Title

Thyroid hormone levels among adults in India: A cross-sectional study

Authors

Hemraj¹, Varun Gupta¹, Mudassar Ahmed Shariff², Heena Dixit³*, Rahul Tiwari⁴, Anil Managutti⁴ & Deepak Sharma³

Affiliation

¹Department of General Medicine, FH Medical College and Hospital, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India; ²Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Chamarajanagar Institute of Medical Sciences, Chamarajanagar, Karnataka, India; ³Department of Medical Health Administration, Index Institute, Malwanchal University, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India; ⁴Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Narsinhbhai Patel Dental College and Hospital, Sankalchand Patel University, Visnagar, Gujarat, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Hemraj - E-mail: drhrbrijyanti@gmail.com
Varun Gupta - E-mail: dr.varun_gupta@yahoo.com
Mudassar Ahmed Shariff - E-mail: drshariff2703@gmail.com
Heena Dixit - E-mail: drheenatiwari@gmail.com
Rahul Tiwari - E-mail: rtcfsurgeon@gmail.com
Anil Managutti - E-mail: dranilman12@gmail.com
Deepak Sharma - E-mail: drdeepaksharma@yahoo.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received September 1, 2025; Revised September 30, 2025; Accepted September 30, 2025, Published September 30, 2025

Abstract

Age and sex influence thyroid physiology, but India-specific, age- and sex-stratified distributions for thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), free thyroxine (FT4) and free triiodothyronine (FT3) remain variably defined. Hence, we conducted a multicentre, community-based cross-sectional study across five Indian regions, enrolling euthyroid adults without known thyroid disease. Morning fasting samples were assayed on standardized chemiluminescent platforms; nonparametric percentiles were used to derive reference limits and regression models quantified associations. Among 5,812 adults (52.4% women; median age 41 years), median TSH was higher in women than men and increased with age, while FT4/FT3 declined modestly with age. The 97.5th percentile for TSH rose from ~4.3-4.6 mIU/L in 18-29 year-olds to ~6.1-6.4 mIU/L in those ≥60 years, with consistently higher upper limits in women. Thus, we show age- and sex-specific interpretation of thyroid tests in Indian adults.

Keywords

Thyrotropin, thyroxine, triiodothyronine, reference values, sex characteristics

Citation

Hemraj et al. Bioinformation 21(9): 3256-3259 (2025)

Edited by

Akshaya Ojha

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.