As far as falsifiability goes, I’m working on it, but so far:
Take a load of CFS/FMS patients.
Filter out those with abnormal TSH values (they’re just normal hypothyroid cases, I’m sure there’ll be some)
Filter them for the clinical signs of hypometabolism (principally low metabolic rate, but use Billewicz criteria too)
(1) That should do it, actually. Hypothyroidism in the presence of normal TSH values should be a surprise!
(2) As a follow up, feed them small quantities of desiccated thyroid. Most of them should get better.
(3) For a final flourish, feed the remainder who didn’t respond T3 in increasing doses, and increase the doses until they either show signs of hypermetabolism (oops, stop) or get better.
If there aren’t any patients at (1), then I’m just wrong. I’ll shut up, and anyone who wants to show that alternative medicine is badly mistreating people can point to the study.
If there are a significant number of people at (1), then we know that the current understanding of thyroids is hopelessly wrong. More research is needed!
If (2) works, then we have a major scandal. If it’s only a temporary cure, then that’s at least interesting. If it’s a permanent fix then that’s a huge win.
If (3) works, then John Lowe was completely and utterly right about everything, and everyone in the world should apologise to his widow and he should get some sort of posthumous Nobel prize or something.
I think your post would benefit from you having a tl,dr and a proposal of what kind of study you would run to find out whether you are right.
I added a summary. How can I improve it?
As far as falsifiability goes, I’m working on it, but so far:
Take a load of CFS/FMS patients.
Filter out those with abnormal TSH values (they’re just normal hypothyroid cases, I’m sure there’ll be some)
Filter them for the clinical signs of hypometabolism (principally low metabolic rate, but use Billewicz criteria too)
(1) That should do it, actually. Hypothyroidism in the presence of normal TSH values should be a surprise!
(2) As a follow up, feed them small quantities of desiccated thyroid. Most of them should get better.
(3) For a final flourish, feed the remainder who didn’t respond T3 in increasing doses, and increase the doses until they either show signs of hypermetabolism (oops, stop) or get better.
If there aren’t any patients at (1), then I’m just wrong. I’ll shut up, and anyone who wants to show that alternative medicine is badly mistreating people can point to the study.
If there are a significant number of people at (1), then we know that the current understanding of thyroids is hopelessly wrong. More research is needed!
If (2) works, then we have a major scandal. If it’s only a temporary cure, then that’s at least interesting. If it’s a permanent fix then that’s a huge win.
If (3) works, then John Lowe was completely and utterly right about everything, and everyone in the world should apologise to his widow and he should get some sort of posthumous Nobel prize or something.
P.S. I have no idea how to design studies. Does anyone know how to put this into study-design-speak?