Whether severe sadness, fear, exhaustion, inner restlessness or great lack of drive – depression has many faces. According to estimates, according to the AOK Federal Association, around 11 percent of women and around 5 percent of men in Germany suffer from depression. Expressed in figures, that is about 5.3 million people.
But depression often occurs with comorbidities – as the results of a Chinese study show. In 1,251 subjects under the age of 45 with a first depressive episode, abnormalities in the lipid metabolism were detected. It is already known that there is a connection between depression and impaired thyroid function. The German Thyroid Center reports that the small thyroid not only produces hormones for organic processes such as the cardiovascular system, digestion or metabolism, but also for brain activity. Therefore, the thyroid has a great influence on the psyche. If there is an overactive condition and if there are too many hormones in the control loop, those affected can often tend towards nervous, aggressive or anxious behavior. In the case of hypothyroidism, on the other hand, depressive moods, apathy, rapid exhaustion, tiredness and concentration problems can occur.
Laboratory tests have now shown that the participants’ TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) value, the most important laboratory value for examining thyroid function, was elevated. An underactive thyroid might explain the link between lipid metabolism and depression, since thyroid function is closely related to lipid metabolism. The result: in the study, abnormalities in lipid metabolism were found in around 75 percent of the patients. In addition to a disorder of the lipid metabolism, other aspects such as a higher BMI or severe anxiety were recorded.
Sources: German Health Portal, German Thyroid Center