Mona Lisa is euthyroid: a modern-day diagnosis

Abstract

Making any medical diagnosis of an individual appearing in an old painting is risky. Throughout history, the famous painting of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci has challenged many scientists and physicians to scrutinize this striking and enigmatic female image for the purpose of potentially explaining the woman “behind the smile” and offering a medical diagnosis of her state of health. A recent proposal was that she suffered from severe hypothyroidism and that her asymmetric smile was due to psychomotor retardation. Today, in the twenty-first century, can Mona Lisa get “a second opinion?”