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Heart Failure Overview
Nearly 5.7 million adults in the United States are living with heart failure today. The condition costs about $30.7 billion every year, a figure that includes the costs of missed days of work, health care services and medications to treat it according to the CDC.
Heart failure sounds like a catastrophic ending to the heart’s capacity to work, but it’s actually a variety of hindrances that keep the heart from working optimally.
The heart pumps blood in order to send oxygen and nutrients to the cells throughout your body. An adequately nourished cell will perform its functions the way it should.
A heart suffering from any degree of failure will not be able to send enough blood throughout the body.
A heart that is too weak to pump enough blood to every cell in the body will try to compensate for its weakness in a variety of ways, including:
Enlargement. The heart will become enlarged as it stretches itself to contract with more force to try to keep up with the demand to pump more blood.
Increased muscle mass. The heart will become a stronger muscle because the contracting cells enlarge. For a while, the heart will pump more strongly.
Pumping faster. The heart will pump faster to increase its ability to deliver more blood.
Symptoms of Heart Failure
The most common heart failure symptoms are shortness of breath during normal daily activities; trouble breathing upon lying down; weight gain accompanied by swelling in the feet, legs, ankles or stomach; an overall feeling of weakness or fatigue.
Other symptoms may include:
- Persistent cough or wheezing
- Increased need to urinate at night
- Lack of appetite and nausea
- Difficulty concentrating
- Chest pain if heart failure is caused by a heart attack
- Coughing up pink, foamy mucus
Different types of heart failure may cause different symptoms. According to the Mayo Clinic, the following types of heart failure are accompanied by corresponding symptoms:
Left-sided heart failure: An excess of fluid can flow into the lungs and cause shortness of breath.
Right-sided heart failure: An excess of fluid can collect in the abdomen, legs, and feet, indicated by unusual swelling.
Systolic heart failure: The left ventricle of the heart is unable to contract with its usual vigor, which means there is a problem with the heart’s ability to pump.
Diastolic heart failure, which is also known as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: The left ventricle of the heart is unable to relax or to completely fill up.
Risk Factors Among Populations
Patients with certain risk factors are more apt to suffer from heart failure and include:
High blood pressure. When a patient has high blood pressure, the heart has to work harder.
Coronary artery disease. Any time the arteries are narrowed, the heart is depleted of blood and of oxygen, which causes the heart to weaken.
Heart attack. A heart attack can damage the heart muscle, which means the heart cannot pump blood as well as it did prior to the heart attack, which basically is a sudden onset of coronary disease.
Diabetes. Patients with diabetes may experience impaired circulation, which can lead to an increased risk of heart failure.
Medications. Certain medications, such as diabetes medications Onglyza and Kombiglyze XR, have been linked to an increased risk of heart failure. The active ingredient, saxagliptin, is used to control blood sugar levels. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013 found that patients who took saxagliptin were more apt to be hospitalized because of heart failure compared with patients who took other medications to control diabetes.
Currently, according to the Legal Examiner, more than 200 lawsuits claiming patients developed heart failure after taking Onglyza are pending in the U.S. court system.
