Correlation between thyroid hormone values and anemia in elderly patients with diabetic nephropathy.

We aimed to explore the correlation between thyroid hormone levels and anemia severity in elderly diabetic nephropathy (DN) patients.Elder-ly DN patients (140 in total) diagnosed and treated during November 2019 and December 2023 were retrospectively recruited as a DN group, 140 patients with uncomplicated diabetes mellitus as a simple diabetes group, and 140 healthy subjects as a healthy group. A non-anemia group (n=63) and an anemia group (n=77) were set up as sets of the DN group according to the hemoglobin (Hb) level, and the anemia group was further divided into a severe group (n=48) (Hb<60 g/L), a moderate group (n=16) (60 g/L≤Hb<90 g/L) and a mild group (n=13) (Hb≥90 g/L). Compared to the simple diabetes group, signifi-cantly increased levels of serum TSH and significantly decreased levels of FT4 and FT3 were found in the DN group (p<0.05). A significant increase in TSH levels and significant decreases in FT4 and FT3 levels were detected in the serum from the moderate group compared with those from the mild group (p<0.05). The same trends in these levels were observed from the severe group compared to the moderate group (p<0.05). Hb had a negative correlation with TSH and positive correlations with FT4 and FT3 (p<0.05). High TSH and low FT4 and FT3 may be related to anemia in elderly patients with DN, and they have correlations with the severity of anemia.