title: An effective veterinary model may offer therapeutic promise for human conditions: roles of cortisol and thyroid hormones.
abstract: For nearly three decades, the author has treated multiple serious diseases of cats and dogs by correcting an unrecognized endocrine-immune imbalance originating with a deficiency or defect of cortisol. The cortisol abnormality creates a domino effect on feedback loops involving the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. In this scenario estrogen becomes elevated, thyroid hormone becomes bound, and B and T cells become deregulated. Diseases with this aberration as a primary etiological component range from allergies and strange behavior to severe cases of autoimmunity and cancer. Successful treatment and control, even in critical cases, have been consistently achieved with a long-term physiologic (not pharmacologic) replacement with cortisone along with thyroid hormone (in dogs). The treatment represents a major healing modality for many seemingly unrelated chronic diseases of animals. In humans, this endocrine-immune dysfunction appears to exist and, as in veterinary medicine, has been overlooked by researchers and clinicians. Testing and treatment patterned after the animal model may offer significant clinical benefits for challenging human afflictions.
authors.affiliation: California Animal Hospital, Los Angeles 90025, USA. drplechner@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Alfred J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Plechner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004285:Dogs; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000502:physiology* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008954:Models, Biological; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D013963:Thyroid Hormones / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000627:therapeutic use
chemical_list: D013963:Thyroid Hormones; D006854:Hydrocortisone