No Thyroid-Function Benefits With T4/T3 Combo in Crossover Study

[Clutter]

In the ongoing debate over the treatment of hypothyroidism with a combination of levothyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), a new randomized, crossover study shows safety but no significant overall clinical benefits, using such a fixed combination.

...more patients reported reductions in shortness of breath while on the combination therapy.

I'd say reducing shortness of breath is a significant clinical benefit

Full article in this link medscape.com/viewarticle/85...

[Treepie]

So would I ,perhaps if the researchers were short of breath.............

[humanbean]

There has been lots of discussion picking holes in this research on this thread :

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

[Clutter in reply to humanbean]

HB, I missed that thread and there were a lot of holes needing picking.

[shaws Administrator in reply to humanbean]

Thanks very much for that and, as usual, the T3 is too low in the combination - my view.

[BlueMundo]

My shortness of breath has been alleviated with the reintroduction of T3 into my replacement therapy. Levo only alleviated this symptom on 150mcg which then put my TSH into the zone doctors don't want it to go. Funnily my Endo told me breathlessness is a hyper symptom and not hypo! Not sure how Endo's can treat people when they don't know, or acknowledge, the myriad of symptoms.

I know how I feel and I certainly need T3 to improve symptoms.

BM

[shaws Administrator]

I haven't read the article as they ask too many personal details.

There's many, many trials etc about T3/T4 but most of them give too small a dose of T3 to the T4 which doesn't help many patients. The most important advice in my view is on another research which found that to take a 1:3 combination of T3/T4 gave the best results.

[humanbean in reply to shaws]

You can read the abstract here :

online.liebertpub.com/doi/f...

To find it you need to search for "Oral 7"