Causes of heart failure
While everyone loses some ability of the heart to pump blood efficiently round the body as people get older, heart failure is defined as a more serious loss of heart pumping ability. Usually, a pre-existing medical condition is what causes heart failure, either by damaging the heart or by making it work too hard.7
The most common pre-existing medical conditions that can cause heart failure include:
- Coronary artery disease: Cholesterol and fatty deposits can build up on the walls of the arteries that supply the heart, leading to a narrowing or weakening of these arteries. This constricts the amount of blood that can flow through them, resulting in less blood reaching the heart which can ultimately lead to a damaged heart muscle. In addition, the remaining healthy heart tissue has to work harder pump around the same amount of blood.7
- Heart Attack: This occurs when an artery supplying blood to the heart gets blocked, starving the heart of vital oxygen and nutrients. This damages part of the heart’s muscle tissue and can lead to scar tissue forming. The remaining healthy muscle then has to work harder to function at the same level.3, 7
- High Blood Pressure: When pressure in the blood vessels is too high the heart has to work harder to pump the same amount of blood. If left uncontrolled, high blood pressure can increase a person’s risk of developing heart failure by two or three times.7
- Abnormal heart valves: Problems with the heart’s valves can be the result of a disease, or a defect that was present from birth. If these valves don’t open or shut completely during each heartbeat the heart has to work harder to pump the same amount of blood.7
In some cases, heart failure can arise from unrelated conditions, such as a virus or birth defect, while in other cases, the cause is unknown.4 Besides the causes listed above, other reasons for heart failure can include:1, 3, 5
- Disease of the pericardium, the tissue that surrounds the heart
- Disease of the heart muscle, such as cardiomyopathy
- Excessive alcohol intake over a long period of time
- Excessive use of drugs, such as illegal narcotics and some types of chemotherapy
- Viral infections
- An irregular heart beat, known as arrhythmia
- Other non-heart related conditions including anaemia, an overactive thyroid and Paget’s disease
