Health Topic

Heart Failure

Heart failure, or congestive heart failure (CHF), means the heart can't pump enough blood. Learn about the signs, symptoms, and causes.

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Also called: CHF · Cardiac failure · Congestive heart failure · Left-sided heart failure · Right-sided heart failure

Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Heart Failure

Heart failure means that your heart can't pump enough oxygen-rich blood to meet your body's needs. Heart failure doesn't mean that your heart has stopped or is about to stop beating. But without enough blood flow, your organs may not work well, which can cause serious problems.

Heart failure can affect one or both sides of your heart:

  • With right-sided heart failure, your heart is too weak to pump enough blood to your lungs to get oxygen.
  • With left-sided heart failure, your heart can't pump enough oxygen-rich blood out to your body. This happens when the left side of your heart becomes either: Too weak to pump enough blood.
  • Too thick or stiff to relax and fill with enough blood.

Left-sided heart failure is more common than right-sided heart failure.

Heart failure can start suddenly after a medical condition or injury damages your heart muscle. But in most cases, heart failure develops slowly from long-term medical conditions.

Conditions that can cause heart failure include:

  • Arrhythmia (a problem with the rate or rhythm of your heartbeat)
  • Cardiomyopathy
  • Congenital heart defects or other types of heart diseases that you are born with
  • Coronary artery disease
  • Endocarditis
  • Heart attack
  • Heart valve diseases
  • High blood pressure
  • A blood clot in your lung
  • Diabetes
  • Certain severe lung diseases, such as COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
  • Obesity

Over time, left-sided heart failure can lead to right-sided heart failure.

Heart failure can happen at any age. It happens to both men and women, but men often develop it at a younger age than women. Your chance of developing heart failure increases if:

  • You're 65 years old or older. Aging can weaken and stiffen your heart muscle.
  • Your family health history includes relatives who have or have had heart failure.
  • You have changes in your genes that affect your heart tissue.
  • You have habits that can harm your heart, including: Smoking
  • Eating foods high in fat, cholesterol, and sodium (salt)
  • Having an inactive lifestyle
  • Alcohol use disorder (AUD)
  • Illegal drug use
  • Any heart or blood vessel conditions, including high blood pressure
  • Serious lung diseases
  • Infection, such as HIV or COVID-19
  • Obesity
  • Diabetes
  • Sleep apnea
  • Chronic kidney disease
  • Anemia
  • Thyroid disease
  • Iron overload disease
  • Cancer treatments that can harm your heart, such as radiation and chemotherapy

The symptoms of heart failure depend on which side of your heart is affected and how serious your condition has become. Most symptoms are caused by reduced blood flow to your organs and fluid buildup in your body.

Fluid buildup happens because the flow of blood through your heart is too slow. As a result, blood backs up in the vessels that return the blood to your heart. Fluid may leak from the blood vessels and collect in the tissues of your body, causing swelling (edema) and other problems.

Symptoms of heart failure may include:

  • Feeling short of breath (like you can't get enough air) when you do things like climbing stairs. This may be one of the first symptoms you notice.
  • Fatigue or weakness even after rest.
  • Coughing.
  • Swelling and weight gain from fluid in your ankles, lower legs, or abdomen (belly).
  • Difficulty sleeping when lying flat.
  • Nausea and loss of appetite.
  • Swelling in the veins of your neck.
  • Needing to urinate (pee) often.

At first you may have no symptoms or mild symptoms. As the disease gets worse, your symptoms will usually bother you more.

Fluid buildup and reduced blood flow to your organs can lead to serious problems, including:

  • Breathing problems from fluid in and around your lungs (also called congestive heart failure)
  • Kidney or liver damage, including cirrhosis
  • Malnutrition if fluid buildup makes eating uncomfortable or if your stomach doesn't get enough blood flow to digest food properly
  • Other heart conditions, such as irregular heartbeat and sudden cardiac arrest
  • Pulmonary hypertension

To find out if you have heart failure, your health care provider will

  • Ask about your medical history, including your symptoms
  • Ask about your family health history, including relatives who have had heart failure
  • Do a physical exam
  • Likely run heart tests and blood tests, including a brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) test

In some cases, your provider may refer you to a cardiologist (a doctor who specializes in heart diseases) for tests, diagnosis, and care.

Your treatment will depend on the type of heart failure you have and how serious it is. There's no cure for heart failure. But treatment can help you live longer with fewer symptoms.

Even with treatment, heart failure usually gets worse over time, so you'll likely need treatment for the rest of your life.

Most treatment plans include:

  • Taking medicine
  • Eating less sodium and drinking less liquid to control fluid buildup
  • Making other changes, such as quitting smoking, managing stress, and getting as much physical activity as your provider recommends
  • Treating any conditions that may make heart failure worse

You may need heart surgery if:

  • You have a congenital heart defect or damage to your heart that can be fixed.
  • The left side of your heart is getting weaker and putting a device in your chest could help. Devices include: An implantable cardioverter defibrillator.
  • A biventricular pacemaker (cardiac resynchronization therapy).
  • A mechanical heart pump (a ventricular assist device (VAD) or a total artificial heart).

As part of your treatment, you'll need to pay close attention to your symptoms, because heart failure can worsen suddenly. Your provider may suggest a cardiac rehabilitation program to help you learn how to manage your condition.

You may be able to prevent or delay heart failure if you:

  • Work with your provider to manage any health conditions that increase your risk of developing heart failure
  • Make healthy changes in your eating, exercise, and other daily habits to help prevent heart disease

It sits within Older Adults and Blood, Heart and Circulation.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Heart Failure

7,773 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

Start Here

Symptoms

Diagnosis and Tests

Treatments and Therapies

Prevention and Risk Factors

Living With

Related Issues

Statistics and Research

Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Heart Failure. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Heart Failure, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.