DEC 16, patients and their maladies: Graves' disease

 

Authors' Note:  Graves' disease (often shortened by medical types to the ominous-sounding Graves' ), described by Robert Graves in 1835, is a common auto-immune disease that attacks the internal controls in the thyroid gland, and results in the overproduction of thyroid hormones. Significant symptoms result from hyperthyroidism, the hypermetabolic state that is produced.

Among several effective treatments, antithyroid drugs, taken over months or years, block production of these hormones, and often result in resumption of the euthyroid (normal) state.