Drugs May Not Aid One Type of Heart Failure

Elderly people with one form of heart failure may not benefit from their medicines, a study finds. The study included 142 older adults with diastolic heart failure. This means that the heart cannot relax fully and fill up with blood between beats. But treatments are geared toward another form, systolic heart failure. This is a problem with the heart’s pumping action. The average age of people in the study was 87. Researchers kept track of them for 5 years. Two-thirds of them died during the study. Taking standard drugs for this condition did not help them live longer, researchers said. Nor did the drugs prevent hospital stays. The study appeared in the American Journal of Cardiology. HealthDay News wrote about it March 12.