A Brief Biography of Dr. Lowe

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| Awards/memberships | Marriages |
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Dr. John C. Lowe is a fibromyalgia, thyroid, and metabolism researcher. As Director of Research for the Fibromyalgia Research Foundation, he has spearheaded the scientific study of two related topics: the metabolic causes of fibromyalgia, and the relief of fibromyalgia symptoms through the treatment approach he developed and named "metabolic rehabilitation." 

He and his research team determined that the two main underlying causes of the documented symptoms and objective features of fibromyalgia are hypothyroidism and/or peripheral thyroid hormone resistance.

Dr. Lowe is author of the internationally acclaimed and award-winning book The Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia. The book is considered by many to be the most important document every published on fibromyalgia. At the same time, the book comprehensively covers basic and clinical thyroidology.

In addition to conducting studies, Dr. Lowe also provides long-distance educational consulting for clinicians, fibromyalgia patients, and other patients with hypothyroidism or thyroid hormone resistance.

Biography. On his maternal side of his family, the Whaleys, Dr. Lowe is a descendant of British subjects. Two Whaley brothers traveled to the British colonies, that were to become the United States. They fought for the colonies in the Revolutionary War. One of the two Whaley brothers a Major fifer, sending coded-sound signals from commanders to  military units. (A fife is a high-pitched transverse flute used commonly for military messages and marching musical groups.)

For his service to the newly-constituted United States, Major Whaley was granted land in North Carolina. He prospered, and his sons migrated further south. They eventually made their homes in Northwest Florida and in the civil war, they fought for the Confederate States of America.

After growing up in the confusing and troubling south in the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Lowe became a liberal in the real sense of the word---freedom. To him, the term liberal has nothing to do with the meaning implied by half-educated bigots such as Rush Limbaugh. Instead, as dictionaries specify, "liberal"  refers to freedom of individuality expression, as long as one abstains from stepping on other people's toes.

Dr. Lowe holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in research-oriented general psychology from the University of West Florida. He also holds a B.S. degree in human biology and a doctorate in chiropractic from the institution now named the Southern California University of Health Sciences. He formerly taught psychology at the Miami Dade Community College and was a faculty member in the Clinical Sciences Division of the Texas Chiropractic College.

Dr. Lowe maintained a clinical practice for more than thirty years. As explained in the section below, he voluntarily surrended his clinical licenses in Colorado and Texas as a preemptive move. By doing so, he sidestepped unscrupulous tactics to silence him from his highly-vocal, highly-precise, and forthright exposure of profit-driven saboteurs of human health and well-being (section below).

Clinical Licenses. Dr. Lowe has been a chiropractic physician since 1977. At different times in his clinical career, he was licensed to practice in Florida, Texas, and Colorado. He was originally licensed to practice in 1978; he voluntarily gave up his final clinical license on January 1, 2010.

Dr. Lowe had long decided (some ten years before) to strategically give up his licenses at a certain point in his career. He was well prepared for that point, having been advised and tutored about it by many of his medical colleagues who had been defrocked by their regulatory boards and courts for resisting the use of T4 replacement therapy and actually helping thyroid patients recover their health. The predetermined point to forfeit his licenses was clearly defined: it was when it became his evidence-based opinion that a corrupt chiropractic board  and/or corrupt judicial officials were arranging to try to silence him from his constant reports of the corruption and incompetence of the endocrinology specialty in dealing with hypothyroidism and thyroid hormone resistance.

Dr. Lowe used a calculated judo approach to what he believes was finally an unscrupulous attempt to silence him. By using this long planned approach, he avoided much of the apparently work-distracting and resource-draining intentions of his opponents. At that point, he gave up his clinical licenses, thereby removing from his forehead the license-based target for the snipers of corruption. He had long prepared for this eventuality. Because of this, giving up the licenses caused him and his family no hardship and little distraction. As he had often warned, the attempt to silence him would merely free him to speak more often and more vociferously about the horrors imposed on humanity by the endocrinology specialty and its Big Pharma sponsors.

Rather than clinical care, Dr. Lowe now continues his many-years practice of informational/educational consulting with clinicians and patients. He provides them with information the patients need to achieve optimal health. His main focus in informational consulting is the safe and effective use of thyroid hormone, but he also provides consultations on health in general.

