Thyroid Hormones and Depression: The Health In Men Study
Abstract
Context Current practice guidelines suggest that thyroid function tests should be an integral part of the assessment of adults presenting with a depressive episode, although there is a paucity of data available to support such a recommendation.Objective To determine if biochemical markers of thyroid dysfunction are associated with prevalent and incident clinically significant depressive symptoms.Design Cross-sectional and cohort studies.Patients Community-dwelling sample of 3,932 men age 69 to 87 free of overt thyroid disease.Main outcome measures We used the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale to ascertain the presence of prevalent clinically significant depressive symptoms, and the Western Australia Data Linkage System to establish the onset of a depressive episode according to the International Classification of Diseases.Results The serum concentration of thyroid-stimulating hormone and free thyroxine (fT4) did not affect the odds of prevalent or the hazard of incident depression. The odds of prevalent depression were 0.8 (95% CI: = 0.5-1.3) for men with subclinical hypothyroidism and 1.4 (95% CI: = 0.3-5.8) for those with subclinical hyperthyroidism. The hazard ratio of incident depression associated with subclinical hypothyroidism was 0.7 (95% CI: = 0.3-1.9). No men with subclinical hyperthyroidism developed depression during the follow-up period of 5.5 ± 1.4 years.Conclusions Subclinical thyroid disease is not associated with prevalent or incident depression in older men. These findings do not support the routine screening of subclinical thyroid dysfunction among older adults with depression.
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There appears to be no correlation between SH and depression.
“There appears to be no correlation between SH and depression (421-423).”
From 2016 American Thyroid Association Guidelines for Diagnosis and Management of Hyperthyroidism and Other Causes of Thyrotoxicosis (2016) · cites this paper as [422]
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- Authors
- Almeida, O. P., Alfonso, H., Flicker, L., Hankey, G., Chubb, S. A. P., & Yeap, B. B.
- Affiliations
- The University of Western Australia (AU)
- Fremantle Hospital (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Almeida, Osvaldo P.
- Venue
- The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-09
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 763-770
- ISSN
- 1064-7481 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2140780138
- Cited by
- 68
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 3.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (submittedVersion)
- eSpace (Curtin University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia ((grant numbers: 279,408, 379,600, 403,963, 513,823, and 634,492))
- MBF Foundation of Australia ((grant number DS 080,608))
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Thyroid Disorders and Treatments
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Hormonal and reproductive studies
- Keywords
- thyroid hormones, depression, subclinical hypothyroidism, subclinical hyperthyroidism, thyroid-stimulating hormone, free thyroxine, older men, geriatric depression, thyroid screening, incident depression
- MeSH terms
- Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depression, Humans, Male, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Thyroid Diseases, Thyroid Function Tests, Thyrotropin, Thyroxine, Cohort Studies, Biomarkers, Geriatric Assessment
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