Whether it’s extreme sadness, fear, exhaustion, inner anxiety, or an extreme lack of drive – depression has many faces. According to estimates, according to the Federal Association AOK, about 11 percent of women and about 5 percent of men in Germany suffer from depression. Expressed in numbers, it is about 5.3 million people.
But depression often occurs with comorbidities – as the results of a Chinese study show. In 1251 subjects under the age of 45 suffering from a primary depressive episode, abnormalities in lipid metabolism were detected. It is already known that there is a relationship between depression and thyroid dysfunction. The German Thyroid Center reports that the small thyroid gland not only produces hormones for such organic processes as the cardiovascular system, digestion or metabolism, but also for brain activity. Therefore, the thyroid gland has a huge impact on the psyche. If there is an overactive state and if there are too many hormones in the control loop, sufferers often tend to exhibit nervous, aggressive or anxious behaviour. In hypothyroidism, on the other hand, depressed moods, apathy, fatigue, fatigue, and concentration problems can occur.
Laboratory tests have now shown that the participants’ TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) value, the most important laboratory value for checking thyroid function, has risen. An underactive thyroid gland may explain the association between fat metabolism and depression, because thyroid function is closely related to fat metabolism. The result: In the study, abnormalities in fat metabolism were found in about 75 percent of the patients. In addition to the disorder of fat metabolism, other aspects such as high body mass index or severe anxiety have been recorded.
sources: German Health PortalAnd German Thyroid Center