Your heart is a pump. It moves blood and oxygen-rich nutrients through your body. If you have heart failure, your heart isn’t pumping as well as it should. As a result, fluid can build up in the body—most often in the legs and lungs.

Your heart also isn’t able to push enough blood to meet your body’s needs for blood and oxygen. It’s no wonder then that if you have heart failure, you may tire more easily and feel short of breath.

With heart failure, the heart muscle is either:

- too weak and cannot pump blood to the rest of the body with enough force (systolic failure)  and/or

- has trouble relaxing and can’t fill with enough blood (diastolic failure)

If you or a loved one has heart failure, you’re not alone. Almost 6 million Americans have heart failure, and there are an additional 500,000 new cases diagnosed each year. It’s also the leading reason people 65 years of age and older end up in the hospital.

Heart failure is a serious, lifelong condition. But by managing heart failure, people can live normal lives. The hope is to try to avoid emergency or “acute” episodes when someone would need to be in the hospital, and generally improve patients’ quality of life and ability to do the things they usually do.

Many people who have heart failure will have:

- Shortness of breath (even when doing simple tasks like dressing or walking a flight of stairs)

- Swelling in the ankles, feet, legs, abdomen, or veins in the neck

- Extreme tiredness (fatigue)

- Feelings of weakness

- Rapid or irregular heartbeat

- Fast weight gain, or rapid fluctuations in weight

- Pressure or heaviness in the chest when lying flat

Late in the disease, people may notice:

- A lack of appetite or that they feel full more quickly

- Weight loss (cardiac cachexia)

You can do a lot to lower your odds of getting heart disease. Taking action will improve your health -- and, possibly, save your life. Get going on these 8 ways to get on track.

1. Quit smoking. If you smoke, you are more than twice as likely to have a heart attack as nonsmokers, and you’re much more likely to die if you do have a heart attack.

2. Improve cholesterol levels. You're more likely to get heart disease if you have:

Total cholesterol level over 200

HDL ("good") cholesterol level under 40

LDL ("bad") cholesterol level over 160

Triglycerides over 150

Cholesterol isn't the only thing that matters. Your doctor will consider the big picture, including all your potential risks. To help lower cholesterol levels, eat a diet low in cholesterol, saturated fat, and refined sugars.

3. Control high blood pressure. More than 50 million people in the U.S. have hypertension, or high blood pressure, making it the most common heart disease risk factor. Exercise and healthy eating help. Some people may need medicine to control their blood pressure, too.

4. Get active. People who don't exercise are more likely to get heart disease, and die from it, than people who are active. Check with your doctor before starting a new exercise program, especially if you aren't active now. She can tell you what you can do.

5. Follow a heart-healthy diet. Eat foods that are low in fat and cholesterol. Just about everyone should eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, legumes, and other plant-based foods. The fiber is good for your cholesterol, and you'll get vitamins the natural way, from foods.

You can still eat fish (especially salmon or tuna, which are high in good-for-you omega-3 fatty acids), poultry, and meat, but make it lean and keep the portions modest. Also limit salt and sugar. Most people get too much of both.

6. Get to a healthy weight. Losing extra weight is good for your heart. It can also help you lower high blood pressure and manage diabetes.

7. Control diabetes. Diabetes makes heart disease more likely. Many people who have diabetes don't know it. Get tested and get treated.

8. Manage stress and anger. Everyone has stress, and it's normal to get angry now and then. When stress and anger flare up, especially if it happens a lot, that's a problem. Managing your stress and handling your anger in healthy ways puts you back in charge.

Coronary heart disease, also known as coronary artery disease, refers to a narrowing of the coronary arteries, the blood vessels that supply oxygen and blood to the heart. It is a major cause of illness and death. Coronary heart disease (CHD) normally happens when plaque, or cholesterol, accumulates on the artery walls. The arteries narrow, reducing blood flow to the heart.Sometimes a clot can obstruct the flow of blood to the heart muscle.

CHD commonly causes angina pectoris, or chest pain, shortness of breath, myocardial infarction, or heart attack, and other symptoms. CHD is the most common type of heart disease in the United States, where it accounts for 370,000 deaths every year.