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 OTHER NAMES
- Goiter
- Goiter hipofuncionate
DEFINITION
It is a situation in which there takes place an insufficient quantity of circulating thyroid hormones, a gland thyroid gland that works below the normal thing. The hipotiroidismo is the most frequent illness of the thyroid gland, affecting 3-5 % of the whole population.
Gland thyroid gland and thyroid hormones
The thyroid hormones produce in the gland thyroid gland to themselves. The gland thyroid gland is located in the previous part of the neck, under the Adam's apple. It has form of butterfly and embraces to the trachea. It is formed by 2 more or less equal lobes that join in the center.
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The thyroid hormones are essential for the function of any cell of the organism. They help to regulate the growth and development, the cardiac frequency, the arterial tension, the corporal temperature and the metabolic valuation of the body - or, the speed with which the meal turns into energy-.
The gland thyroid gland uses iodine to make the thyroid hormones. The 2 most important thyroid hormones are the tiroxina (T4) and the triyodotironina (T3). T4 has 4 iodine molecules, while T3 only it takes 3. The necessary iodine to make thyroid hormones is in fish and seafood, in the bread and in the iodized salt of table.
More than 99 % of all the thyroid hormones is joined to proteins in the inactive blood and is (they cannot interact with the cells of the body). Only one smallest portion of the thyroid hormones they are free, not joined to proteins, and this small fraction is the important one in the regulation of the cellular metabolism.
Normally, the production of thyroid hormones is controlled by the gland hypophysis located in the base of the brain, across a called hormone "thyroid stimulating hormone" or TSH. When excess of thyroid hormones exists, the hypophysis stops segregating TSH, and vice versa, what supports a relatively constant level of circulating thyroid hormones. |
The hipotiroidismo usually owes to an insufficient functioning of the gland thyroid gland to himself, in whose case the TSH level in blood is very high. In other cases, the hipotiroidismo owes to himself to an absence of production of TSH for the gland hypophysis (and in these cases the TSH level in blood is low).
CAUSES OF HIPOTIROIDISMO
In areas of the world where iodine shortcoming exists in the diet, such as the Congo, India, Ecuador or Chile, or in remote mountainous areas like the Andes and the Himalayas, it can happen hipotiroidismo severely in 5-15 % of the population. For this motive iodine is added usually to the table salt.
In the developed country, the most frequent cause of hipotiroidismo is an autoimmune inflammation of the gland thyroid gland, which is called tiroiditis linfocítica chronicle or tiroiditis of Hashimoto (in honor to Dr. Hakaru Hashimoto, which described it in 1912). This illness is 5-10 times more frequent in women, and it studies at very high levels of antithyroid antibodies (as also it can happen in the illness of Serious). There exist other tiroiditis, which can happen after a pregnancy or a viral illness, and which can take the transitory hipotiroidismo states.
The surgery of the thyroid gland or his ablation with radioactive iodine (to see HIPERTIROIDISMO, TREATMENT) can produce hipotiroidismo.
In addition to the antithyroid medicines (to see HIPER-TIROIDISMO, TREATMENT), they can produce hipotiroidismo the Lithium (used in mental illnesses), and paradoxically, certain medicines very rich in iodine, like the amiodarona (Trangorex ®), used in cardiac arrhythmias.
- Congenital Hipotiroidismo (cretinism).
The children born without gland thyroid gland can develop mental deficiency and of the growth, unless the situation is detected and talks each other as soon as possible. For it the thyroid hormones measure themselves in blood, of routine, in all the newborn babies.
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
The patients with hipotiroidismo set sail they may have no symptom. The symptoms become more important as the illness deteriorates, and generally they are related to a decrease of the corporal metabolism.
Frequent symptoms are a weariness, weakness, intolerance to the cold, and constipation. Other hipotiroidismo symptoms include drowsiness, weight increase, loss of hair, torpor mentally, depression, and increase of the levels of cholesterol. The women can present menstrual alterations.
TREATMENT
The hipotiroidismo can talk each other successfully, and must talk each other, since if it does not talk each other, it can lead to serious illnesses of the heart (cardiomiopatía, heart failure), as well as to the most serious situation that is called a comma mixedematoso, that usually breaks loose for stress, concomitant illnesses or surgery in a hypothyroid previous severe one, and that it is necessary to treat hospitably with intravenous thyroid hormones.
Otherwise, the treatment of the hipotiroidismo consists of the restoration of the thyroid hormones with the synthetic hormone levotiroxina (Levothroid ®). The necessary daily quantity is usually in 100-150 micrograms (0.100 to 0.150 milligrams). After six weeks of treatment, thyroid hormones measure the levels and of the hormone hipofisaria TSH. The target of the treatment is not so much to support a normal level of thyroid hormones, as to support a normal level of TSH, which is the priority thing. The sobretratamiento of the hipotiroidismo is so dangerous as not to treat it.
TO SEE ALSO
Stimulant hormone of the thyroid gland (TSH)
Levels of triyodotironina T3
Levels of tiroxina T4
WHAT DOCTOR CAN TREAT ME?
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DENOMINATION 
