Abstract:
Chronic heart failure is common, debilitating, and often the culmination of pervasive cardiovascular insults that systematically undermine the heart’s circulatory capacity and invoke counterproductive neuro-hormonal compensatory changes. Prevention of chronic heart failure therefore requires minimising the impact of traditional cardiovascular risk factors with incisive treatment of hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and prompt lifestyle interventions for smoking, lack of exercise, obesity and hypercholesterolemia. This review is narrative, with selected emphasis on major studies, rather than structured on a specific clinical question, and should be read as such.