Hypothyroidism and Atherosclerosis

This autopsy finding of diffuse atherosclerosis in a 58-yrold woman was published as an appendix to William Ord’s classical description of the syndrome of myxedema. Soon thereafter, the hypothesis of a causal relationship between hypothyroidism and atherosclerosis was first raised in 1883 by E. Theodor Kocher (2), who noted that arteriosclerosis commonly occurred after thyroid extirpation. Since the time of the first associations between these two common disorders, hypothyroidism and atherosclerosis have subsequently been linked by a body of clinical case reports, epidemiological studies, and biochemical observations. The hypothesis of a relationship has subsequently been tested in case-control and cohort…