Asthma and future thyroid disease incidence: a novel association

Published: September 23, 2021

Asthma and autoimmune thyroid conditions were considered to be Th2- and Th1-mediated diseases, respectively. However, recent studies have reported that some asthma phenotypes are non-T2 or T2-low asthma, and these pathways have also been reported in the pathogenesis of hyperthyroidism. Large-scale studies evaluating the relationship between asthma and subsequent hyperthyroidism are lacking.

In The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, Gau and colleagues reported a population-based retrospective cohort study to evaluate the future incidence of hyperthyroidism in people with and without asthma. In the study, confounding factors including age, sex, medical utilization status, and comorbidities were considered and adjusted for. Sensitivity analyses, including stratification by age, sex, and follow-up time after asthma diagnosis, were also performed to provide further information regarding the observed association.

In this study, after adjusting for relevant covariates, people with asthma were reported to have a 1.31-fold increased risk in developing hyperthyroidism compared with people without asthma. Individuals with a relatively short follow-up time from asthma diagnosis demonstrated a 1.59-fold increased risk of hyperthyroidism. Moreover, compared with the younger population, patients aged >30 years at the index date presented a significantly higher risk of developing future hyperthyroidism. The authors concluded that clinicians caring for patients with asthma should be aware of an increased the risk of hyperthyroidism developing in the future.

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice is an official journal of the AAAAI, focusing on practical information for the practicing clinician.

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