Heart failure (HF) is a leading cause of disease and death from cardiovascular diseases, with cardiovascular diseases accounting for the highest cases of deaths worldwide. The reality is that the quality-of-life survival for those suffering HF remains poor with 45–60% reported deaths within five years. Furthermore, cardiovascular disease is the foremost cause of mortality and disability in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), with T2DM patients having a two-fold greater risk of developing heart failure. The number of T2DM affected persons only continues to surge as there are more than 400 million adults affected by diabetes and an estimated 64.3 million affected by heart failure globally (1). In order to cater to the demands of modern society, the medical field has continuously improved upon the standards for clinical management and its therapeutic approaches. For this purpose, in this review, we aim to provide an overview of the current updates regarding heart failure, to include both heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and their respective treatments, while also diving further into heart failure and its correlation with diabetes and diabetic cardiomyopathy and their respective therapeutic approaches.

An overview of the currently approved treatments (blue) for heart failure and the current therapeutics under study (green). The treatments for heart failure have come a long way since the first clinical studies in the late 1900’s. From diuretics and inotropic drugs, to vasodilators, to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi), beta-blockers, mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs), angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), to combination drugs such as the angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors (ARNI), and recently the sodium glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i), there have been noteworthy advancements in the treatment of HF patients to decrease morbidity and enhance survival, with more therapeutics currently under study.