4 “Strange Facts” You Never Knew About Your Heart
Hello #HeadStrongHeartSmart crew!. I am Dr. Mike, your favorite board certified cardiologist, here to help you improve your health and add meaningful years to your life.
The heart is an amazing part of the body. Since it keeps your blood circulating through your body, it is responsible for keeping every other part of the body working properly. It has to keep working from the beginning of life to the very end. Here are a few things that you probably never knew about your heart.
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The heart is the strongest muscle in the body
When you think of strong muscles, you usually think of a bodybuilder. Granted, they have very strong biceps and pectorals, the heart remains one of the strongest muscles in the body. All those other muscles are able to take frequent breaks. Most weight lifters exercise in a series of 10-20 reps for 3-6 sets. Your heart begins beating before you are even born and does not stop until you die. The most amazing part is that the average adult heart beats about 100,000 times EACH DAY. THAT is a strong muscle!
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The heart pumps a HUGE volume
The heart has the job of pumping blood through the body. This is so important because the blood carries the oxygen needed by your tissues. When you breath, the oxygen enters the lungs and is transferred to the blood. The heart carries it to the rest of the body. The average amount of blood pumped by the heart is 5 liters per minute. In other words, 2 1/2 soda bottles worth of blood is pumped out of the heart in 1 minute. After a day, over 7000 L of blood have been pumped by an organ the size of your fist! Your heart can fill a swimming pool in just over a week!
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The heart has an electrical system
Your heart has its own electrical system. That electrical system regulates the heart rate and makes sure that everything is moving at the correct time. If your heart was an orchestra, that electrical system would be the conductor. Whenever there is a problem with the heart rhythm, it is due to some disruption in that electrical system. When we perform an EKG (aka ECG), we are simply measuring the voltage in the heart over time. Physicians are simply trained to recognize normal versus abnormal electrical activity.
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The heart has both pumping and suction functions.
The heart is a very strong pump. The blood leaving the heart is forcefully pumped out to reach all the organs in the body. But there are areas IN the heart that move blood with suction. For someone with a normal blood pressure of 120/80, those numbers represent the range of pressures in the arteries while the heart is beating. At the same time, the pressures in the left ventricle, would range from 120 to just above 0. Those low pressures occur while the ventricle is opening back up after pumping. The pressure in the ventricle becomes so low, that it actually “sucks” the blood from the atrium of the heart. The atrium only has to pump out the last bit of blood that the ventral didn’t “suck” out.
There are just a few of the “strange facts” about the heart. Knowing these things helps me as a cardiologist to better diagnose and treat a wide range of heart problems. Be sure to share this post with your friends. Until next time…
