Review of Kiefer’s T3 Fuel with a Before and After Thyroid Panel

Posted on by BJJ Caveman

Review of Kiefers T3 Fuel with a before and after thyroid panel

I was immediately curious about Kiefer’s thyroid supplement T3 Fuel ever since he announced it this past October.  I’ve been dealing with an elevated Reverse T3 for the past couple years and have bounced around the spectrum to having a normal thyroid level to being subclinically hypothyroid.

A Little About My Thyroid

If you’d like to read more about my past, here are some of my previous posts

When I started testing my thyroid levels in depth I was experimenting with nutritional ketosis, Carb Nite (cyclic ketogenic diet), and Carb Back-loading (targeted ketogenic diet), and I noticed a slight inverse correlation between my overall carb intake and my TSH (less carbs = higher TSH).

Based on my test results and a lot of online digging, I concluded that at least in my case, there is a definite relationship between carb intake and my thyroid status.  You can see in my past thyroid numbers, that the highest my TSH had ever reached, came after 90 days of strict ketosis.

However, I still haven’t quite managed to establish the relationship between carb intake and Free T3 or Reverse T3 levels.  My Free T3 trends to the lower range of normal with decreased carb intake (although the pattern was broken during my Carb Back-Loading experiment), and my Reverse T3 levels remained elevated no matter what I did.

These two things have lead to a chronically low Free T3 to Reverse T3 ratio.

It’s also important for me to mention that my work throughout this period consisted of a week of overnight shifts followed by a week or so of time off.  During the weeks of my overnight shifts, my sleep was seriously screwed up, and would range anywhere from 4 hrs to 6.5 hrs.  Definitely not enough.

I did my best to make the most of technology to track my sleep and to use the best sleep supplements money could buy without resorting to prescription strength stuff.

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T3 Fuel

It’s with this background that caused me to be immediately curious the moment I heard about Kiefer’s T3 Fuel supplement.  He announced it during his promotional webcasts for his Carb Shock supplement and provided some more tips on usage in a recent podcast:

If you’re curious about the specific ingredients and labeling on the bottle you can check out this post.

Kiefer claims T3 Fuels particular mix of herbal extracts, minerals, and resveratrol act to both support the thyroid directly and indirectly.  T3 Fuel acts on the thyroid production by providing the components necessary to produce thyroid hormone.  It helps indirectly by increasing mitochondrial biogenesis in the rest of they body, which in turn signals the thyroid to upregulate thyroid hormone production.  This is supposedly especially efficacious in folks like me who eat low carb.

Here are a few other pertinent notes from these podcasts/webcasts:

  • T3 Fuel can help if you are training too much or have some sort of underlying metabolic dysfunction with low T3 levels.
  • If you’re having trouble getting Carb Nite to work with only one Carb Nite per week, T3 Fuel will help in this scenario because you might have sick mitochondrai that aren’t allowing you to get the big thyroid bursts from carb refeeds.
  • This supplement still will not be enough to treat hypothyroidism. Patients will still need to take their thyroid medications. T3 Fuel is just an adjunct and will not replace thyroid medications.
  • The best time to take this is first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. This is because there are circadian patterns in activity to some of the enzymes that bind and break down resveratrol, and these enzymes are lowest in activity in the morning.
  • Kiefer recommends taking this before coffee or after coffee. It’s best taken on it’s own.
  • If you are training, it’s best to take T3 Fuel 1-1.5 hrs pre-workout, and then post workout when you take Carb Shock, you will maximize the synergy between the two.
  • It may help with dysmenorrhea (AJ was an n=1)
  • If not a training day, best to take it first thing in the morning on empty stomach. If it is a training day best to take it 1 hr before training to work as adjunct with post-workout Carb Shock.

I picked up 3 bottles and took the recommended dose daily over the course of 6 weeks.

Results

Here are the results from my most recent thyroid panel drawn on 10/23/14, after 10 days of doing Carb Nite (pre T3 Fuel):

TSH:  2.35
Free T4:  1.35
Free T3:  2.4
Reveres T3:  23.1
Free T3 to RT3 Ratio: 10.4

After 6 weeks of doing Carb Nite and taking T3 Fuel, on 12/5/14, I drew another thyroid panel, and here are the results.

TSH:  2.35 –> 1.57
Free T4:  1.35 –> 1.28
Free T3:  2.4 –> 2.8
Reveres T3:  23.1 –> 18.7
Free T3 to RT3 Ratio: 10.4 –> 15

Overall there was an improvement in all numbers with the exception of the Free T4.

