Predictive value of thyroid-stimulating hormone in postmenopausal type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with normal thyroid function associated with ultrasound-diagnosed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Abstract

We aimed to determine the role of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) of postmenopausal type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) women with normal thyroid function in identifying ultrasound-diagnosed nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The association between ultrasound-diagnosed NAFLD and biochemical parameters of 376 patients was analyzed among overall patients and in different age groups (≤60 years; 60–70 years; >70 years). The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was used to analyze the diagnostic ability of TSH for ultrasound-diagnosed NAFLD. The prevalence of ultrasound-diagnosed NAFLD in postmenopausal T2DM women was 44.1%. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the levels of BMI (OR = 0.843, 95%CI: 0.779–0.913), HbA1c (OR = 0.836, 95%CI: 0.738–0.946), TG (OR = 0.539, 95%CI: 0.408–0.712), ALT (OR = 0.979, 95%CI: 0.962–0.995) were independent risk factors of NAFLD. BMI and TG were related to the NFALD risk of patients in the three age groups. HOMA-IR and HbA1c were independent risk factors of NAFLD among patients aged ≤60 years and 60–70 years, respectively. The TSH with the best diagnostic ability was among ≤60 years old patients (sensitivity = 0.486; specificity = 0.730). Higher BMI, abnormal glucose and lipid metabolism had a higher risk for developing NFALD, and TSH diagnosis is more meaningful in relatively young patients.

Keywords

• type 2 diabetes mellitus
• non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• thyroid-stimulating hormone