Maternal hypothyroidism and psychiatric disease

Psychiatric disease, manifesting as depression, bipolar disease and schizophrenia, is a leading cause of disease in adolescents and young adults. Although the aetiology of psychiatric diseases is only partly understood, it is believed that the causation may start early in life.

Andersen et al. hypothesized that maternal hypothyroidism during pregnancy could programme the foetus to develop psychiatric disease later in life. To examine this hypothesis, they used Danish nationwide registers and identified a cohort of adolescents and obtained information on their use of anxiolytics, antipsychotics and antidepressants from the age of 15 years.  In addition, they identified a subgroup of adolescents born to mothers who had been treated for hypothyroidism before, during or in the first years after the pregnancy.

They found that maternal hypothyroidism was associated with an increased risk of using anxiolytics and antipsychotics in late adolescence and young adulthood. The study also suggests that foetal programming by maternal hypothyroidism may be part of the mechanisms leading to some types of psychiatric disease in the offspring.

Read full article at Anderson et al. 2014 Clinical Endocrinology  81 (1) 126 – 133; DOI:10.1111/cen.12415