Thyroid condition linked to heart failure risk

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A hormonal condition associated with the thyroid gland increases the risk of heart failure.
Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) occurs when level of the thyroid hormone thyrotropin is elevated while that of another thyroid hormone, thyroxine, is normal. SH becomes increasingly common with age and affects 10 per cent of women over 70.

A team at the University of California, San Francisco, has looked at a group of 2,730 men and women aged 70 to 79 to find if there is a relationship between SH and congestive heart failure and other heart conditions. They found, during a four year follow up, that moderate to severe SH was linked to increased incidence of congestive heart failure but mild SH was not. There was no link with other cardiovascular conditions, though, such as heart attack, peripheral arterial disease, or stroke. The researchers would now like to see studies on whether SH causes heart failure or makes pre-existing heart failure worse.

Source
Archives of Internal Medicine 28th November 2005 Volume 165 pages 2460-2466