Interdepartmental Centre "L. Galvani" (CIG), Alma Mater Studiorum-University of Bologna, Italy.
Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Alma Mater Studiorum-University of Bologna, Italy.
J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2019 May 16;74(6):802-810. doi: 10.1093/gerona/gly194.
Thyroid hormones (FT3, FT4) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) were evaluated in a population of 672 well-characterized Italian subjects (age range: 52-113 years), including an unprecedented number of centenarians, semi-supercentenarians, as well as centenarian's offspring and age-matched elderly (CENT, 105+, CENTOFF, and CTRL, respectively). The results show that FT3 level and FT3/FT4 ratio decrease while FT4 and TSH increase in an age-dependent manner. In CENT/105+, higher FT4 level, and lower FT3/FT4 ratio are associated with an impaired functional status and an increased mortality. A cluster analysis identified three clusters of CENT/105+ based on their FT3, FT4, and TSH levels. Cluster 3, characterized by lower FT3 and TSH and higher FT4, shows the worst health status and the shortest survival. Thus, the age-related changes of thyroid hormones extend to the most advanced age, and CENT/105+ are highly heterogeneous regarding thyroid function. This heterogeneity is related to different health, functional and cognitive status, as well as with survival/mortality in CENT/105+. Finally, we investigated a remarkable number of CENT/105+ showing a thyroid profile suggestive of non-thyroidal illness syndrome (NTIS) (excluded from the previous analysis). NTIS CENT/105+ are characterized by a worse functional and cognitive status and an increased mortality with respect to CENT/105+ without NTIS.
在一个由 672 名特征明确的意大利受试者组成的人群中（年龄范围：52-113 岁），评估了甲状腺激素（FT3、FT4）和促甲状腺激素（TSH），其中包括了前所未有的数量的百岁老人、准百岁老人以及百岁老人的后代和年龄匹配的老年人（CENT、105+、CENTOFF 和 CTRL）。结果表明，FT3 水平和 FT3/FT4 比值随年龄的增长而降低，而 FT4 和 TSH 则随年龄的增长而升高。在 CENT/105+中，较高的 FT4 水平和较低的 FT3/FT4 比值与功能状态受损和死亡率增加有关。聚类分析根据其 FT3、FT4 和 TSH 水平将 CENT/105+分为三组。第 3 组 FT3 和 TSH 较低，FT4 较高，表现出最差的健康状况和最短的存活时间。因此，甲状腺激素的年龄相关性变化可延伸至最年长的年龄，并且 CENT/105+在甲状腺功能方面具有高度的异质性。这种异质性与不同的健康、功能和认知状态以及 CENT/105+的存活/死亡率有关。最后，我们研究了相当数量的 CENT/105+表现出非甲状腺疾病综合征（NTIS）的甲状腺谱（先前的分析中排除了这些样本）。与无 NTIS 的 CENT/105+相比，NTIS CENT/105+的功能和认知状态较差，死亡率增加。
