How does t3 burn fat

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I'm ready to learn. Used as therapy for hypothyroidics, T3 may hold some promise as being a short-term fat burner and cognitive enhancer vicariously through the effects of thyroid hormones. This page is regularly updated, to include the most recently available clinical trial evidence.

Research analysis led by Kamal Patel and reviewed by the Examine team. Last Updated: Oct 21, Summary of T3 Primary information, health benefits, side effects, usage, and other important details.

Basically, your free T3 and free T4 levels seem to matter much more than your TSH when determining how you will feel taking thyroid medication. And lastly, other studies have indeed confirmed that patients who take T3 thyroid hormone over T4 show that they have more weight loss 3 and a higher metabolism WITHOUT negative side effects.

This doesn't necessarily mean that everyone will benefit in this way from T3 but it does mean that using T3 should be a serious option for patients who are not tolerating T4 only thyroid medication or NDT. Another benefit of T3 medication is that it increases or normalizes your basal metabolic rate. Hypothyroid patients are very susceptible to having a lower than normal metabolism for a variety of reasons.

Having low thyroid itself changes your metabolism and will lower it. This is one of the main reasons that weight gain is a symptom of hypothyroidism. Because hypothyroid patients tend to gain weight these same patients usually undergo calorie-restricted weight loss programs to try and lose weight. Unfortunately, calorie restriction actually makes the problem even worse by further lowering the metabolism 4. The combination of low thyroid hormone plus metabolic damage from calorie restriction results in a metabolism that is usually in the range of 1, to 1, calories burned per day.

This is why many hypothyroid patients have difficulty with weight loss and why Doctors look at you like you're crazy when you tell them that you're eating 1, calories per day and still not losing weight. The benefit of using T3 is that it can help heal your metabolism and increase your basal metabolic rate through its influence on your mitochondria. Another benefit of using T3 is that many of your true hypothyroid symptoms will likely improve or be reduced dramatically.

These symptoms are all indicative of low tissue levels of thyroid hormone and many of these symptoms persist even while taking thyroid medication like T4. But once you start taking T3 thyroid hormone your body is able to take up the T3 and use it at the cellular level.

This results in greater tissue levels of thyroid hormone in your skeletal muscle increasing metabolism and energy , your hair follicles reducing hair loss , and your brain tissue reducing depression and brain fog.

While it is true that other factors like nutrient deficiencies may contribute to your symptoms, it's easier to distinguish the cause of these issues when you start taking T3. Through its influence on energy production in your mitochondria, T3 can actually help to increase or normalize your body temperature. Your total body temperature is a reflection of the amount of energy you are producing and the amount of energy you are burning.

Many patients walk around with very low body temperatures in the degree range as a consequence of hypothyroidism. This low body temperature is almost always associated with a slower metabolism and a low basal metabolic rate. T3 helps the body burn fat tissue and activate brown fat to further increase metabolism and increase fat burn 5. The addition of T3 helps to normalize these processes and can increase your body temperature to normal levels and help increase your metabolism in the process.

One of the main reasons that thyroid patients DON'T get better when starting thyroid hormone is due to its effects on other hormones in your body. Unfortunately, using T4 thyroid hormone can help reduce the symptoms of hypothyroidism but it won't necessarily treat these hormone imbalances if they are present.

T3 has been shown to help reduce insulin resistance 6 which will help with weight loss and help normalize blood sugar. T3 has also been shown to help reduce leptin resistance 7. This is very important because there are currently very few treatments that can help lower leptin levels.

If you aren't aware, leptin resistance creates an environment in your body which makes weight loss almost impossible unless it is reversed. NDT is another great thyroid hormone replacement medication but just like T4 medication, it does fall short in certain circumstances. In addition, certain patients may need temporary supraphysiologic doses of T3 for short periods of time to wash out the reverse T3 and reset the system.

Using higher doses of T3 during this time period or using the combination of T3 and NDT together can help overcome this issue. It's best to consider NDT as another potentially helpful medication, but it shouldn't be considered the "best" thyroid medication. It's important to realize that these medications are the same in that they both contain T3 thyroid medication.

Immediate release T3 is absorbed rapidly into the body and peaks in the serum within hours usually. In patients who are sensitive to T3, they may develop heart palpitations or a jittery sensation around this time. These side effects occur as a result of this rapid absorption and the sensitivity of cardiac myocytes to T3. In your heart, T3 has a direct action on the calcium channels which causes the heart to pump harder and faster which may lead to heart palpitations.

This is compared to other systems in the body where T3 has to directly interact with the nucleus and results in changes to genetic transcription this process often takes weeks. If you fall into this "sensitive" category and you are experiencing these side effects of IR T3 heart palpitations, etc. In SR T3 formulations of T3 medication, the T3 is bound to a glue-like substance usually methylcellulose which delays the absorption.

This allows your body to slowly absorb T3 throughout the day and will limit the "flood" of T3 that is seen hours after taking IR T3. Another limiting factor that should be considered is that Cytomel and generic liothyronine both contain inactive fillers. The side effects of T3 come from taking too much of the medication or from the inactive ingredients. As long as you dose the medication correctly and use the proper type of T3 medication IR vs SR T3 there are generally very few issues.

