a$$ wrote:

when tyler hamilton needed a buddy to be on his legal defense team - who did he turn to? good ol doc stray-gundersen!

"Medical expert Jim Stray-Gundersen, who has conducted more than 10,000 blood tests on athletes participating in doping research programs, testified during my hearing that my reticulocyte counts from these three races were so low they “are not to be believed”. Of the thousands he’s evaluated in his career, he has only seen one test come up as low as mine – and it was an instance when he knew for a fact, the sample had been “mishandled” during transport to the lab."

The Lord shall smite thee down for the sins of envy and for slander against Alberto Salazar, Galen Rupp, Adam Goucher and Kara Goucher. You shall feel His wrath, the Lord's will shall be done.

FloJo died from an cause that was not connected to doping -- go see several threads on the T&FNews Board (see numerous entries from doctors familiar with running at the top level as long-term fans of the sport. If you do not know enough to participate knowingly with those folks then don't post that crap here.

God watcher wrote:

The Lord shall smite thee down for the sins of envy and for slander against Alberto Salazar, Galen Rupp, Adam Goucher and Kara Goucher. You shall feel His wrath, the Lord's will shall be done.

Ryan Hall? Or McDougal?

Bump

HEy MD's:

Isn't it weird that Hashimoto's is more common in women 27:1? Thats like 97% women. are we all forgetting this from our Robbins? Yet all these dudes have it, and the women in the training group don't. a I agree with another MD. most likely that some doc saw the results of slightly low thyroid and made a diagnosis based on this. Unless you've proven antibodies however, you don't have hashimoto's.

most people never get tested for the antibodies. you also don't know whether these dudes mothers may have had it and since it is highly genetic, would have passed it on to their sons.

Looks like Rupp overcame his medical condition to get an Olympic medal. Gives people like myself dealing this this condition hope.

I'm one of those moms who has low thyroid- diagnosed at 45. Two of my three children, who are distance runners on a recreational level are also low thyroid at ages 23 and 27. Lab tests don't lie. All kinds of things can lead to low thyroid. My husband is a decent runner for his age (56) - sub 3:00 marathoner, 6'4", 185 pounds steady for the last 30 years. His thyroid levels are normal. Stop guessing and blaming and looking like sore losers. Labs don't lie.