Association of thyroid hormones with metabolic syndrome and its components in postmenopausal Chinese women

Abstract

To evaluate the association between thyroid hormones (TH) and metabolic syndrome (MS) in postmenopausal women (PmW), a cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 1000 participants of PmW (40–65 years). Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and free thyroxine (fT4) were evaluated. The MS was defined using the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) ethnicity-specific definitions for Asian. Participants were classified into three groups according to the TSH reference range: high-TSH (≥4.2 mU/L), low-TSH (<0.1mU/L), and normal-TSH (0.1–4.2 mU/L) group. Serum triglycerides (TG) levels were higher in low-TSH group and high-TSH group compared with normal-TSH group (p < .05). The whole sample was stratified into <60 and ≥60 years subgroups. In the ≥60 years group, fT4 was negatively correlated with waist circumference (WC) (p = .028) and positively correlated with fasting blood glucose (FBG) (p = .043), meanwhile TSH was positively correlated with WC only in the control subjects (p = .014). No difference was found between TH and the number of MS components. It was demonstrated that serum fT4 levels were associated with FBG and WC, while TSH was associated with WC in elderly PmW without MS.

摘要

这是一项对1000名经后妇女（PmW）（40-65岁）进行的横断面研究, 主要目的是为评价绝经后妇女（PmW）的甲状腺激素（TH）与代谢综合征（MS）之间的关系。本研究对甲状腺刺激素 (TSH) 和游离T4 (fT4) 进行了评估。应用国际糖尿病联盟（IDF）针对亚洲人种族的标准来定义代谢综合征。根据TSH参考范围, 参与者分为三组：高TSH组 (≥4.2 mU/L), 低TSH组 (<0.1mU/L), 和正常TSH组 (0.1–4.2 mU/L). 低TSH组和高TSH组的血清甘油三酯（TG）水平高于正常TSH组(p< .05)。样本还被分为<60岁组和≥60岁组。在≥60 岁组中, fT4 与腰围（WC）呈负相关 (p=.028) 与空腹血糖(FBG)呈正相关（p=.043）。而TSH仅在对照组中与WC正相关（p=.014）。在TH和MS的构成之间没有发现差异。结果表明, 在没有MS的老年PmW中, 血清fT4水平与FBG和WC有关, 而TSH与WC有关。

The Chinese abstracts are translated by Prof. Dr. Xiangyan Ruan and her team: Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100026, China.

Keywords:

• Thyroid hormones
• metabolic syndrome
• thyroid dysfunction
• postmenopause

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was granted by the Scientific Research Project of the Health and Family Planning Commission of Sichuan Province [Grant No. 150022].