Effect of dietary carbohydrates during hypocaloric treatment of obesity on peripheral thyroid hormone metabolism.

The effect of different hypocaloric carbohydrate (CHO) intakes was evaluated in 8 groups of obese patients in order to assess the role of the CHO and the other dietary sources in modulating the peripheral thyroid hormone metabolism. These changes were independent of those of bw. Serum T3 concentrations appear to be more easily affected than those of reverse T3 by dietary manipulation and CHO content of the diet. A fall in T3 levels during the entire period of study with respect to the basal levels occurred only when the CHO of the diet was 120 g/day or less, independent of caloric intake (360, 645 or 1200 calories). Moreover, reverse T3 concentrations were found increased during the entire period of study when total CHO were very low (40 to 50 g/day) while they demonstrated only a transient increase when CHO were at least 105 g/day (with 645 or more total calories). Indeed, our data indicate that a threshold may exist in dietary CHO, independent of caloric intake, below which modifications occur in thyroid hormone concentrations. From these results it appears that the CHO content of the diet is more important than non-CHO sources in modulating peripheral thyroid hormone metabolism and that the influence of total calories is perhaps as pronounced as that of CHO when a "permissive" amount of CHO is ingested.