Insulin resistance in thyroid disorders: association between anti-TPO and HOMA-IR

The association of thyroid disease and diabetes has been classically described. However, the comorbidity of thyroid disparities and insulin resistance is not frequently assessed, especially the sequence of the occurrence of these markers. We performed a retrospective analysis to evaluate the association between thyroid disease and diabetes markers. We further investigated the sequence of occurrence of thyroid and diabetes markers to identify any predictive capabilities of these markers. We evaluated 32787 subjects who were classified based on their serum thyroid hormones and autoantibody levels. Our general prevalence results showed that HOMA-IR was elevated in overt hypothyroid subjects (43.7%) and overt hyperthyroid subjects (42.2%). HbA1C was elevated in subclinical hypothyroid subjects (19.2%), overt hypothyroid subjects (22.3%) and overt hyperthyroid subjects (21.2%). Glucose was significantly elevated in subclinical hypothyroid subjects (24.2%) and overt hyperthyroid subjects (31.0%). Insulin was only significantly elevated in overt hypothyroid subjects (15.1%). Interestingly, we found that 70.3% of subjects who had their HOMA-IR score escalated from negative (HOMA-IR<2.7) to positive (HOMA-IR>2.7) during their multiple visits had anti-TPO 369 (242) days prior to the onset of this change. Our comprehensive study provided evidence that the presence of anti-TPO may suggest a predictive role in developing insulin resistance later in life.