Context: Thyroid status is hypothesized to be causally related with the risk of diabetes mellitus (DM), but previous results were conflicting possibly because of a complex interaction between thyrotropin (TSH), body mass index (BMI) and DM.
Objective: This work aims to investigate the causal association between thyroid status with DM and glucose homeostasis and to what extent this association is dependent on BMI.
Methods: A mendelian randomization study was conducted of European-ancestry participants from the UK Biobank population. The present study involved 408 895 individuals (mean age 57.4 years [SD 8.0], 45.9% men), of whom 19 773 had DM. Genetic variants for circulatory TSH, free thyroxine (fT4) concentrations and BMI to calculate weighted genetic risk scores. The main outcome measures included self-reported DM-stratified analyses by BMI. Analyses were repeated for nonfasting glucose and glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) among individuals without DM.
Results: Genetically determined TSH and fT4 levels were not associated with risk of DM in the total UK Biobank population. However, in analyses stratified on genetically determined BMI, genetically determined higher TSH, and not fT4, was associated with a lower risk for DM only in the low BMI group (odds ratio 0.91; 95% CI, 0.85-0.98 in low BMI; P value for interaction = .06). Similar results were observed for glucose and HbA1c among individuals without DM.
Conclusion: TSH, but not fT4, is a potential causal risk factor for DM in individuals with genetically determined low BMI highlighting potential protective effects of TSH only in low-risk populations.
Keywords: diabetes mellitus; glucose homeostasis; hyperthyroidism; hypothyroidism; mendelian randomization; obesity; thyroid function.
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Endocrine Society.