Heart failure is a condition that develops when your heart cannot pump adequate amounts of blood to meet your body’s needs. Over 6 million adults in the United States have heart failure, and it is the leading cause of hospitalization in people older than 65. What is lesson commonly known though, is that there are many causes of heart failure and various types of the condition.
For instance, heart failure with “reduced left ventricular function” (HFrEF) is when the bottom left chamber of the heart (called the left ventricle) cannot contract enough to pump blood to the rest of the body. Heart failure with “preserved left ventricular function” (HFpEF) is when both the right and left ventricles are unable to relax properly and fill up all the way, leading to less blood getting pumped to the rest of the body.
Heart failure symptoms include shortness of breath, swelling of the legs or ankles, fatigue, weakness, nausea, and chest pain. Patients with advanced heart failure experience higher rates of pain.
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It has been increasingly important to develop new treatment options for heart failure because half of all people with the condition die within five years of diagnosis. HFrEF accounts for more than half of heart failure cases because it develops from aging and treatment for common heart problems, such as hypertension or coronary artery disease, that usually strain the heart muscle. Fortunately, a drug known to typically treat those with type 2 diabetes, Jardiance, has recently been approved by the FDA to treat adults with HFrEF.
Jardiance has been shown to reduce the risk of both cardiovascular death and hospitalization from HFrEF in adults. The drug was developed by the pharmaceutical companies Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company, and it was initially made to lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. In addition to its primary purpose, clinical trials have shown that adults who had HFrEF—but not diabetes—had reduced hospitalization for heart failure by 30% when treated with Jardiance!
Jardiance is now approved as an effective treatment for adults with HFrEF, regardless of whether they have type 2 diabetes. The approval provides hope for those who have faced limited treatment options for heart failure. Boehringer Ingelheim and Lilly are now also working to develop other care options for people with cardio-renal-metabolic conditions, as the cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic systems share many disease-related pathways. After proving that Jardiance can treat both cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, the companies aim to investigate whether the drug can benefit those with kidney diseases as well. By understanding the interconnected nature of diseases, researchers have been able to approach health science more holistically and, in doing so, develop more effective medicine!
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