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Sustained high levels of serum leptin rather than IL-6 observed in patients with postpartum thyroiditis during their first postpartum year

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Abstract

The purpose of the study is to explore the roles of leptin and interleukin-6 (IL-6) during the first postpartum year in the occurrence and development of postpartum thyroiditis (PPT). We retrospectively collected serum samples from 57 PPT patients consisting of 34 overt PPT (O-PPT) and 23 subclinical PPT (S-PPT) in addition to 37 healthy postpartum women at four postpartum time points, i.e., 3-day and 3, 6, 12-month postpartum. Serum leptin and IL-6 levels were measured by radioimmunoassay and ELISA assay, respectively. Leptin level and leptin/BMI (LEP/BMI) ratio were higher in PPT patients than in control during the first postpartum year, but were not significantly different between O-PPT and S-PPT. However, a similar trend but did not reach significant difference in IL-6 level was observed during the postpartum period in PPT patients and control women. We conclude that a sustained high level of serum leptin after delivery may be involved in the pathogenesis of PPT. IL-6 does not contribute to the development of PPT.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to the postpartum women who participated in this study. We thank Renee Wang and LetPub Company for their linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript. All the authors have nothing to declare. This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation, Beijing, China (Grant #81170731).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, The First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University; Institute of Endocrinology, The Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory of Endocrine Diseases, China Medical University, 155 Nanjing Bei Street, Liaoning, Shenyang, 110001, People’s Republic of China

    Huiling Guo, Xiu Liu, Yushu Li, Miao Sang, Zhongyan Shan, Weiping Teng & Haixia Guan

  2. Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Shenyang Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Shenyang, People’s Republic of China

    Chenyang Li

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  1. Huiling Guo
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  2. Xiu Liu
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Correspondence to Weiping Teng or Haixia Guan.

Additional information

Huiling Guo, Xiu Liu, and Chenyang Li contributed equally to this work.

Haixia Guan is corresponding author and Weiping Teng is co-corresponding author.

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Guo, H., Liu, X., Li, C. et al. Sustained high levels of serum leptin rather than IL-6 observed in patients with postpartum thyroiditis during their first postpartum year. Endocrine 47, 512–518 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-014-0176-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-014-0176-3

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