Serum Leptin levels in newly diagnosed patients with hypothyroidism: Single center experience

Abstracts
Background: Leptin and thyroid hormones both are involved in regulation of energy metabolism. Many studies were conducted for studying the relation-ship and the interaction between the thyrostat and the lipostat which till present is incompletely understood. The aim of this study is to find a significant change in the serum leptin of patients suffering from hypothyroidism, who are newly diagnosed treatment naïve, thus the association between leptin and thyroid hormones can be purified as much as possible.
Methods: a case control study conducted at Zagazig university endocrine out-patient clinic. The study included 15 patients with hypothyroidism and 30 control euthyroid subjects (15 lean, 15 obese). All of the included patients are analyzed for thyroid profile and serum leptin.
Results: The results revealed a statistically significant difference regarding serum leptin between the hypothyroid group and control obese. No correlation was found between serum leptin and either of BMI, TSH, Free T3 or Free T4 in each of the studied group, but a significant negative correlation was found between leptin and either of free T3 or free T4 in the combined groups.
Conclusion: Serum leptin level is lower in treatment naive hypothyroid when compared to euthyroid control. The serum leptin showed no correlation with either BMI or TSH, also no correlation was found between serum leptin and free T3 or free T4 in each of the studied group suggesting presence of other factors that indirectly affect and interconnect these two major endocrinal systems involving energy metabolism.