At 3 months after discharge, thyrotropin-releasing hormone loading test performed revealed low thyrotropin-stimulating hormone and thyroid hormone levels, and the patient was in a depressed mood.
The early-onset dysthymics showed a higher number of persons who had never married, who presented a more traumatic and frustrating childhood background, and who had a higher rate of DST non-suppressors and blunted TSH responses after TRH administration during the period of their double depression.
The results of the TRH test and the DST point to similar endocrinological patterns in alcoholics as in depressive patients and thus support the hypothesis of a link between alcoholism and depression.
Blunted TSH responses to TRH infusion (delta max TSH less than 7 microunits/ml) were revealed in 18 depressed and no non-depressed patients (P less than 0.01).