My TSH went down, my Free T3 went up, and my Reverse T3 went down.  My Free T3 to Reverse T3 ratio was actually the highest it’s ever been since I started measuring my comprehensive thyroid panel (this is a good thing because normal is > 20).

What’s not to like right?  At this point it looks like the supplement is doing what it’s supposed to.

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But wait…

The only issue was that I also gained a little bit of weight during this time.  On 10/23/14 I weighed in at 195.6 lbs, and on 12/5/14 I weighed in at 199.0 lbs.

It was a slight weight gain of 3.4 lbs, which can be attributable to water weight and/or normal variation of course.

But it gave me reason to pause.  What exactly does it mean if my thyroid numbers improve… but I still gain weight?

Does that mean the T3 Fuel is doing what it’s supposed to?  I mean, the optimal scenario would’ve been, all my thyroid numbers improving indicating improved thyroid health and peripheral mitochondrial health, AND weight loss.

What exactly can you conclude if you have the improved thyroid numbers and still GAINED weight?

I’m not sure.  Maybe I need to cut back on the calories or the Carb Nites?

In any case, I’m not quite ready to say this supplement does everything it’s purported to do… but I’m also not willing to say it’s all mumbo jumbo either.  I think there’s definitely something to it, and I plan to experiment with it more!

If you’re interested, you might want to think about starting with 1-2 bottles first to see how it affects you before investing more.

You can pick some up at T3Fuel.com

Category: Reviews, Thyroid Hormone

15 thoughts on “Review of Kiefer’s T3 Fuel with a Before and After Thyroid Panel”

  1. Good to see the data and progress. Thanks as always for posting.

    I have a similar issue with a low FT3/RT3 ratio (11.8), with FT3 of 2.5 and RT3 of 21.2. TSH 1.06. That was after ~3 months of being on T3Fuel. Unfortunately, I only had a basic thyroid test done as the ‘before,’ so my only datapoint for comparison is a previous TSH of 1.15 > 1.06.

    I’m more on the CBL style protocol, so my daily carb intake is likely higher than yours. Still trying to get to the bottom of the low FT3/RT3, but I also assume that better sleep is good for everything!

    After my T3Fuel supply ran out, I started taking 500mg resveratrol (Life Extension Optimized) as a replacement, since Kiefer was out of stock. Watermelon fruit extract is the only other ingredient that I’m not getting through other supplements or foods such as seaweed for iodine. It’s a difficult ingredient to find and I wonder if that’s the other magic ingredient given the relatively high 400mg content. Will probably do another thyroid panel later this summer to check things out.

  2. If you ate more calories you could say that the increased thyroid were due to that.

    On a general note I have a problem with this kind of supplement from Kiefer. If the diet is so great for improving hormones etc., why do you need a thyroid supplement then?

      1. Ok, just a thought.

        Next experiment must be pine pollen extract – I think there is something to it 🙂

        1. Are you still using it? Or was it just for that month?

          I heard you on the HNA podcast talking about it and how you said you didn’t want to become dependent on it.

          1. I still use once or twice per week on the night before a heavy lifting session. I feel that it has an effect on my lifts (cold be placebo). The effect on night and morning wood is very clear though.

            I don’t want to use it everyday but rather at strategic times (to not become immune to it).

  3. I have been using the T3 Fuel for 4 months now. I bought 6 bottles. I didn’t do a blood work comparison, per se; but I may go back and look at my last few that were done. I get them every 3 months. However, based on my thyroid symptoms, the doctor was able to lower my medication (I take Armour Thyroid) by 30 mg per day. That was after 3 months on T3 Fuel. If it helps any, i have NOT gained any weight since starting T3 Fuel. My weight loss had slowed and my hair was coming out more than normal. He said those can also be signs of too much thyroid medicine. The symptoms cleared, but are starting to return; so I think he may need to lower my meds again. I don’t know if you take any thyroid meds. If so, that could be a factor.

    1. I don’t take any medications at all… just supplements.

      Please come back and let us know how things go with your followup test! Sounds like you’re a T3 Fuel success story in progress!

  4. Thanks for the information – T3 is sold out at the moment, would like to try – out of curiosity do you use an independent lab for your thyroid draw or through your md?

    1. I use an independent lab. I’ve been using Requestatest.com Best rates that I’ve found.

    1. I think the idea is to jump start your own endogenous production rather than take it exogenously. There’s always a danger of taking actual exogenous hormone causing the shut down of endogenous production… so that you become permanently dependent on the hormone you’ve been taking.

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