Systemic illness (*)

Cardiac failure is the final consequence of most illnesses that affect the heart, such as heart attacks, high blood pressure, valve-pathologies and Chagas Disease. It is the main cause of hospitalization in people over 65 years. Half of the people owe the disease’s scenario to the heart’s arteries: the coronary.

According to Dr. Jorge Thierer, Chief of Intensive Therapy Unit and member of the team of Dr. Jorge Belardi from the Cardiovascular Institute of Buenos Aires (Argentina) “the prevalence of this illness has increased since the 1950’s because of the progressive aging of the population and the improvement of other cardiac diseases, which means that people that used to die from these diseases now live longer but with cardiac failure”.

This illness is characterized by a failure in the heart’s primary function, which is to pump blood through the whole body. The concept of cardiac failure has changed through the years: from being understood as a disease that only affects the heart it has changed into a wider concept and is currently analyzed and treated as a systemic illness (of the whole body).

A primary damage to the heart, for the causes stated, starts a series of mechanisms: increase in cardiac frequency, retention of sodium and water, constriction of the arteries and changes in the heart’s structure. All these mechanisms are compensators and sustain the person but will eventually cause damage.

Collaborated in this article: Cardiovascular Institute of Buenos Aires

In developing countries, half the deaths of women over 50 are due to heart disease or attacks.