ArticleFrontiers in oncology2026
Associations between psychological distress and thyroid cancer, and the mediating role of lifestyle and metabolism: a cohort study from the UK Biobank.
Article in Frontiers in oncology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Psychological distress increases cancer risk, but its relationship to thyroid cancer risk remains unclear. The aims of our study were to assess whether psychological distress increases the risk of thyroid cancer, and to further explore the mediating factors between psychological distress and thyroid cancer. Methods: A total of 420,187 participants aged 39-73 years between 2006 and 2010 in the UK biobank were included in the cohort study. Psychological distress was assessed using relevant hospitalization records, the four-item Patient Health Questionnaire and self-reported psychiatric symptoms. Thyroid cancer diagnosed date was from national cancer registries and hospital inpatient records in England, Wales, and Scotland. We used Cox proportional hazard models to calculate hazard ratios and the mediation R package to assess the mediating factors. Results: With a median follow-up of 12.59 years, the incidence of thyroid cancer in the participants with psychological distress was 137.16 per 100,000, compared with 94.31 per 100,000 in the participants with non-psychological distress. Psychological distress significantly increased the risk of thyroid cancer (HR, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.09-1.62; P = 0.005). Mediation analysis indicated that BMI, waist circumference, high-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, alcohol consumption partially mediated between psychological distress and thyroid cancer, in which waist circumference had the strongest mediating effect by a proportion of 11.80% (95% CI, 4.41-36.00%; P < 0.001). Conclusions: Psychological distress is associated with an increased risk of developing thyroid cancer, which is modestly mediated by obesity, dyslipidemia, and alcohol consumption. The hypothesis that managing weight, lipids, and alcohol intake might mitigate cancer risk in individuals with psychological distress requires direct testing in future intervention trials.
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.