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Heart failure    See images

Overview | Symptoms | Treatment | Prevention

Alternative names:

CHF; Congestive heart failure

Definition:

Heart failure, also called "congestive heart failure," is a disorder where the heart loses its ability to pump blood efficiently. The result is that the body doesn't get as much oxygen and nutrients as it needs, leading to problems like fatigue and shortness of breath. Heart failure is almost always a chronic, long-term condition that is managed with medications and lifestyle changes. (Although it can sometimes develop suddenly.) The most common causes for heart failure are hypertension and coronary artery disease.

The term "heart failure" should not be confused with cardiac arrest, which is when the heart actually stops beating.

Causes and Risks

Heart failure may affect either the right side, left side, or both sides of the heart. As pumping action is lost, blood may back up into other areas of the body, including the liver, gastrointestinal tract, and extremities (right-sided heart failure), or the lungs (left-sided heart failure).

Structural or functional causes of heart failure include high blood pressure (hypertension), valvular heart disease, congenital heart diseases, cardiomyopathy, heart tumor, and other heart diseases. Precipitating factors include infections with high fever or complicated infections, use of negative inotropic drugs (such as beta-blockers and calcium channel blocker), anemia, irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias), hyperthyroidism, and kidney disease.

Other risk factors include obesity, excess alcohol consumption, and diet high in salt.

Heart failure occurs in approximately 10 out of 100 people, and becomes more prevalent with advancing age.

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