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David S. Cooper, MD

JAMA. 1987;258(2):246-247.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Hypothyroidism was believed to be a rare and potentially fatal clinical entity when it was first described more than a century ago.¹ With the subsequent development of techniques to measure thyroid hormone levels in serum, hypothyroidism was shown to be a common disorder, with a broad spectrum of severity. But it was not until the early 1970s, when thyrotropin (thyroid-stimulating hormone [TSH]) measurements became routine, that we learned just how common the disorder and how broad the spectrum.^2,3

We now know that the mildest form of hypothyroidism, manifested solely by an elevated serum TSH concentration, is present in approximately 5% of the population, with a prevalence in women older than age 60 years that approaches 15%.^4,5 Of 28.5 million people older than age 65 years in America, 17 million of whom are women, an estimated 3.5 million have mild thyroid impairment, appropriately termed subclinical hypothyroidism. Autoimmune thyroid . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Sinai Hospital of Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore

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