Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is considered most common cause of end stage Liver disorder that needs liver transplantation worldwide. NAFLD is considered the hepatic aspect of metabolic syndrome. The association between thyroid dysfunction and NAFLD has increasingly become interesting focus of research.

Objective: Evaluation of thyroid function in obese adults with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease attending at Tanta university hospitals from July 2017 to February 2018.

Patients and method: Our study patients was classified into 2 groups first includes 60 obese with non alcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD) patients, second group includes 60 obese non NAFLD patients recruited from endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism outpatient clinics and inpatient wards,Internal medicine department at Tanta University Hospitals. Serum thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), Free thyroxine (FT4), Free Tri-iodiothyronine (FT3) by ELISA, Anti thyroid peroxidase (ANTI-TPO), Anti thyroglobulin (Tg Ab), NAFLD fibrosis score for NAFLD group and thyroid ultrasound are done for both groups.

Results: TSH levels showed statistically significant difference higher within normal range in obese NAFLD group P=0.001 with mean values 2.72±0.77 in obese NAFLD group, 1.93±0.66 in obese Non-NAFLD group. Also FT4 levels showed statistically significant difference lower within normal range in obese NAFLD group P=0.006 with mean values 1.08±0.22 in obese NAFLD group, 1.25±0.42 in obese Non- NAFLD group. As regard FT3 levels, ANTI-TPO levels, Tg Ab levels and thyroid ultrasound characters did not show statistically no significant difference between the two groups.

Conclusion: We concluded that there was elevation in levels of TSH within the normal range (0.4–4.2 mIU/l) in obese NAFLD group over obese Non-NAFLD group. Also FT4 results was within normal range (0.8–1.8 ng/dl) with lower levels in obese NAFLD group than obese Non-NAFLD and we still need further research on large scale.

Keywords: Non-alcoholic fatty liver, obese, thyroid dysfunction