Publications. Dr. Lowe has authored more than 160 articles, scientific papers, and book chapters. His writings have appeared many journals, including Psychological Reports; Medical Science Monitor; the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry; the American Journal of Pain Management; Anabolism—A Journal of Preventive Medicine; Medical Hypotheses; Lyon Méditerranée Médical: Médecine du Sud-Est; the British Medical Journal; the Journal of Myofascial Therapy; the Clinical Bulletin of Myofascial Therapy; the Massage Therapy Journal; the Journal of the American Chiropractic Association; and Thyroid Science. Trade papers such as Dynamic Chiropractic, the Chiropractic Journal, and others have published articles and monthly columns by Dr. Lowe.

The authors of at least twenty-three books have cited or described Dr. Lowe's work. Among his own published books are Spasm, Your Guide to Metabolic Health, and The Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia. Study Sphere gave Dr. Lowe its Excellence Award for his chapter in The Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia in which he shows that fibromyalgia is not a psychiatric disorder. In the chapter, he refutes the notion that fibromyalgia is a mental or emotional disorder. He also argues that the misdiagnosis is usually a product of the psychological disturbance of physicians who make the misdiagnosis. 

Awards and Memberships. In 1977, the American Chiropractic Association awarded Dr. Lowe its Annual Scientific Paper Award. In 1992, for his contributions to the field of myofascial therapy, the National Association of Myofascial Trigger Point Therapists appointed him an honorary lifetime member. He has served as an official scientific reviewer on the International Reviewers' Panel of Medical Science Monitor, an international journal for experimental and clinical research. As a reviewer, he did critical reviews of submitted research papers in the fields of hypothyroidism and thyroid hormone resistance.

Dr. Lowe is a member of the Board of Medical Advisors of Thyroid UK, and is a member of Index Copernicus Scientists, a global information networking system for scientists. He is Editor-in-Chief of the open-access journal Thyroid Science (www.ThyroidScience.com), which publishes papers on the full range of topics in thyroidology. He formerly served on the Advisory Board of Inside Texas Running Magazine and the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies. He is a former editor of the Journal of Myofascial Therapy and the Clinical Bulletin of Myofascial Therapy.

In December 2005, Dr. Lowe became a member of Index Copernicus Scientists upon invitation from its CEO Mark R. Graczynski, MD, PhD. Index Copernicus Scientists is a global information networking system for scientists, designed by and for scientists.

According to Dr. Graczynski, “The aim of this web-based communication platform is to offer a set of essential tools to encourage the effective exchange of information between scientists worldwide as well as to promote and initiate international research collaboration.” He also notes, “The system encourages the effective exchange of information between scientists worldwide as well as to promote and initiate international research collaboration.”

Dr. Lowe's line of metabolism research over the last twenty years led to two significant outcomes: First was the solution to the problem of fibromyalgia, showing that its main underlying mechanism is too little thyroid hormone regulation, often complicated by nutritional deficiencies, low physical fitness, an unwholesome diet, blood sugar dysregulation, and the use of metabolism-impeding drugs; second was his creation and coining of “metabolic rehabilitation,” a high-precision, data-driven clinical approach for helping patients to improve or recover. His hope is that his interaction within the community of international scientists through Index Copernicus Scientists will lead to researchers in other countries becoming involved in the line of metabolic research he began and continues.

The 62nd edition of the premier biographical source Marquis Who's Who in American was published in 2008. (For a history and description and Marquis, and its committee's process of selecting individuals to include, see Wikipedia's article on Marquis.) Dr. Lowe was selected by the Marquis committee to be included. Marquis, which began publication in 1899, chronicles the lives and careers of men and women their committee considers noteworthy Americans. (Dr. Lowe's comments on his inclusion in Marquis.)

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© 2011 Dr. John C. Lowe, LLC. All rights reserved. This email newsletter may be copied and distributed subject to three conditions: (1) All text within the full document or any section copied must be copied without modification with all pages included. (2) All copies must contain the following copyright notice: "© 2011 John C. Lowe." (3) The copy of the newsletter text must clearly show the original source of publication as "www.drlowe.com." (4) Neither this full document nor any section of it may be published or distributed for profit. (5) Except for personal use, the photos cannot be copied, as they are the intellectual property of individual photographers and made available through agreement with PhotoXpress and other entities.

