Josh Redd alias Dr. Hashimoto's Hustle

Josh Redd is not licensed or approved by Utah Chiropractic Physician Licensing Board to diagnose, treat, or cure Asserting that women are systematically misdiagnosed due to lab benchmarks, implying a functional medicine diagnostic authority over standard endocrinology..

Asserting that women are systematically misdiagnosed due to lab benchmarks, implying a functional medicine diagnostic authority over standard endocrinology.

Supports

There is substantial evidence that sex and gender can affect laboratory reference ranges and disease presentation, and that historically male‑biased data and non–sex-specific cut‑offs can contribute to misclassification or delayed diagnosis in women. Large-scale observational analyses show that women are routinely older than men when first assigned many diagnoses, consistent with under-recognition or delayed recognition across multiple conditions. Studies of myocardial infarction biomarkers and diagnostic models report that reference ranges and training data derived largely from older male cohorts can increase false negatives in women, leading to missed or delayed MI diagnoses. Endocrinology literature documents that thyroid and sex hormone reference intervals vary significantly by sex, age, and reproductive status, and that using a single pooled range can cause over- or underdiagnosis; age- and sex-specific TSH ranges markedly reduce apparent subclinical hypothyroidism in older women, demonstrating misclassification when generic ranges are applied. Reproductive and sex-steroid endocrinology work has established sex-, age-, puberty-, and menopausal-status-specific reference intervals for estrogens, testosterone, and other hormones in women, specifically to improve diagnostic accuracy and avoid mislabeling normal female physiology as abnormal. Clinical chemistry studies in pregnancy and trimester-specific lipid and liver test reference intervals show that manufacturer-provided broad ranges are not adequate for pregnant women and that locally derived, trimester- and sex-specific ranges better reflect normal physiology, implying that non-specific ranges can misclassify pregnant women as abnormal or miss pathology. Diagnostic meta-analysis methodology in endocrinology highlights the need to validate cut-offs and reference ranges for specific populations to avoid systematic errors in classification.

Contradicts

Although sex bias and non–sex-specific reference ranges can contribute to misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis in women for some conditions, the evidence does not support a blanket assertion that women are systematically misdiagnosed across the board due to lab benchmarks, nor that functional medicine has superior diagnostic authority over standard endocrinology. Major endocrinology and laboratory medicine publications respond to identified sex and age biases by refining evidence-based, population-specific reference intervals rather than discarding conventional benchmarks, indicating that mainstream practice is evolving within the scientific framework rather than being fundamentally invalid for women. Large-scale characterizations of gender differences in diagnosis show complex patterns influenced by health care access, disease biology, and sociocultural factors, not solely laboratory cut-offs, and they do not endorse functional medicine as a corrective authority. Reviews of sex bias in thyroid disease management acknowledge historical bias and potential overdiagnosis or underdiagnosis but call for better-standardized assays, age- and sex-specific ranges, and guideline-based management, not for replacement of standard endocrinology with functional medicine. The available high-quality evidence supports refining conventional lab interpretation within mainstream endocrinology and clinical chemistry; it does not show that functional medicine, which often uses non-validated “optimal ranges” and lacks robust outcome data, yields more accurate diagnoses or better health outcomes for women. Overdiagnosis literature in areas like mammography demonstrates that the problem can be too many diagnoses in women due to aggressive screening and broad thresholds rather than systematic underdiagnosis driven by lab benchmarks alone.

Mainstream view

The mainstream medical and scientific view is that sex, gender, age, pregnancy status, and other demographic and physiological factors must be taken into account when establishing and interpreting laboratory reference ranges, and that failure to do so can contribute to misclassification and diagnostic bias, including for women. Accordingly, current efforts in endocrinology, reproductive medicine, cardiology, and clinical chemistry focus on developing robust, assay-specific, age- and sex-stratified reference intervals, improving inclusion of women in trials, and adjusting diagnostic cut-offs and guideline recommendations based on high-quality data. Mainstream guidelines and expert groups emphasize using validated reference ranges, standardized assays, and outcome-based thresholds, and they view misdiagnosis related to sex bias as a problem to be addressed within evidence-based conventional practice. Functional medicine interpretations that rely on non-validated “optimal” ranges or that diagnose disease in women outside guideline-supported criteria are generally considered unproven and potentially harmful, because they risk both overdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment without strong trial or guideline support. Overall, mainstream endocrinology and laboratory medicine acknowledge and actively study sex-specific bias and reference interval issues but do not accept functional medicine as a superior diagnostic authority; instead, they aim to correct biases through rigorous research, standardization, and guideline updates.

Papers listed for this claim:[37][38][39][40]

In their own wordsView sourceArchived copy

“What Your Labs Don’t Tell You (and Why Women Get Misdiagnosed)”

Rule: Utah Code § 58-73-601(2)(a), (k)