Hitting back at hypothyroidism

One of the most common and undetected endocrine disorders of contemporary times is turning out to be Hypothyroidism. The reason — the symptoms of hypothyroidism are generic and can be easily overlooked. Some of the red flags include being forgetful, fatigue and weight gain. “These are the common symptoms, that a lot people who do not have thyroid, display,”  explained Dr Shashank Joshi, a well-known endocrinologist and diabetologist, at a recent event organised by Abbott India Ltd.  It occurs in 11 per cent of the population in the country and 76 per cent of people remain undiagnosed.

The event, apart from creating awareness, highlighted the need for screening the population in order to understand the number of people at risk. For the same, Indian Journal of Endocrine & Metabolism has been creating a registry since 2014, resulting in a comprehensive database, which got published last year. People were screened at 33 centres across India, their demographics and medical history studied for detailed understanding. “A lot of data around hypothyroidism have been collated and we noticed that majority of the patients in India are women,” adds Dr Joshi. The whole idea of having a registry is to get more people screened, so hypothyroidism can be better detected. “So the idea of this registry is to collate the details like how many are males and how many females,” Dr Joshi elaborated.

The event also saw the participation of actress Juhi Chawla, who has made it her mission to create awareness around this. “Lately, I got to know that a lot people whom I have known are suffering from this condition. But timely follow ups and medication is all that’s required to keep hypothyroidism in check,” she shared.