Editor-in-Chief:
Thyroid Science
ThyroidScience.com

Director of Research: Fibromyalgia Research Foundation FibromyalgiaRearch.org

American Academy of Pain Management (Ret)

 

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Marriages. Before he married Tammy Lewis, Dr. Lowe had said on this webpage that his marriages had been best exemplified by a song of the Allman Brothers' Band. "On June 8th, 2009, however," Dr. Lowe said, "I received an email from someone courteously asking whether the words of that song also applied to my marriage to Tammy Lewis. Let me state resoundingly that that the words do not. Tammy gave me more kindness, generosity, patience, and support than any other woman I've been involved with, amorously and/or maritally."

"I know that as human beings, we're all highly fallible," Dr. Lowe said. "Because we are, I accept in stride the mistakes I've made in life, including marital ones, and (to be metaphorical) the punitive consequences life has doled out to me for those infractions. And I accept the mistakes of my wives. This is the unconditional acceptance of myself, others, and life as they in fact are—that is, often not to pleasant to deal with. The famed psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis strongly advocated these philosophical basics as essential to a reasonable degree of mental health (something I've striven for but never laid firm claim to), and these existential basics promoted by Dr. Ellis have certainly made it easier to live with my marital screw ups."

"Indeed, through mutual, interactive connubial misconduct, I've helped ruin my own marriages, contributing heavily through my workaholism. Life's payback is tough sometimes. But as inconvenient as it is, that is life, and I unconditionally accept it, in line with Dr. Al Ellis' teachings. No need to compound the unpleasantness of it all by whining and moaning and groaning that I haven't handled my personal life better. Instead, I'll continue to work to learn from all my mistakes of the past. Hopefully, that will help make life better for me and for others."

Underpinnings of Dr. Lowe's Work. Underpinning Dr. Lowe's work are his two main intellectual interests: (1) theoretical-deductive science, which enables one to make the best possible sense of study findings in a research field; and (2) symbolic (mathematical) logic, the discipline one uses to determine the validity or invalidity of his own and others' conclusions and arguments.

Dr. Lowe is a devout critical rationalist. This means that he subscribes to the hypothesis (proposed by Sir Karl Popper and articulated by David Miller and others) that the ultimate job of logical, scientific thinkers is to formulate bold hypotheses, and rigorously try to falsify them. The reason for falsifying the hypotheses is to eliminate errors in them and perhaps the entire hypotheses. Free of at least some of their errors, ideas, beliefs, hypotheses, and theories may become more accurate representations of truth, which is correspondence with truth. If eliminating errors makes it obvious that an idea, belief, hypothesis, or theory is entirely false, then we canhaving learned from the falsificationreplace it with one that is hopefully more accurate.

He is also an active critical analyst. This means that he logically analyzes his own thinking and beliefs and those of others to learn whether or not these are accurate and rational. In recent years, drug and medical device corporations have largely co-opted medical research, the medical profession and its institutions, medical practice guidelines committees, and the US Congress. These corporations have essentially turned all of these groups, to varying degrees, into marketing tools for the products of the corporations. This phenomenon is the basis of the statement that the major motive behind science today is economics rather than curiosity and problem solving. This corruption of science has brought about a necessity for patients and clinicians to protect themselves from marketing disguised as scientific findings. Through critical analyses, Dr. Lowe is exposing such marketing disguised as science in the fields of fibromyalgia and thyroidology.

Examples of Dr. Lowe's critical analyses are his critiques of the T4 vs T4/T3 studies; the false and potentially harmful beliefs of the self-proclaimed "real thyroid expert," Dr. Richard Guttler the British Thyroid Associations presentation of selective and false evidence in advocating T4 replacement over treatment with desiccated thyroid; and Dr. Guttler's false claims about natural desiccated thyroid.

