Effect of subclinical hypothyroidism on indices of metabolic syndrome

Abstract

Subclinical hypothyroidism is defined as an elevation in serum thyroid-stimulating hormone above the upper limit of the reference range (0.45-4.5 mIU/L) with normal serum free T4 and T3 hormone concentrations. Here we present a cross-sectional, observational study of 100 patients that was conducted in a tertiary care hospital, over a period of 18 months. The aim of this article is to study the clinical and biochemical changes, assess metabolic syndrome, BMD, body composition and hormonal profile in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism. The data collected were analyzed by using Pearson’s chi square test and unpaired T test. Our study found 72% patients to be symptomatic, 29% patients to be obese, 31% patients to have goiter and 13% patients with deranged lipid profile. It was observed that waist circumference, body weight, BMI, insulin levels, C-peptide levels and polysomnography had a significant association with subclinical hypothyroidism as the p-value was observed to be less than 0.05. On assessment of data for presence of metabolic syndrome, it was observed that 8% of the patients of subclinical hypothyroidism had an associated metabolic syndrome. Our study observed that subclinical hypothyroidism has a significant correlation with various metabolic syndrome parameters