Lewis E Braverman

Lewis E. Braverman (March 30, 1929 – June 10, 2019) was a U.S. endocrinologist who specialized in thyroid gland problems. He discovered that humans converted thyroxine to triiodothyronine. He was a mentor to physicians for over 40 years.

Early life and education Lewis E. Braverman was born in Boston on March 30, 1929 where his father was a general practitioner and his mother helped run the practice. He grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts and went to Milton Academy in neighboring Milton, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard College, graduated in 1951, and then went to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, graduating MD in 1955.

Career Braverman was an intern at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Thereafter he served for two years in the U.S. military in France under the Berry Plan. He returned to the United States for an internal medicine residency at Boston City Hospital, and trained with the director of the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory.

He found the cause of a 1984 outbreak of thyrotoxicosis in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Iowa was ground beef contaminated with tissue from the animals' thyroid glands.

Braverman is also credited with the discovery that the heart drug amiodarone was one of the most common causes of iodine-induced thyrotoxicosis, a finding which he published, with others, in 1985.

Personal life He was married and had two sons, Daniel and William Braverman. He died from Waldenström macroglobulinemia on June 10, 2019, aged 90 years.