NPPB and heart failure: When considering the Pearson correlation between pretreatment galectin-3 concentrations and risk factors, we discovered that age, time to the detection of heart failure, NT-proBNP, BMI and waist circumference were all positively correlated (p < 0.001), while left ventricular systolic function (EF%) was negatively correlated (p < 0.001) (Table 2).