INS and Insulin resistance: However, considering (i) the aforementioned Chinese study on the direct relationship between blood Cd levels with thyroid hypofunction and serum thyroid autoantibody levels [31], (ii) the association of insulin resistance with either decreased thyroid hormone levels or increased serum TSH [59,60,61], with counteracting effects by insulin-sensitizing agents [62,63,64], and (iii) the insulin-mimetic action of MI [54,65,66], we expected that Cd-exposed mouse thyroids would display decreased thyroid hormone levels and increased TSH compared to Cd-unexposed mice.