Heart failure--the importance of ethnicity

Heart failure is a major public health problem in the Western world. Aetiological factors involved in its development include hypertension, diabetes, and ischaemic heart disease--all of which differ in prevalence, and possibly mechanism, between patients of differing ethnicity. Unfortunately, epidemiological and therapeutic trials have involved almost exclusively white populations, and evidence from these trials cannot necessarily be assumed to be generalisable to populations that include high proportions of patients from other ethnic origins. This review will discuss the mechanistic and therapeutic differences that exist in heart failure between those of European origin, and patients from the major ethnic minority groups of the UK.