Common Causes, Risk Factors, And Complications Of Amyloidosis

Heart Failure

An amyloidosis patient may develop heart failure as a complication of their disease. Cardiac manifestations of amyloidosis can be caused by systemic and primary amyloidosis. Common features that appear in the heart tissues include right-sided heart failure and restrictive cardiomyopathy. When amyloids deposit and accumulate in the patient's heart muscle tissues, the muscle itself can become abnormally stiff. When the heart muscle becomes stiff, the pumping mechanism it uses becomes compromised. The heart of an individual affected by amyloidosis can experience diastolic dysfunction, where the heart cannot relax properly during the time between heartbeats. This malfunction causes it to be less able to fill up with blood. An individual affected by amyloidosis can also experience systolic dysfunction of their heart, where the amyloid deposits make the chambers too stiff to contract properly. Heart failure is defined as the inability of the heart to pump blood around the body sufficiently due to an underlying mechanism.

High Blood Pressure

An individual with amyloidosis is at a greater risk of developing high blood pressure. Blood pressure is mainly regulated by the kidneys, as the kidneys determine the volume of an individual's blood. The kidneys work to do this by filtering out fluids and sodium for blood pressure reduction, and retaining fluids and sodium for an increase in blood pressure. Amyloidosis can cause a patient to develop problems with the functionality of their kidneys, causing them to have an inability to regulate the amount of fluid and electrolytes in the blood. This malfunction causes increased blood volume, which increases blood pressure. Amyloidosis can also cause amyloid deposition in the walls of an individual's blood vessels. This deposition makes blood vessels less able to expand and accommodate higher volumes of blood, which results in increased blood pressure.