Heart failure is a condition where the heart muscle doesn’t work as well as it should. It doesn’t mean the heart has stopped, but that it can’t pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. This can happen suddenly or develop slowly over time. To understand what causes heart failure, it helps to look at how the heart works and what can go wrong.
## How the Heart Works
The heart is a powerful muscle that pumps blood through your body. It has four chambers: two atria (upper chambers) and two ventricles (lower chambers). Blood comes into the right side of your heart from your body, gets sent to your lungs to pick up oxygen, then returns to the left side of your heart, which pumps it out to the rest of your body.
For this system to work well, each part must function properly—the muscles need to contract and relax efficiently, valves must open and close correctly, and arteries must be clear so blood flows smoothly.
## What Happens in Heart Failure?
In heart failure, something goes wrong with this process. The most common problem is that the muscle becomes weak or stiff:
– **Weakness:** The muscle loses strength and can’t squeeze hard enough during each heartbeat.
– **Stiffness:** The muscle becomes rigid and doesn’t relax properly between beats.
Either way—or sometimes both together—the result is less blood being pumped out with each beat. Your body notices this drop in circulation and tries to compensate by holding onto salt and water through your kidneys. This extra fluid builds up in places like your legs (causing swelling), lungs (causing shortness of breath), or belly (causing bloating). This buildup is called congestion—hence “congestive” heart failure.
## Common Causes of Heart Failure
There are many reasons why someone might develop heart failure. Often, more than one factor plays a role:
### Coronary Artery Disease
This is probably the biggest cause worldwide. Coronary artery disease happens when fatty deposits build up inside arteries that supply blood to your heart muscle itself (coronary arteries). If these arteries get blocked or narrowed by plaque buildup—a process called atherosclerosis—your heart doesn’t get enough oxygen-rich blood. Over time, parts of the muscle may become damaged or die off after a “heart attack” (myocardial infarction). Damaged areas don’t pump as well as healthy tissue does; if enough damage occurs throughout years without treatment for high cholesterol/high pressure/diabetes/smoking/etc., eventually even surviving parts struggle under increased workload until they too start failing gradually over months/years despite medications/lifestyle changes/surgery/stents/bypasses/etcetera depending on severity/patient factors/timing/interventions available locally globally etcetera…
### High Blood Pressure
When you have high blood pressure for years untreated/undiagnosed/poorly controlled despite medications/lifestyle changes etc., every beat requires extra effort because there’s resistance against which left ventricle must push harder than normal just maintain same output per minute required by organs tissues cells everywhere else outside chest cavity including brain kidneys liver skin muscles bones joints nerves glands hormones immune system digestive tract reproductive organs urinary bladder rectum anus pancreas spleen gallbladder appendix thymus thyroid parathyroid adrenal pituitary pineal hypothalamus ovaries testes prostate uterus cervix vagina penis scrotum epididymis vas deferens seminal vesicles bulbourethral glands mammary glands hair follicles sweat sebaceous apocrine eccrine merocrine holocrine ceruminous lacrimal salivary mucous serous synovial bursae tendon sheaths meninges cerebrospinal fluid aqueous humor vitreous humor endolymph perilymph amniotic pleural pericardial peritoneal synovial cavities spaces within bones marrow cavities sinusoids capillaries venules arterioles lymphatics interstitial spaces intracellular compartments ext