If you experience any further side effects not listed here it's best to consult with your prescribing physician. This is worth mentioning because hair IS a symptom of hypothyroidism and this side effect may be confused with worsening symptoms when in reality the opposite is true. In some cases, patients may require T3 in addition to their current thyroid medication like T4 or NDT. Most patients who stand to benefit from T3 are patients who have not felt better on other thyroid medications or patients with extreme weight loss resistance.

I'm Westin Childs D. So if you have hypothyroidism and you are taking a T4 only medication, you are relying upon your body to do the converting process for you.

This is why so many patients on T4 only medications do so poorly - their body doesn't convert well. But if you give someone T3 only medication, you don't have to rely on the body for converting T4 to T3.

Instead, you bypass this conversion process and allow for more thyroid hormone to enter into target cells and tissues without reverse T3 competition. This provides an instant burst of thyroid hormone to the body and makes it a MUCH more powerful medication. This also helps explain why Cytomel and Liothyronine can cause negative symptoms if used in high doses. And this also may explain why Doctors, in general, are not as comfortable prescribing this medication to patients even though so many patients benefit from taking it.

This is also why some bodybuilders use T3 medication to boost metabolism and burn fat before competitions. I've found that these 10 foods cause the most problems for thyroid patients. Learn which foods you should absolutely be avoiding if you have thyroid disease of any type.

Calculating these ratios is important because it can help you determine if your efforts are on the right track and whether or not your medications are working. Download more free resources on this page.

In order to understand why Cytomel causes weight loss, you need to understand the importance of thyroid hormone in your fat cells and mitochondria. Your thyroid helps control your metabolism and helps set your basal metabolic rate 2. What that means is your thyroid really helps to control your WEIGHT and the amount of fat you are burning on a daily basis.

This benefit has been shown in at least one study 3. In this study, patients were given LT3 medication in place of their usual thyroid medication at equivalent doses and the researchers found that patients who switched experience an average of pounds of weight loss without any other changes.

You can read this blog post for much more info on this conversion process and how it leads to weight gain. Cytomel or other T3 medications on the other hand do increase thyroid hormone in the body and thus can help boost metabolism and lead to weight loss. If you've been reading this so far you are probably wondering why you aren't taking T3 medication already. Cytomel and other T3 containing medications aren't ideal for everyone, but based on my experience many people tolerate them quite well.

Basically, these conditions all are associated with a higher demand for thyroid hormone or a condition known as tissue level hypothyroidism 4. Tissue level hypothyroidism describes a condition where your blood levels of thyroid hormone may appear normal, but your tissues are starving for thyroid hormone. This may explain why so many hypothyroid patients are unhappy despite getting "treatment" with T4 only medications 5.

The presence of any of the medical conditions or symptoms listed above may be an indication that you would benefit from using T3 medication.

Because Cytomel is stronger than T4 only thyroid medications, you should use some caution when starting and titration your dose. Because of this, it's wise to monitor both your resting heart rate and your basal body temperature each morning if you decide to use this medication.

Because Cytomel and other forms of T3 will directly increase your metabolism thus resulting in a higher body temperature which will also increase your heart rate by acting on cardiac myocytes. By monitoring both of these variables you can ensure that you are getting an adequate dose while preventing excessive dosing or hyperthyroid symptoms. These variables, if combined with thyroid lab testing for total T3 and free T3 , will help you determine your ideal dose.

I recommend using these metrics instead of one-size-fits-all dosing recommendations because the variability between individuals is very large depending on factors such as sensitivity and genetic variance. Some patients may do well on small doses of Cytomel mcg per day whereas others may need considerably more. Studies have shown that, in the setting of treatment-resistant depression, Cytomel dosing can be as high as mcg per day 7.

If you decide to start Cytomel make sure you start at a low dose and titrate or increase your dose up slowly over an extended period of time weeks to months. A typical starting dose may be as low as mcg with an increase in dose by mcg every days.

More sensitive patients should start out at even lower doses while patients who have previously tolerated T3 medications in the past may be able to start at higher doses. Instead of thinking of Cytomel vs Synthroid I want you to think of them as a complementary pair. Some people do benefit from Cytomel only in higher doses , but many people do well on a combination of T4 and T3. In fact, I would say the majority of people need some combination of T4 and T3 medications because this mimics the natural production of thyroid hormone from your thyroid gland.

In a practical way, you can achieve this combination by simply adding Cytomel to your existing dose of Levothyroxine or Synthroid. By using both T4 and T3 you will be able to provide your body with both immediate and long-term hormones. Despite this, you are much more likely to have success in asking for a small dose of T3 compared to asking for a large dose.

Many physicians are aware of the emerging research which shows that patients prefer combination therapy to monotherapy with LT4. Simply adding T3 to your existing dose of T4 may improve your overall symptoms by helping to drive down Reverse T3 levels and by directly activating cellular transcription.

I referenced Levothyroxine and Synthroid above because the great majority of patients are on these medications. But what about natural desiccated thyroid medications? Instead of thinking about which thyroid medication is best , you should consider the specific needs of your body.

This means that even with higher doses of NDT, patients are still susceptible to reverse T3 pooling.