Ignoring a basic pathophysiological mechanism of heart failure progression will not make it go away

A link between heart failure (HF) and low thyroid hormone (TH) function has been known for over a century. Nonetheless, there is a general belief that TH treatment of patients with HF may not be worth the risk. This is largely based on two clinical trials where heart patients were treated with excessive doses of TH analogs, not actual THs. Further complicating the matter is the fact that normalization of THs in noncardiac patients can often be challenging. This issue is not going away as noted by a steady increase in TH-HF citations in recent years. In this article, we discuss what we know and how we may move the field forward.

Automated summary

The link between heart failure (HF) and low thyroid hormone (TH) function has been known for over a century, but treating HF patients with TH may not be worth the risk due to past clinical trials and challenges in normalizing TH levels in noncardiac patients. The number of citations on TH-HF has been increasing steadily in recent years, indicating that this issue is not going away anytime soon.