Thyroid and obesity

In everyday clinical practice, it is quite common to find patients suffering from obesity. Many of them think that their weight problem is a result of a thyroid dysfunction. Obesity is a highly prevalent disease among the general population worldwide. Not only that, but in recent years, it has progressively been on the rise.1 Regardless of age or gender, it is generally linked with an etiopathogenic link to a great number of diseases and conditions with high morbidity and mortality, such as diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and gout. In other words, we are dealing with a terrible illness, which on the other hand, some authors consider to be an incurable chronic disease. The truth is that obesity is not a disease, but a syndrome. That is, it does not obey a single cause; on the contrary, there are multiple factors which may condition or cause it. Despite significant advances made in recent years, its true cause remains uncertain. ‘‘I am overweight because I have thyroid dysfunction.’’ This phrase is often repeated at medical consultations, while these very same people complain that ‘‘I gain weight even by drinking water’’, or ‘‘All my friends go on diets and I am the only one who has not lost any weight’’, or ‘‘There are those who can eat anything and never gain a pound.’’ Although these phrases are usually attributed to females, this problem often occurs in men as well.