Thyroid & the hormone glands

Iron can affect several hormone glands, so these problems are more common in thalassaemia — and the frequencies from studies are striking: low sex hormones (hypogonadism) in roughly half or more of patients, an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) in about 6–35%, and diabetes rising with age.

The thyroid runs the body’s “metabolism”; an underactive thyroid can cause tiredness, weight gain and feeling cold. It’s usually easy to treat with a daily thyroxine tablet. Most of these hormone issues are picked up by routine annual blood tests before they cause symptoms.

That’s the whole point of the yearly endocrine check — catch a shortfall early and replace the missing hormone simply. See the related articles for growth/puberty, diabetes, and the parathyroid/adrenal glands.