ArticleJournal of endocrinological investigation2021
TSH lowering effects of metformin: a possible mechanism of action.
Article in Journal of endocrinological investigation, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of acarbose and metformin on thyroid function and thyroid hormone sensitivity in type 2 diabetes patients: a post-hoc analysis of the MARCH study.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2025Trial
- Clinical and metabolic links between hypothyroidism and metabolic syndrome: a review.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Review
- The impact of hypoprolactinemia on cardiometabolic effects of metformin in young women: a pilot prospective cohort study.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2025Article
- Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Attenuates TSH-Lowering Effect of Metformin in Young Women with Subclinical Hypothyroidism.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The Effect of Metformin on Pituitary Function in Postmenopausal Women with Subclinical Hypothyroidism and Macroprolactinemia: A Single-Center Prospective Case-Control Study.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Vitamin D Status Determines Metformin Action on Gonadotropin Levels in Postmenopausal Women with Subclinical Hyperthyroidism.Pharmaceutics · 2025Article
- Thyroid Hormones and Metabolism Regulation: Which Role on Brown Adipose Tissue and Browning Process?Biomolecules · 2025Review
- The Association between Vitamin D Status and the Impact of Metformin on Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Thyroid Axis Activity in Women with Subclinical Hypothyroidism.Pharmaceutics · 2024Article
- Diagnosing and treating the elderly individual with hypopituitarism.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2024Review
- Impact of metformin on hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis activity in women with autoimmune and non-autoimmune subclinical hypothyroidism: a pilot study.Pharmacological reports : PR · 2024Article
- Effects of Metformin Therapy on Thyroid Volume and Functions in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Single-center Prospective Study.Endocrine, metabolic & immune disorders drug targets · 2024Observational
- Resistance to Thyroid Hormones: A Case-Series Study.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Metformin in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: Molecular Pathways and Its Clinical Implications.Biomolecules · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Preliminary clinical evidence suggests that metformin has TSH lowering effects in patients with T2DM and hypothyroidism or in those with TSH serum levels in the upper normal value. Also, metformin may exert a protective role against thyroid nodules growth in patients without insulin-resistance. The cross-talk between tyrosine kinase receptors and the G protein-coupled receptors (which the TSHR belongs to) has been already shown and IRS1 may represent the hub link between TSHR and IR pathways. By influencing IRS1 phosphorylation pattern, metformin may sensitize TSHR to TSH, thus explaining the findings of clinical studies. However, the existence of this molecular pathway must be confirmed through proper studies and further prospective randomized placebo-controlled studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.