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Heart failure (HF) is a chronic disease where an individual’s heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the demands of the body as the heart becomes weaker. This condition affects roughly 6 million Americans, and 960,000 people are diagnosed with CHF each year. Unsurprisingly, HF is the number 1 cause of hospitalizations in America for patients who are 65 and older. If this disease is not monitored and treated, it can get significantly worse. About half of the patients who are over 65 die within five years of the onset of this disease. Most people who have heart failure have left ventricle (LV) remodeling, which means there are changes to the left ventricular myocardium that leads to a decline in the performance of the heart ventricle. Due to this event, patients typically have a reduced ejection fraction, which is the percentage of blood that leaves the left ventricle with each contraction. People with heart failure have an ejection fraction below 40%, while the average individual has an ejection fraction between 55% and 75%. Thus, it is quite obvious that patients with CHF have a significant reduction in the function of their hearts!

Symptoms

HF results in multiple symptoms such as:

  • Shortness of breath
  • Tachycardia
  • Fluid retention
  • Fatigue/weakness
  • Cough with pink mucus
  • Weight gain (normally from fluid retention)
  • Nausea
  • Chest pain
  • Difficulty in concentrating
  • Jugular vein distention (JVD)

One of the most common symptoms of CHF, shortness of breath, is caused by the insufficient amount of oxygen that the tissues receive due to the impaired functioning of the heart. Due to the buildup of blood in the heart, the fluid will back up into the lungs, which is known as pulmonary edema. Thus, the gas exchange in the alveoli is impaired.

A lot of patients also have a fast heart beat, which is called tachycardia, since the heart will try to compensate for less blood leaving the ventricle by beating faster. However, this also prevents the ventricle from filling with as much blood as it normally would, causing even less blood to be pumped out of the heart.

Causes

The most common causes of HF are diseases such as

  • Coronary artery disease (CAD)
  • Hypertension (high blood pressure)
  • Diabetes
  • Obesity
  • Myocardial Infarction

All of these conditions cause damage to the heart, making people more susceptible to developing heart failure in their life. In general, about 1 in 5 people will develop HF in their lifetime.

References:

  • American Heart Association. (n.d.). Heart failure. www.heart.org. Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-failure 
  • Centers for Disease Control. (2022, October 14). Heart failure. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved October 31, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/heart_failure.htm