Research Article Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Subclinical Hypothyroidism: A Case Control Study in Nepalese Population

Copyright © 2015 Rajendra KC et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objectives. To assess cardiovascular risk factors in Nepalese population with subclinical hypothyroidism as compared to age and sex matched controls.Materials andMethods. A case control study was conducted among 200 subjects (100 subclinical hypothyroid and 100 euthyroid) at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal. Demographic and anthropometric variables including systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) were taken. Blood samples were assayed for serum free triiodothyronine (fT3), free thyroxine (fT4), thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), total cholesterol (TC), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and high sensitivity C reactive protein (hs-CRP). Results. Subclinical hypothyroid patients had significantly higher diastolic BP, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and hs-CRP than controls. The odds ratio of having hypercholesterolemia (>200mg/dL), low HDL cholesterol (<40mg/dL), undesirable LDL-cholesterol (>100mg/dL), high hs-CRP (>1 mg/L), and high diastolic BP (>80 mmHg) and being overweight (BMI ≥ 23Kg/m2) in subclinical hypothyroidism was 2.29 (95 % CI; 1.2–4.38