Could your teen's stubborn weight issues be linked to an underlying thyroid problem? It's a question that many parents have. We're looking beyond the scale and into the science, with insights from a research study that shed light on this topic , on how thyroid medication actually affects weight in children with low thyroid.
Dr Gourgari is a pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine expert and weight loss coach for teens with more than 15 years of experience. She helps teens build healthy habits that last, so they can feel happier, be more confident and love their body again .
Could your teen's stubborn weight issues be linked to an underlying thyroid problem? It's a question that many parents have. We're looking beyond the scale and into the science, with insights from a research study that shed light on this topic , on how thyroid medication actually affects weight in children with low thyroid.
Dr Gourgari is a pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine expert and weight loss coach for teens with more than 15 years of experience. She helps teens build healthy habits that last, so they can feel happier, be more confident and love their body again .
This is the Lifestyle in Weight Loss for Teens podcast. If you are a mom and want to help your child who is struggling to lose weight, you are in the right place. If you are looking for healthy lifestyle tips, dr Gorgary is here to help you understand the science around safe weight loss in teens and children, because what works for adult weight loss is not always the best for children. This podcast is for educational purposes only. Dr Gorgary does not provide medical, psychological or nutrition therapy advice. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems without consulting your own medical practitioner and now your host, dr Jenny Gorgary.
Speaker 2:
Hello, this is Dr Jenny Gorgary and welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle in Weight Loss for Teens podcast. In this episode I decided to talk about thyroid problems, thyroid problems and weight gain, and what is the effect on the weight on children that have thyroid problems and how does that affect overall their metabolism? So I know this is a very, very common idea that a lot of parents and a lot of teenagers have, that they believe that there is a thyroid concern, there is a thyroid problem that can explain the significant weight gain in their teenagers and if they can start on a medication that is for low thyroid function, then there will be just fine and their weight, they will just lose tons of weight and everything will be fine. And this really idea comes from the fact that many years ago, when it wasn't so easy to diagnose the thyroid problems, people would be left untreated for a long time and they would live with untreated hypothyroidism for months and months and a lot of weight gain would have accumulated in the meantime. And, of course, they would have other symptoms along with that, not just the weight gain, they are other symptoms and those very neglected cases of untreated hypothyroidism. Then in those cases, yes, if you do give them level of the rocks and it is likely you will see more of an effect on the weight.
Speaker 2:
But nowadays most cases of hypothyroidism even untreated hypothyroidism, I would say are detected on relatively early stage. And that is because parents usually they see other symptoms that can be associated with that, that you can see constipation or poor concentration. The kids can have tiredness, fatigue. They don't sleep well, they may have moodiness. If they're girls they can have irregularity in their periods. So usually there are other symptoms and of course weight gain is another one. But the pediatricians are very eager to order the thyroid function test if there are any concerning symptoms for thyroid, and usually the thyroid problem is discovered relatively early in the course of the disease. So there was a great, a great study that was done by Dr Crocker and Dr Kappelowitza few years ago that actually investigated this exactly question.
Speaker 2:
And the question is how much weight gain do we see that people, kids in particular, lose after they are diagnosed with a thyroid problem. Then they start on a medication to improve the thyroid function. So they wanted to see what's the effect of lebothoroxin, which is the medication to treat hypothyroidism, on the kids' weight and on the kids' body mass index. Now, if you don't know what body mass index, I invite you to go back to episode one, where I talk more about what BMI is. I will just briefly mention that it is measurements that researchers use to evaluate what is the effect on overall weight in kids. That takes into account both the weight and the height, because kids are growing, which doesn't happen in adults, because adults have reached their height and that's what it is, but for kids, they are still growing until they reach a certain age. So in the kids that they're still growing, they are going to gain weight just by the fact that they are growing. Body mass index is a tool that we use to let us know that some kids are actually gaining more weight than what it is expected for the amount of height that they have gained in a particular period of time.
