Calcium and Heart Failure: How Did We Get Here and Where Are We Going?

Abstract

The occurrence and prevalence of heart failure remain high in the United States as well as globally. One person dies every 30 s from heart disease. Recognizing the importance of heart failure, clinicians and scientists have sought better therapeutic strategies and even cures for end-stage heart failure. This exploration has resulted in many failed clinical trials testing novel classes of pharmaceutical drugs and even gene therapy. As a result, along the way, there have been paradigm shifts toward and away from differing therapeutic approaches. The continued prevalence of death from heart failure, however, clearly demonstrates that the heart is not simply a pump and instead forces us to consider the complexity of simplicity in the pathophysiology of heart failure and reinforces the need to discover new therapeutic approaches.

Keywords

• heart failure
• excitation–contraction coupling
• myocardial contractility
• myofilament
• sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca²⁺ ATPase
• sarcoplasmic reticulum