Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Patients successfully treated for hyperthyroidism show often the excessive weight gain and patients with hypothyroidism seldom regain their premorbid weight despite satisfactory control of their thyroid function.

Aim of study: We compared the levels of hormones of ghrelin and leptin in patients with hyper and hypothyroidism, treated and untreated. We aimed to find if they play a role in a new energy balance in these patients.

Patients and methods: We investigated the levels of ghrelin and leptin in 12 patients with newly diagnosed hyperthyroidism (group I), 13 patients with newly diagnosed hypothyroidism (group II), 15 patients with well controlled primary hypothyroidism (group III) and 9 patients cured for hyperthyroidism and now with normal thyroid function (group IV). We also measured the BMI and percentage of fat by DEXA in these patients.

Results:

Comparisons: fT4: group I to groups II and III P<0.001, group I to group IV P<0.01; leptin: group I to group II P<0.05.

Summary: The lowest levels of ghrelin and leptin were found in patients with untreated hyperthyroidism. It seems that the levels of ghrelin and leptin are more influenced by present thyroid function then by percentage of body fat. Supported by grant IGA NR/7928-3.