The global epidemiology of heart failure.

Heart failure (HF) has become a major clinical and public health challenge. The high prevalence of hypertension and atherosclerotic disease in aging patients relates to this epidemic, as does the ever increasing problem of obesity and diabetes. Early identification of patients at risk for HF and asymptomatic patients with structural heart disease is critical if the human morbidity and mortality toll and the economic burden that HF causes is to be decreased.