Other causes: valvular disease and cardiomyopathy

Damage to the heart muscle itself and also to any of the heart valves can develop into heart failure. Heart failure can also develop alongside diseases affecting other parts of the body, for instance diabetes (Type 2) and asthma, and may not be discovered immediately.

Dilated cardiomyopathy or DCM can lead to heart failure. DCM causes the heart muscle to elongate and become weak or 'floppy'. Though dilated cardiomyopathy is usually associated with drug or alcohol abuse it can also be caused by viral infection. A woman we talked to who was told she had DCM said she contracted it from a virus she had probably caught on a holiday to the Far East. Another woman thought that she may have inherited DCM from her father, though she also believed her heart failure was triggered by the stress of caring for her husband for many years.

Explains her consultant thinks she contracted a virus that attacked her heart.

Describes her ideas about the causes of her dilated cardiomyopathy.

Any damage to the heart's four valves can also lead to heart failure. Living with a valvular disease can severely affect someone's quality of life. For instance a woman who had had rheumatic fever in childhood had been advised by doctors in the 1940s never to marry or have children. Another woman who had both her mitral valve and aorta replaced, said that valve problems had made both her pregnancies difficult and contributed to the deterioration of her heart function.

Childhood rheumatic fever affected her heart in adult life.

She was determined to have children despite having heart valve disease.

Several mentioned that they had developed diabetes before heart failure, and others thought that diabetes had begun after their heart problems. The heart can also be put under strain by damage to other parts of the body, such as the lungs, liver and kidneys. Most people were unclear about whether any other illness had been caused by their heart failure or vice versa. One man who discovered he had heart failure during certain medical tests prior to his liver transplant described his heart as a 'stage villain' that had crept up on him.

He did not realise he had heart disease until he needed a liver transplant.

• Is pregnancy dangerous for women with DCM or other heart valve diseases?

Last reviewed February 2010.

Last updated March 2010.