How Heart Failure Happens

A board certified internal medicine physician talks about how your heart pump can fail to deliver enough oxygen to the rest of your body. Your body tries to compensate by activating the sympathetic nervous system and the RAS (renin angiotensin system) proteins. These efforts may work at first but can lead to fluid retention and trouble breathing over time. The medications that can restore your heart's pumping function block the actions of one or both of these compensatory systems.