ESPE Abstracts

Background: It is known that obese children are at higher risk in terms of cardiovascular diseases when compared with normal weight children. Recent studies emphasizes on the fact that there is a relation between TSH and several cardiovascular risk factors in obese children.

Objective and hypotheses: The aim of the study is to investigate the relation between cardiometabolic risk factors and thyroid function tests in obese children.

Method: 148 obese children with a BMI>95 percentile, 128 overweight children with a BMI between 85 and 95 percentile and 142 children with a BMI<85 percentile were evaluated in terms of thyroid function tests and cardiometabolic risk factors. The mean age of patients was 11.2±2.3 years (range: 7–18 years). BMI, waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, serum lipid levels, fasting blood glucose and insulin levels, CRP, homocystine, lipoprotein A, fibrinogen levels were evaluated as cardiometabolic risk factors. OGTT was done in order to evaluate glucose metabolism disorders.

Results: When compared with normal weight children, TSH levels were higher, sT₄ levels were lower and sT₃ levels were higher in obese children. When the obese patients were divided into three groups according to the severity of obesity as slight-moderate–severe, sT₄ levels were lowest and TSH levels were highest in the severely obese group when compared with the other two groups and control group. A significant positive correlation was found between TSH levels and BMI-SDS, waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, HOMA-IR, serum triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL, homocystein, lipoprotein a levels. When corrected according to age, gender, puberty stage and BMI-SDS, it was found that TSH was correlated with impaired glucose tolerance, impaired fasting glucose and insulin resistance.

Conclusion: The thyroid function dysfunction and increased TSH levels in obese children could be related to dyslipidaemia, insulin resistance, impaired glucose metabolism and other increased cardiometabolic risk factors.