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elevated total cholesterol and triglyceride in this cohort will Acknowledgements
serve to further increase their cardiovascular risk.
Competing interests
Although not statistically significant, glycaemic control was The authors have declared that no competing interest exists.
poorer in the PLWHD compared to the PLWD with regards
to those:
Authors’ contributions
• with overall total thyroid disorders
• with SCH S.P. made substantial contributions to conception and design
• on ART of the work, writing of the paper and final approval and
agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the research. D.P.
and R.P. made substantial contributions to conception of the
Future prospective studies are needed to determine the
extent of this glycaemic difference between these groups of work, critically reviewed and edited the draft paper and final
patients which may aid in providing another therapeutic approval and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the
avenue in improving overall diabetes control. research. D.S. made substantial contribution to the generation
of statistics and critically reviewed the article and agreed to
Strengths and limitations of study be accountable for all aspects of the research.

• Results of this study will help strengthen the case for Funding information
evaluation of thyroid disorders in PLWD but more
especially in PLWHD. This research received no specific grant from any funding
• The limitations of this study include that we only used a agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
single TSH level for diagnosis of thyroid dysfunction.
Assay-related analytic errors and transient thyroid Data availability statement
dysfunction secondary to drugs like lithium and Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data
amiodarone were not assessed. were created or analysed in this study.
• People living with HIV are at heightened risk of developing
the euthyroid sick syndrome. During periods of recovery
from acute illness, the TSH might be increased in this Disclaimer
condition and may result in an overdiagnosis of SCH. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of
• Another limitation included that no T4 or T3 testing was the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or
performed in patients with low or high TSH. As this was position of any affiliated agency of the authors.
a retrospective first visit study, we were able only to
collect TSH data that were gathered during screening on References
first visit.
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