A reader wrote asking me to give a simple explanation of what is heart failure. It’s simple. At the age of 45, your heart is required to take a mandatory multiple choice exam, of which it must get 70% grade or higher to pass. If not, it fails, thus heart failure. Okay, I tried. I won’t give up my day job.

To be a little more serious, heart failure is a term that is used to describe a heart that is not functioning properly. The heart basically is a pump, and if it is not functioning properly, it is unable to send enough blood around the body, and eventually as the condition worsens, the organs are not properly supplied with blood, thus not enough oxygen and nutrients, and thus the body eventually dies. The term just basically means the heart is failing to perform at its full potential. I hope that simple and comprehensive.