Assessing the Incidence of Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF) within the Context of Aging

Heart failure with preserved ejection (HFpEF)is an aging-associated disorder that is responsible for 50% of heart failure cases in humans and is a relatively common aging disorder that increases in severity and complication with age (Kobak et al. 2022). This project aims to discover if aged mice present with HFpEF phenotypes naturally as they age. Previous studies have induced HFpEF in mouse models using a combination of methods, most commonly an exclusively high fat diet and the use of a hypertensive drug N-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (L-Name) (Schiattarella et al. 2019). The examination of aged mice, within this study, will allow for the investigation of HFpEF in a non-artificially induced state which allows for a more parallel model of the human experience. It was found that the aged mice did not exhibit some of the canonical HFpEF phenotypes, however the conclusions that can be drawn are limited due to the minimal sample size of n=4. Aged kidney samples showed a substantial increase in fibrotic content when compared to the heart, which is consistent with general phenotypes of aging. However, the mechanisms underlying this substantial deposition of fibrotic content within the kidney need to be further elucidated. Further investigation with a larger sample size to give more concrete results is recommended.