ABSTRACT
Several studies have reported that thyroid dysfunction can induce changes in elements in different tissues both in experimental and human studies. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of hypothyroidism on mineral elements in rat kidney, heart, skeletal muscle and liver. In this study 24 rats aged 2-3 months with 190- 270 g B.W were randomly divided into case and control groups. Animals in the case group received methimazol powder [0.03%] in drinking water. After 4 weeks a sample of blood was taken from all animals for TT4 determination. When rats in case group were hypothyroid, the animals were treated for another 3 weeks. At the end of the 7[th] week the animals were decapitated and tissues were removed and kept at -20[°] C until elements were measured. The content of different elements was determined in kidney, liver, cardiac muscle and skeletal muscle by Proton Induced X-ray Emission [PIXE] method. S, Cl, K, Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn and P were determined as PPM for all tissues, the results were represented as Mean +/- SD and compared between hypothyroid and control groups by T- test. The differences were considered to be significant when p<0.05. The results are as follows: Kidney: the content of Fe and Cu in experimental group increased in kidney [p=0.03 and p=0.04 respectively], Liver: in this tissue, the content of Fe increased in the experimental group [p<0.05], Cardiac muscle: the content of Cl in the experimental group increased [p<0.04] in this tissue, Skeletal muscle: the content of Cl increased significantly in the experimental group [p<0.05]. These data demonstrate that hypothyroidism can change the content of several elements in the examined tissues, and these variations in part may be involved in several clinical manifestations which are present in hypothyroidism