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Hypertension, thyroid hormone levels linked in children
Ittermann T. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2011;doi:10.1210/jc.2011-2768.
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Subclinical hypothyroidism may be associated with an increased risk for hypertension, researchers reported.
Prior data are unclear and sparse on the relationship between thyroid function and BP in children and adolescents, leading researchers in Germany to conduct a study to investigate the association between thyroid-stimulating hormone and BP in younger age groups. Data from the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents, which included 6,435 children aged 3 to 10 years and 5,918 adolescents aged 11 to 17 years, were examined. Systolic and diastolic BPs were read in a sitting position after 5 minutes of rest. Using age-, sex- and height-specific reference values from the study, researchers defined hypertension as increased systolic or increased diastolic BP. Electrochemiluminescence was used to measure serum thyroid-stimulating hormone; high and low levels were defined based on age-specific reference limits. Thyroid-stimulating hormone levels — both continuous and categorized serum — were associated with hypertension by multivariate logistic regression.
There was a significant association between serum thyroid-stimulating hormone and hypertension in children (OR=1.12; 95% CI, 1.00-1.25) and adolescents (OR=1.19; 95% CI, 1.12-1.26). Increased thyroid-stimulating hormone was significantly associated with continuous values of systolic and diastolic BP in both children and adolescents (P<.05). In addition, compared with euthyroid children, those with increased serum thyroid-stimulating hormone had significantly lower pulse pressures and a higher risk for hypertension. Low serum thyroid-stimulating hormone was not associated with BP-related variables.
“Answers about the clinical importance of the detected associations should be further derived from longitudinal epidemiological studies and double blinded randomized controlled trials,” the researchers wrote.
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