Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Obesity effects pituitary–thyroid axis resulting in elevated thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) level. We studied the relation between body mass index (BMI) and TSH in euthyroid and subclinical hypothyroid obese children and compared serum TSH level among obese and overweight children.

Methods: Fifty consecutive children (aged 2–18 years) presenting for obesity were studied. All cases with TSH >10, low T₃/T₄, organic and syndromic obesity were excluded. Patients were divided into Group 1: Overweight (n=20) (BMI between 85th and 95th centile) and Group 2: Obesity (n=30) (BMI > 95th centile). Fisher’s exact test, Mann–Whitney U-test and Pearson’s correlation were used for statistical analysis. P value <0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Elevated TSH level (between 4.5 and 10 mIU/l) with normal T₃, T₄ was seen in 4/20 overweight and 9/30 of obese children (P=0.5219). The mean TSH was comparable in both the groups (3.22±3.1 vs 3.63±2.2 mIU/l, P=0.3491). Overall TSH showed no correlation with BMI (r=0.0014, P=0.9924).

Conclusion: Our preliminary data did not show any relation between severity of obesity and TSH level. Further large scale data from population are required to confirm these findings.