Heart Health
Heart failure: Reduced vs. preserved pumping
Ask the doctor
Q.My father had heart failure, which I understood to mean that his heart was damaged and couldn’t pump very well. But a friend told me that you can have heart failure even if your heart is pumping normally. How is that possible?For a healthy heart, a normal ejection fraction is 55% to 65%. In about half of people with heart failure, the muscle in the left ventricle becomes thin and weak. The weakened muscles can’t contract very well, causing the ejection fraction to fall below 50%. This is known as heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).
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