As a cardiac specialist with extensive experience in diagnosing and treating heart conditions, I can provide an explanation for why the ejection fraction is normal in diastolic heart failure.
Diastolic heart failure, also known as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), is a condition where the heart's ability to relax and fill with blood during the diastole phase is impaired. This impairment can be due to factors such as increased stiffness of the heart muscle or the heart's inability to relax properly, which can be caused by conditions like hypertension, diabetes, or obesity.
Ejection fraction (EF) is a measure of how much blood the heart pumps out with each beat, expressed as a percentage of the total volume of blood in the left ventricle. In
systolic heart failure, the EF is typically reduced because the heart muscle is weakened and cannot contract effectively to pump blood out of the heart.
However, in
diastolic heart failure, the
left ventricular ejection fraction is
normal or even high because the
pumping function of the heart is not the primary issue. Instead, the problem lies in the heart's
filling function during diastole. The heart may still contract effectively to pump blood out, but it struggles to fill with blood because of the stiffness or impaired relaxation.
This is why, despite the heart's normal or even supernormal pumping ability, individuals with diastolic heart failure can experience symptoms of heart failure, such as shortness of breath and fatigue, due to the heart's inability to receive an adequate amount of blood to meet the body's needs.
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