Development of Dr. Lowe's Professional Work. Dr. Lowe began using myofascial therapy in 1980 under the tutelage of the late chiropractic radiologist and clinician David Ramby, D.C. For years, Dr. Lowe's main clinical focus was patients' chronically tense muscles, fascial adhesions, and myofascial trigger points. To help these patients, he used a broad-spectrum therapeutic approach. It included soft tissue manipulative techniques, Travell and Simons's stretch and spray, clinical nutrition, and various physical therapy modalities, especially ultrasound. After studying "perpetuating factors" (factors that make myofascial patients treatment resistant) as described by Drs. Janet Travell and David Simons (especially in the 1st edition of their famous Trigger Point Manual published in 1983), he began tenaciously studying biochemical abnormalities that render some patients resistant to otherwise effective myofascial therapy.

While studying the role of thyroid hormone deficiency in treatment resistance of myofascial pain syndromes, Dr. Lowe found that hypothyroid fibromyalgia patients usually recover from their fibromyalgia symptoms when treated in one or both of two ways: (1) a thyroid hormone dosage greater than a replacement dose (the amount needed to keep the TSH level within the dubious "normal" range), and (2) with desiccated thyroid or T3 rather than the customarily prescribed T4 (thyroxin). He also found that most fibromyalgia patients who aren't hypothyroid also improve or recover without overstimulation when treated with fairly high dosages of plain as opposed to sustain-release T3. These patients can be said to be partially resistant to thyroid hormone.

In 1995, one of Dr. Lowe's patients who had recovered from her fibromyalgia symptoms through his metabolic approach convinced him to established the Fibromyalgia Research Foundation (FRF). The three purposes of this 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization are to: (1) support scientific studies of the metabolic treatment of fibromyalgia patients; (2) determine the underlying molecular mechanisms of fibromyalgia; and (3) educate fibromyalgia patients, clinicians,  researchers, and the general public about the findings of FRF-sponsored research.

FRF's charter requires the organization both conduct and publish research and  educate patients, clinicians, other researchers, and the general public about fibromyalgia. Complying with this requirement, Dr. Lowe has remained vocal about what his research group determined to the ultimate creator of what we call fibromyalgia. That ultimate creator is T4 replacement therapy. The therapy is so mistakenly conceived and clinically ineffective that since the early 1970s, when it first imposed on thyroid patients, a range of mysterious new diseases have been reported. Published research shows that the plausible mechanism most of these conditions is too little thyroid hormone regulation.

In 2006, Dr. Lowe published the first two studies that showed that on average, female fibromyalgia patients had resting metabolic rates about 30% below normal.  fibromyalgia patients. In two studies published in 2006 (for the publishes study report, see Medical Science Monitor [scroll down to "Clinical Research"] and Thyroid Science). The studies also showed that fibromyalgia patients had significantly lower basal body temperatures than those of healthy controls. In two ways, results of these studies vindicate Dr. Lowe's hypothesis of fibromyalgia in two ways: (1) the studied found that fibromyalgia patients are hypometabolic, and (2) that the most likely mechanism of the patients' symptoms is too little thyroid hormone regulation.

Dr. Lowe has also determined that some 90% of fibromyalgia patients have thyroid disease. The thyroid diseases include primary hypothyroidism, central hypothyroidism, and partial peripheral cellular resistance to thyroid hormone. Most hypothyroid patients fully recover when they undergo the metabolic rehabilitation using natural desiccated thyroid or T3 alone. And most fibromyalgia patients with thyroid hormone resistance markedly improve or fully recover when they go through metabolic rehab and use T3.

Dr. Lowe is firm that he has determined the underlying mechanisms of most patients' fibromyalgia. Peter Warmingham of Thyroid UK pointed this out in 2002 in his article titled "Fibromyalgia has been solved" (Fibro Focus Supporter, 3:1-3, 2002). Dr. Lowe repeated Mr. Warmingham's announcement on August 19, 2005 in Sugarland, Texas at the Functional Endocrinology Symposium (sponsored by the Professional Compounding Companies of America), and he reiterated it on May 25, 2007 at the endocrinology symposium of the Institute for Functional Medicine in Tucson, Arizona. Overwhelming scientific evidence supports Mr. Warmingham's and Dr. Lowe's announcements.
 

Dr. Lowe's Curriculum Vitae