What Are the Causes of Diastolic Dysfunction?

The primary causes of diastolic dysfunction include chronic high blood presssure, aortic stenosis, coronary artery disease, restrictive cardiomyopathy and aging.

In restrictive cardiomyopathy, abnormal cells, protein, or scar tissue causes infiltration of the heart muscle and it is made stiff. Amyloidosis is the most common cause of restrictive cardiomyopathy in which a disease in which protein-like substance is deposited within the body’s tissues. Sarcoidosis and hemochromatosis are other causes for restrictive cardiomyopathy. The effect of aging is yet to be understood clearly if it alone causes stiffening of the ventricles.

Heart failure is the primary cause of death among the people over age of 65. More than 20% of older adults hospitalize due to heart failure. Nevertheless, recent advancements in treatment of hypertension, heart surgeries, and heart pacemakers are improving survival rates. The complications of heart failure are given below.

Cardiac Cachexia. This condition is of unintentional rapid weight loss (a loss of at least 7.5% of normal weight within 6 months) in patients with heart failure. It ismore severe in patients who are obese. Cardiac cachexia is an important indicator of a worsening condition of heart failure.

In a recent study published in the British Medical Journal, it has been shown that individuals with heart failure could extend their life expectancy by engaging in an exercise training program. This study has cornered the other opinion of “enforced bed rest” which is commonly recommendation by many doctors for the care of patients with heart failure. This study is also supported by study published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology which suggests that exercise is fundamentally beneficial in heart failure. This is in contrast to thinking of most doctors 10 or 20 years ago who felt that heart failure was a condition that demanded constant rest – perhaps even bed rest – and that exercise was dangerous.

There are many factors that cause damage to the cardiac muscle which leads to dilated cardiomyopathy or heart failure. A few of them are given as follows.

Coronary artery disease. When a coronary artery gets blocked, heart attacks occurs leading to the death of heart muscle cells. Initially, the damage occurs only in the region of muscle supplied by the blocked artery. But within a few months time, the whole left ventricle remodels or dilates to compensate for the damage that has occurred. The amount of ventricular dilation is minimal with a small heart attack. However, with a series of smaller heart attacks, or a large heart attack, the dilated cardiomyopathy becomes intensive, and results in the heart failure. This factor is the most common cause of cardiomyopathy in developed nations.