Speaker 2:
So, going back to this study, the doctors what they did is they investigated children that have thyroid dysfunction. Of course they did both kids that have low thyroid and high thyroid function. I'm just going to focus on the kids that had the low thyroid function, because those are the kids that tend to gain weight. So they included kids that their TSH hormone was more than 20, and TSH is a hormone that indicates that there is a thyroid dysfunction if it is very high. They had a total of 29 children that had hypothyroidism or low thyroid function that they followed them over time. So they initially show them they got their height and weight and then they give them the medication and they ask them to come back for follow-up. So they looked at their weight, they look at their body mass index during the first visit after they had the treatment, and then they look them again at the second follow-up visit. On average the median time was around three months for the first follow-up visit and then the second follow-up visit was around nine months. So there was a range between one to six months for the first visit and seven to 20 months so for the second visit.
Speaker 2:
So they did give the kids enough time to express and to show signs of weight loss if there was going to be any weight loss after initiation of treatment. So what they found is that there was some initial small weight loss on the first follow-up visit and the average weight loss was 0.3 kilograms, which is around 30 kilograms more than sea level, less than a pound it's almost half a pound. So there was a range between minus 3.7 kilograms to plus 3.6 kilograms. So some kids did lose a little bit more and some kids actually gained weight and of course that has to do with the fact that they were different age groups. So they have a big range. In the group of people that they were treated for low thyroid function, the median age was around 10 years of age, but they were kids that they were as young as 6 years and kids that they were as old as 17 years. So there was a big weight range and that can partially explain why there is this big range in terms of the weight change.
Speaker 2:
However, when they did also look at the body mass syntax, right. So the body mass index doesn't only look at the weight, which can be very different across ages, but they look at the weight for the height. So when they look at the weight for the height also, the mean change in the body mass index was BMI. We call this BMI Z-score to just give us an idea of like how big of the change was. It was really minimal, like minus 0.24 BMI Z-score. So it is a small change. During the first fall-up visit and then during the second fall-up visit, there wasn't really no more weight loss. It was really the same weight and pretty much or on average they gain a little bit of weight 1.5 kilograms.
Speaker 2:
So this study is not the only one that has shown those results. There were similar studies that have been done in adults that they have found that adults that have problems with their low thyroid function they get on medication and then they really lose very little weight. And in adults maybe the average is around 2.3 kilograms or something like that in one of the studies that was done. But for children really that have low thyroid function, their treated effect on the weight is less than a pound after an average of three months. So this is very important to keep in mind because the question is why does this happen? That happens because that tells us that the reason why teenagers can have difficulty with the weight may not be explained just by their thyroid hormone abnormalities.
Speaker 2:
And in fact I would say there is also the opposite. That is true that because kids can have overweight, because kids are in an unhealthy weight, the body tries to increase this hormone, the TSH, as a response to the extra weight gain, like your body is trying to increase your metabolism to overcome some of this weight gain that comes, but it cannot really. It can only do as much right. So if there are unhealthy habits in place, if there is a lot of consumption of sugar, of fat, there's no exercise, there's not enough sleep, there's not, there's a lot of stress going on. So if there are all the other factors that I keep talking about on, like the importance of having a healthy lifestyle and how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and this will be a sustainable, healthy habits in order to get to a healthy weight, that is very important. So one PL and or even one injection may not solve all the problems that have to do with maintaining and living a healthy lifestyle. So that's all I had for today.
Speaker 2:
I hope this was helpful.
Speaker 2:
I hope this helped clear some of the confusion around the topic of thyroid and if you think that your child may have any problems with the thyroid, please talk to your pediatrician to check the thyroid function and if there are thyroid abnormalities, you can evaluate this further with your doctor. As I said, thyroid problems are very common and thyroid problems are treatable and are relatively easy to treat. However, don't expect that this will solve all the weight related problems and I encourage you to also try to build healthy habits, if that is one of the areas that you would like to work on. And finally, if you would like to learn more about how to build healthy habits and if you would like to educate yourself and your family, I invite you to go to lifestylefortinscom. You can read some of the other things, other articles, I have talked about. You can listen to previous episodes and feel free to share this episode with any families or friends that you know and you think they may benefit from listening to this. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Speaker 1:
If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, I invite you to come check out the LISP program. It's Dr Gorgary's 12-week coaching program for teens and their moms, where we take all this information, we apply it to your daily life and we work together so your teenager learns how to create a healthy lifestyle so they can feel happier, more confident, less stressed and love their body again. Visit the website at lifestylefortinscom and click on the work with me and free resources to learn more about this program and get free help to start this journey right away. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode of lifestyle and weight loss for teens.