Older people may too often be diagnosed with an underactive thyroid and prescribed thyroid hormones, which can cause new troubles and expenses without improving their lives, researchers say.
A recent case study provides a snapshot of the larger problem, the authors write in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Just 1 percent to 2 percent of people have hypothyroidism, in which their thyroid gland is underactive and requires treatment, coauthor Dr. Juan P. Brito of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told Reuters Health. But about 15 percent of people have “subclinical hypothyroidism” - hormone levels that are between the healthy range and the diagnostic cutoff for hypothyroidism and that cause few or no symptoms.
