Correlation Between the Thyroid Hormone Levels and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Type 2 Diabetic Patients with Normal Thyroid Function

Abstract

Background: The objective of this study is to retrospectively analyze the correlation between the thyroid hormones and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients with normal thyroid function. Methods: Totally 586 T2DM patients with normal thyroid function participated in this research and were divided into T2DM without NAFLD (240 cases) group and T2DM with NAFLD (346 cases) group. The NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS) >0.676 was defined as progressive liver fibrosis and used to categorize the patients into T2DM without progressive liver fibrosis group (493 cases) and T2DM with progressive liver fibrosis group (93 cases). Results: The results indicated that the levels of free triiodothyronine (FT3) and total triiodomethylamine (TT3) were significantly higher while the free thyroxine (FT4) level was lower in T2DM with NAFLD group than that in T2DM2 without NAFLD group (p<0.05). The levels of FT3, FT4 and TT3 in patients with progressive liver fibrosis were significantly lower in patients with progressive liver fibrosis than that in patients without progressive liver fibrosis (p<0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed a negative relationship between FT4 level and NAFLD (p=0.026), between the levels of FT4,TT3 and total thyroxine (TT4) and the risk of progressive hepatic fibrosis (p=0.022, p=0.007,p=0.046).Conclusion: There is a certain correlation between thyroid hormone levels and NAFLD in T2DM patients, suggesting that the assessment of thyroid hormone levels in T2DM patients with normal thyroid function is of great significance in the prevention and treatment of NAFLD.