Association between thyroid function and gallstone disease

Table 1 Baseline clinical characteristics of study participants with low (< 0.3 mIU/L), normal (0.3–3 mIU/L) and high (> 3 mIU/L) serum TSH levels

	Low serum	Normal serum	High serum
	TSH n = 385	TSH n = 3321	TSH n = 43
Age (yr)	57.2±15.2a	48.4±16.3	51.1±12.7
Sex (male)	218 (56.6%)	1 723 (51.9%)	13 (30.2%)a
Education
<10 yr	209 (54.6%)a	1 206 (36.6%)	14 (32.6%)
10 yr (Ref.)	132 (34.5%)	1 556 (47.2%)	19 (44.2%)
>10 yr	42 (11.0%)	535 (16.2%)	10 (23.3%)
Physical activity	130 (33.9%)a	1 445 (43.7%)	19 (44.2%)
Current cigarette smoking
Never (Ref.)	125 (32.6%)	1 138 (34.4%)	15 (34.9%)
Former	151 (39.4%)	1 109 (33.5%)	17 (39.5%)
Current	107 (27.9%)	1 061 (32.1%)	11 (25.6%)
Diabetes mellitus	38 (10.0%)	269 (8.2%)	0
Body mass index; kg/m²	27.4±4.5	27.1±4.7	27.9±4.6
Total cholesterol; mg/dL	221±44	223±49	240±53a
mmol/L	5.71±1.14	5.76±1.26	6.20±1.38a
LDL-Cholesterol; mg/dL	138±41	138±45	152±50
mmol/L	3.56±1.05	3.56±1.18	3.92±1.30
HDL-Cholesterol; mg/dL	54±17a	56±17	60±17
mmol/L	1.41±0.44a	1.45±0.44	1.56±0.43

χ2-test (nominal data) or ANOVA (interval data) for inter-group comparisons; aP<0.05 vs reference group: normal serum TSH. LDL denotes low density lipoprotein, HDL; high density lipoprotein.