AI can help foster the skills students will need to navigate and shape the future. Tools like ChatGPT, as Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Elias Blinkoff argue, can help promote students’ critical thinking when used in sophisticated ways for deeper, more engaged learning. Vriti Saraf, CEO and founder of K20 Educators, in New York, agrees: “The less students need educators to be the main source of knowledge, the more educators can focus on developing the ability to curate, guide, critically assess learning, and help students gain skills that are so much more important than memorizing information.”

In seven out of the eleven subjects in whom core body temperature could be sampled, the nadir of body temperature was advanced during L-T4 intake by 15 minutes to 270 minutes.

RESULTS: The rate of discontinuation due to side effects was significantly higher in the control group than for the patients (38% versus 0%). The severity of the side effects in the controls increased significantly during treatment with T(4). The side effect scores of the patients were higher than those of the controls prior to T(4) treatment, but did not change significantly during the treatment period. Although the serum concentrations of thyroid hormones rose significantly in both groups, concentrations of fT(3) and fT(4) were significantly higher in the controls.CONCLUSIONS: Healthy controls and depressed patients respond significantly differently to supraphysiological T(4). Healthy controls experience higher elevations of thyroid hormones in response to supraphysiological T(4), thus inducing significantly more side effects and discontinuation.LIMITATIONS: Open-label study; groups were studied at different times; in contrast to healthy controls, depressed patients were also taking antidepressants.

The addition of supraphysiologic doses of L-T4 (300 mcg per day) to an otherwise stable medication regimen of standard treatments resulted in a significant decline in depression scores during the 6-week, double-blind treatment phase. At endpoint (week 6), the mean HamD score showed a group difference of 3.7 points in favor of L-T4. Such difference is generally considered to be clinically meaningful in a short-term treatment trial for major depression. NICE used a 3.0-point difference in HamD change scores as a criterion of clinical significance.27

L-thyroxine at an average dose of 350 micro g/die. Outcomes were moderate in 39.3% and very good in 21.5%, corresponding to 21-item HAMD scores of < or =16 and < or =8 and clinical judgement. Of all patients, 39.3% had to stop treatment due to nonresponse or side effects.

Surprisingly, treatment with supraphysiological doses of L-T4 did not cause significant effects on sleep architecture. However, the increase in body movements and REM density was close to reaching statistical significance.

At the time of assessment, patients had been treated with supraphysiological T4 (mean dose 368 microg/d) for a mean of 54 months. The total subjective response score was +25.2.

RESULTS: Two patients dropped out of the study owing to side effects. The remaining 7 patients received a final mean dose of T4 of 235 +/- 58 micrograms/day (range: 150-300 micrograms/day). Their scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale had fallen from a mean of 21.1 +/- 4.1 before inclusion in the study to a mean of 8.0 +/- 2.8 at the end of the 8th week. Five patients were full responders, 1 a partial responder, and 1 a nonresponder.CONCLUSIONS: Augmentation with high-dose T4 proved to have an antidepressant effect in more than 50% of the previously treatment-resistant patients with chronic depression and/or dysthymia.

Thyroxine was added to their antidepressant medication, and the doses were increased to a mean of 482 ± 72 μg/day.

(A)–(C) Changes in markers of thyroid status over the course of the study (mean ± standard error). (D) Changes in treatment preference.

L-T3 has proven to be 4-5 times more biologically active and to take effect more quickly than L-thyroxine (L-T4).

Following this observation, the same group conducted a cross-sectional analysis to assess the association among 140 patients with EE and TH replacement hypothyroid treated with LT4. In this study population, REE did not differ significantly between patients achieving low-normal (TSH ≤ 2.5 μIU/mL) vs high normal TSH (TSH >2.5 μIU/mL). Conversely, free T3 level showed a direct correlation with EE, but also with indices of adiposity including body mass index (BMI), body composition, and fat free mass [49]. This latter observation is consistent with other cross-sectional studies that have clearly defined the positive association between circulating levels of T3 and adiposity [50, 51].

The authors demonstrated an inverse correlation between TSH and REE with a change of 15% for a TSH ranging from 0.1 to 10 μIU/mL. Of interest, free T4 remained within the normal range in all of the study volunteers. Nonetheless, the changes in REE with different LT4 doses were demonstrated in every patient [46].

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AbstractHigh dose thyroid hormone has been in use since the 1930s for the treatment of affective disorders. Despite numerous papers showing benefit, the lack of negative trials and its inclusion in multiple treatment guidelines, high dose thyroid has yet to find wide spread use. The major objection to the use of high dose thyroid is the myth that it causes osteoporosis. This paper reviews the literature surrounding the use of high dose thyroid, both in endocrinology and in psychiatry. High dose thyroid does not appear to be a significant risk factor for osteoporosis while other widely employed psychiatric medications do pose a risk. Psychiatrists are uniquely qualified to do the risk-benefit analyses of high dose thyroid for the treatment of the bipolar I, bipolar II and bipolar NOS. Other specialties do not have the requisite knowledge of the risks of alterative medications or of the mortality and morbidity of the bipolar disorders to do a full risk benefit analysis.

There was a boy who was born with congenital hypothyroidism and was raised on traditional T3 (Cytomel). He was never treated with a T4-containing medicine, and so essentially never had a molecule of T4 in his body. By age 26 he had developed normally with no problems.