Thyroid volume evaluation in metabolically healthy and unhealthy obese patients

Obesity is an epidemic disease which is ever increasing worldwide, reducing the quality of life, leads to many morbidity and mortality such as increased incidence of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer and hypertension in particular. It has been shown that a group of patients with obesity is protected from some of the morbidities associated with obesity or is more resistant to these morbidities and the patients in this group are called "metabolically healthy obese individuals". The association of the insulin resistance, the major component of metabolic syndrome, with the morphological abnormalities of the thyroid has been shown and our study aimed to determine if there was a difference in thyroid volume between metabolic healthy and unhealthy obese patient groups and the relation of thyroid volume with metabolic syndrome criteria. A total of 116 obese female patients without known thyroid disease, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and coronary artery disease were referred to Internal Medicine outpatient clinics included in our study. Metabolic syndrome diagnostic criteria were investigated and thyroid volumes were measured. Thyroid volumes of metabolically healthy obese and unhealthy obese groups were compared. The relation of thyroid volume to carotid intima media thickness, body mass index, waist circumference, waist hip ratio, systolic and diastolic blood pressure arterial values, lipid profile, glycated hemoglobin, fasting blood glucose, creatinine, uric acid, insulin level and insulin resistance were evaluated. There was a statistically significant difference in the comparison of thyroid volumes among the groups of metabolically healthy and unhealthy obese patients who participated in our study. In addition, a significant statistical relationship was detected between thyroid volume and number of metabolic syndrome criteria, systolic arterial blood pressure, diastolic arterial blood pressure, body mass index, weight, waist circumference, carotid intima media thickness, uric acid, insulin level, insulin resistance and LDL cholesterol. The significant statistical relationship between the parameters of thyroid volume and metabolic syndrome parameters suggests that increased thyroid volume may be a candidate to be used as a marker of increased cardiovascular risks, and an indicative of metabolic syndrome in obese individuals.