Can Natural Thyroid Extract/Desiccated Thyroid Extract be used to treat hypothyroidism?
There is no current evidence of any advantages of taking natural thyroid extract over synthetic thyroxine. The disadvantages are that because it is made from pooled thyroid glands from animals, which may vary from batch to batch in their thyroxine levels, the exact dose of thyroxine cannot be estimated precisely. Therefore one dose from one batch of tablets may well create different thyroxine levels from the same dose in a second batch of tablets. As a result, endocrinologists have abandoned using this in favour of the pure form of thyroxine which is chemically exactly the same as that which is made by the normal thyroid gland. In this sense, thyroxine treatment is as natural as possible.
