Endocrine Abstracts

Hypothyroid patients often present with non-specific symptoms and some of these may persist despite adequate thyroxine replacement, including weakness, poor memory, paraesthesia and numbness or coldness of the extremities. In patients on thyroxine who have been referred due to persistent symptoms, we routinely look for vitamin B12 deficiency, if symptoms persist once thyroxine replacement has been optimised.We present three patients who remained symptoma...

ObjectiveIt is controversial whether subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) always reflects mild thyroid failure and if treatment is beneficial. The arguments in favour of treatment are prevention of progression, reducing cholesterol levels and improving symptoms. The consequence of SCH on body weight and its response to treatment has never been studied in a systematic manner.MethodsUnselected population-based stud...

Thyroid function changes with advancing age, however there is little good quality data available that characterises the extent of thyroid disease in the elderly, or the parameters of normal thyroid function in the ‘oldest old’. Reference ranges for serum TSH and free thyroid hormones based on unselected younger adults are currently applied uniformly to older individuals.The Newcastle 85+ study has collected health and lifestyle information from...