SICA-HF is a prospective, multicentre, multinational, longitudinal, pathophysiological evaluation study, which is being conducted in 11 centres across six countries. SICA-HF receives funding from the European commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 241558 (SICA-HF) and from the Russian Ministry of Science and Education within the file transfer protocol "R&D in priority fields of the S&T complex of Russia 2007-2012" under state contract number 02.527.11.0007. The aim of SICA-HF is to provide detailed characteristics of co-morbidities of heart failure at baseline and over time, particularly with regards to obesity, cachexia, and type 2 diabetes.