How does someone get an overactive thyroid?
• Graves Disease is the cause of most UK cases of hyperthyroidism, and it’s especially common in women aged between 20 and 40 years. Anyone can get Graves Disease, but it does also run in families, and smokers run an increased risk of it. It’s an auto-immune disease in which the body mistakenly attacks its own tissues. One of the effects is that the disease stimulates the thyroid to make excess thyroxine, leading to hyperthyroidism • Thyroid nodules are responsible for around five per cent of overactive thyroids. Occasionally, one or more lumps – called ‘nodules’ – develop in the thyroid, for no known reason. Two or more lumps are called toxic multinodular goitre, and one lump is called toxic thyroid nodule, or adenoma.They are usually not cancerous, but they can interfere with the normal function of the thyroid gland so that it makes too much thyroid hormone. For people with nodules, the thyroid problem can be worsened by taking iodine (which stimulates thyroid hormone production), in
