Any Human Heart writing again of a whole-life view: "I don't think there's anything wrong with going back over territory you've previously covered." Though avowedly not an (auto-)biographical novelist, Boyd acknowledged that personal experiences often subconsciously affect a writer's fiction. As in several of Boyd's novels there are parallels with the author's life: both Boyd and Mountstuart lived in Africa and France, studied at Oxford, worked in literary London and had a taste of New York. Boyd usually splits the creation of a novel into two phases: research and writing. The first phase of "Any Human Heart" took 30 months as he carefully
Heart failure diagnostic criteria has been agreed on as the gold standard for heart failure. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends measuring brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) followed by ultrasound of the heart if positive. This is recommended in those with shortness of breath. In those with heart failure who worsen both a BNP and a troponin are recommended to help determine likely outcomes. Echocardiography is commonly used to support a clinical diagnosis of heart failure. This modality uses ultrasound to determine the stroke volume (SV, the amount of blood in the heart that exits the ventricles with each beat),