Relationship of Gremlin-1 with Some Anthropometric Measurements in Iraqi Thyroid Dysfunction Patients

Abstract

Majority of endocrine problems include thyroid conditions. Patients’ health may be adversely impacted, and they frequently need ongoing care and monitoring. This study aimed to investigate serum gremlin-1 (grem-1) levels in patients with thyroid and evaluate any possible relationship between serum grem-1 levels with anthropometric measurements. This study involved 56 thyroid dysfunctions (TDs) patients from a medical laboratory, as well as 28 healthy controls (HCs). Serum levels of Grem-1 were measured using an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) while serum levels of fasting glucose were measured by colorimetric enzyme spectrophotometry. Serum levels of Grem-1 were significantly higher in the hyperthyroidism group than in both the hypothyroidism and HCs. In hypothyroidism, Grem-1 showed a negative correlation with thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), thoracic-to-hip ratio (T/H), thoracic-to-hip ratio (W/H), waist-to-chest ratio (W/T), waist-to-neck ratio (W/N) and fasting serum glucose (FSG), whereas it showed an important negative correlation with TSH and T/H in hyperthyroidism patients. Grem-1 showed a strong positive correlation with triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) (nmol/mL) ( P > 0.0001) in hyperthyroidism patients, whereas it showed a positive correlation with T3 and T4 in hypothyroidism patients. The results of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for the best measured parameters for the diagnosis of hypothyroidism were T4 with AUC (0.9872) but TSH and T3 were good markers for the hypothyroidism diagnosis with AUC (0.9847 and 0.8578). For the diagnosis of hyperthyroidism, T3 and T4 were the best biomarkers with AUC (1.000) while Grem-1 was an excellent biomarker for diagnosis hyperthyroidism with AUC (0.9554), some anthropometric measurements showed good values more than 0.8 for diagnosis hypothyroidism (BMI, W/T and W/N) and hyperthyroidism (T/H). Gremlin-1 showed a negative association with W/H in hypothyroidism, whereas it showed a strong negative association with T/H in hyperthyroidism.