ABSTRACTS OF THE 42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research June 23–26, 2009

摘要

Hypothyroidism is a common condition that can have complex effects uponnmetabolism of carbohydrates and lipids, increasing risk of further morbid-nities including cardiovascular disease. An indicator of that increased risk isnelevation of liver enzymes and lipids. We assembled a cohort of 5538nhypothyroid subjects with a matched (age, sex, and medical facility) com-nparison group and examined their medical and lab records for 10 yearsnfollowing diagnosis of hypothyroidism in 1997.We observed an immediatenelevation of alanine transaminase (ALT) in the first year following diagno-nsis of hypothyroidism and varied fluctuation in subsequent years, althoughnlevels remained above the comparison group for the entire study period.nAspartate transaminase (AST) levels were, for the most part, also higher fornhypothyroid cases, also following an initial spike. Of the serum lipids,nLDL-cholesterol was comparable between groups, but triglycerides werenconsistently elevated while HDL-cholesterol was consistently depressed innhypothyroid patients. We observed a clear difference in longitudinalnchanges of ALT and AST for hypothyroid patients, suggesting an increasednrisk of fat deposition in the liver. We would encourage work to clarify thenrelationship of the enzyme elevation observed in lab values to fat in thenliver, to metabolic syndrome, and to cardiovascular disease. Possibly evenntreated hypothyroidism elevates risk for cardiovascular disease and for typen2 diabetes through this pathway. Given the common occurrence of hypo-nthyroidism, these questions deserve considerable attention.