A research team at Soonchunhyang University Hospital has confirmed that patients with metabolic syndrome are more likely to suffer from autoimmune thyroid diseases.

A Soonchunhyang University Hospital team, led by Professor Kim Hye-jeong, has confirmed an association between metabolic syndrome and autoimmune thyroid disease.
A Soonchunhyang University Hospital team, led by Professor Kim Hye-jeong, has confirmed an association between metabolic syndrome and autoimmune thyroid disease.

To establish the relationship between metabolic syndrome and autoimmune thyroid disease, the team -- led by Professor Kim Hye-jeong of the Department of Endocrinology -- analyzed the data of 4,775 people aged 19 years or older who had normal thyroid function and had undergone autoimmune thyroid antibody test from 2013 to 2015.

As a result of the analysis, the team confirmed that 25 percent of the subjects had metabolic syndrome. In addition, those with these metabolic syndromes had higher autoimmune thyroid antibody levels and positivity than those without metabolic syndrome.

The researchers also found a significant difference in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome according to the presence or absence of thyroid autoimmune thyroid positivity. In addition, the team found that those with positive autoimmune thyroid antibodies had a higher risk of abdominal obesity, hypertension, and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol than those with negative autoimmune thyroid antibodies.

These results confirmed that positive autoimmune thyroid antibody is a significant risk factor for metabolic syndrome even after adjusting for confounding variables such as age, sex, household income, education, smoking, drinking alcohol, walking activity, thyroid-stimulating hormone, and free will thyroxine, according to the hospital.

“Although little is known about the link between thyroid autoimmunity and metabolic syndrome, this study has confirmed association between the two,” Professor Kim said. “We need to conduct large-scale longitudinal studies to clarify their causality.”

European Journal of Endocrinology has published the result of the study.

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