Doc Don pointed out to us the fact that "normal" TSH is simply the
mathematical definition where 95.5% of the values fall.  A Norway study involving 65,000
people shows what a real TSH normal curve looks like.  The vast majority of
the values in healthy people are below 2.

Here's an  excerpt but check out the rest of it, and the actual chart  at

http://www.thyroid.org.au/Information/NormalTSH.html

Skipper Beers

Excerpt -

The features of this result are:

The distribution of TSH readings in the healthy population is skew. It is not
the common bell shaped curve centred in the middle of the reference range.
The most common value, or Mode, is at 1.25.
The Median value is at 1.50. This means that half the population (50%) have a
TSH reading below 1.50.
The average, or Mean, value is at 1.68. Over 60% of the population have a TSH
reading below this value.
The centre of the Reference Range for the test kit used in the study is 2.35.
Almost 85% of the healthy population have a TSH reading below this value.
The 2.5 percentile point (ie the point which excludes the bottom 2.5% of the
population) is at 0.48. The 97.5 percentile point (ie the point which excludes
the top 2.5% of the population) is at 3.6. The range between the 2.5 and 97.5
percentile points (0.48 to 3.6) is much narrower than the test kit's
Reference Range (0.2 TO 4.5).
This narrowing of the range would suggest that the reference group used to
calibrate the test kit possibly included people with some level of thyroid
illness.
This narrowing of the range between the 2.5 and 97.5 percentile points would
potentially have been even more pronounced if all samples had been tested for
Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies.


_______________________________________________________________
 If you "Reply" to a message, and *you* fail to erase or delete
  the previous message, *your* message may not be distributed.

Question not answered on Thyroid? Check the Thyroid Archives:
  http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/thyroid.html
 and ask again!
_______________________________________________________________