heart failure
"Doctors say heart failure is like "drowning alive," as fluid rapidly collects in the lungs. Patients experience shortness of breath and a swelling of their limbs, coughing, weakness, fatigue and an irregular heartbeat."
"There is a hypothesis that heart failure is like an engine that's out of fuel," said Denney, "So what we are doing with this imaging technique is we're imaging the fuel that the heart muscle runs on. The idea is that if we could detect an early drop in that fuel, we could intervene earlier and possibly do a better job treating the patient."
Cars and the human body metabolize use to carbon compounds to obtain energy. They both need oxygen to complete this chemical process. Human beings breath oxygen into their lungs which hand it off to the hemoglobin that transports it to all parts of the body. Typically when the heart starts to fail, it's not getting sufficient oxygen to work correctly. So, this is some what like having an extremely clogged up air filter in your car. All the dirt and crap are diminishing the amount of oxygen that gets mixed in with gas to make the car run.
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