Love and other facts of Heart

Your system of blood vessels — arteries, veins and capillaries — is over 60,000 miles long and would stretch around the world more than twice!

Your left lung is smaller than your right one to make room in your chest cavity for your heart.

Your heartbeats with enough strength to shoot blood a distance of 30 feet.

Your heart is made up almost entirely of muscle. It is strong enough to lift approximately 3,000 pounds – roughly the weight of a compact car.

Your heart is located in your chest and is well protected by your rib cage.

You really can have a “broken heart.” When you experience an emotionally difficult event, like a death of a loved one or the end of a romantic relationship, your body releases stress hormones. These hormones can sometimes cause symptoms similar to those of a heart attack. In some cases, there hormones can cause an actual heart attack.

You might have watched television shows or movies where a patient in a hospital is attached to an electrocardiogram (ECG). You might recognize it as the machine with a line moving across a screen that occasionally spikes (or remains flat when a patient is dying). This machine can measure the electricity going through a patient’s heart. A doctor can use the information to know when a patient is having heart rhythm problems or even a heart attack.

You might have felt your own heart beating, this is known as the cardiac cycle. When your heart contracts it makes the chambers smaller and pushes blood into the blood vessels. After your heart relaxes again the chambers get bigger and are filled with blood coming back into the heart.

Women’s hearts beat faster than male hearts.

To reduce the chances of heart disease the American Heart Association recommends at least 30min of moderate exercise on most days of the week.

To avoid heart disease, get moving. The risk of heart disease doubles in inactive people versus people who get regular exercise. Aerobic activity, like running, swimming and biking, are the best choices for cutting your risk of heart disease.

Though weighing only 11 ounces on average, a healthy heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels each day.

There is a reason the heart is associated with love and emotion. The ancient Egyptians believed that both intelligence and emotion were based in the heart, while the Chinese believed that the heart was the source of happiness.

There are four valves in the human heart, they ensure that blood only goes one way, either in or out.

The volume of blood pumped by the heart can vary over a wide range, from five to 30 liters per minute.

The term “heartfelt” originated from Aristotle’s philosophy that the heart collected sensory input from the peripheral organs through the blood vessels. It was from those perceptions that thought and emotions arose.

The study of the human heart and its various disorders is known as cardiology.

The risk of heart disease for inactive people is double that of people who get regular exercise.

The right atrium holds about 3.5 tablespoons of blood. The right ventricle holds slightly more than a quarter cup of blood. The left atrium holds the same amount of blood as the right, but its walls are three times thicker.

The pressure created in the heart during a heartbeat is enough to squirt blood a distance of thirty feet.

The human heart has four chambers, two superior atria and two inferior ventricles.

The human heart begins to beat as early as four weeks after conception. Scientists believe that by eight weeks, when the embryo is only an inch long, the heart is fully developed.

The heartbeat (lub-dub sound) is the produced by the closing of the atrioventricular valves.

The heart weighs less than one pound. The average weight for women is eight ounces and for men, 10 ounces.

The heart pumps oxygenated blood through the aorta (the largest artery) at about 1 mile (1.6 km) per hour. By the time blood reaches the capillaries, it is moving at around 43 inches (109 cm) per hour.

The heart pumps blood to almost all of the body’s 75 trillion cells. Only the corneas receive no blood supply.

The heart is one of the most important organs in the human body, continuously pumping blood around our body through blood vessels.

The heart is one big muscular pump made up of involuntary striated muscle cells.

The heart is made up of four chambers, the left atrium, right atrium, left ventricle and right ventricle.

The heart does the most physical work of any muscle during a lifetime. The power output of the heart ranges from 1-5 watts. While the quadriceps can produce 100 watts for a few minutes, an output of one watt for 80 years is equal to 2.5 gigajoules.

The heart begins beating at four weeks after conception and does not stop until death.

The Greeks believed the heart was the seat of the spirit, the Chinese associated it with the center for happiness and the Egyptians thought the emotions and intellect arose from the heart.

The first successful heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967.

The fetal heart rate is approximately twice as fast as an adult’s, at about 150 beats per minute. By the time a fetus is 12 weeks old, its heart pumps an amazing 60 pints of blood a day.

The ECG – electrocardiogram – that is used to test heart rate was developed in 1902.

The blood vessels fed by your heart are more than 60,000 miles long. According to The Cleveland Clinic, they could wrap around the world twice.

The average adult heart beats 72 times a minute; 100,000 times a day; 3,600,000 times a year; and 2.5 billion times during a lifetime.

The average adult heart beats 72 times a minute; 100,000 times a day; 3,600,000 times a year; and 2.5 billion times during a 70-year span.

The “thump-thump” of a heartbeat is the sound made by the four valves of the heart closing.

Taking care of your teeth can have a dramatic impact on heart health. If you develop gum disease, your chance having a heart attack or a stroke increases by 50%.

Some heavy snorers may have a condition called obtrusive sleep apnea (OSA), which can negatively affect the heart.

Regular exercise can strengthen your heart and cardiovascular system and improve circulation, helping your body use oxygen better and lower blood pressure.

Prolonged lack of sleep can cause irregular jumping heartbeats called premature ventricular contractions (PVCs).

Plato theorized that reasoning originated with the brain, but that passions originated in the “fiery” heart.

Physician Erasistratus of Chios (304-250 B.C.) was the first to discover that the heart functioned as a natural pump.

On December 3, 1967, Dr. Christiaan Barnard (1922-2001) of South Africa transplanted a human heart into the body of Louis Washansky. Although the recipient lived only 18 days, it is considered the first successful heart transplant.

On average, a million barrels worth of blood is pumped through the heart in a lifetime.

Most heart attacks occur between the hours of 8 and 9 AM with Monday being the most "popular" day.

Morning is peak time for heart attacks. The majority of heart attacks happen during the hours of 8 and 9 in the morning. Most heart attacks happen on Mondays.

Laughing can be a great workout for your heart. Whenever you laugh, the blood flow in your heart is increased for up to 45 minutes, which in turn improves your heart health.

It is thought that the heart got its love association in the ancient Greek city of Cyrene due to the Silphium plant with it's heart-shaped seed pods that grew in the region.

In his text De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, the father of modern anatomy, Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), argued that the blood seeped from one ventricle to another through mysterious pores.

In 1929, German surgeon Werner Forssmann (1904-1979) examined the inside of his own heart by threading a catheter into his arm vein and pushing it 20 inches and into his heart, inventing cardiac catheterization, a now common procedure.

In 1903, physiologist Willem Einthoven (1860-1927) invented the electrocardiograph, which measures electric current in the heart.

Heart disease is a major risk. In the US, it kills two times more people than all kinds of cancer.

Heart attacks cause scar tissue to form amongst normal heart tissue, this can lead to further heart problems or even heart failure.

Grab a tennis ball and squeeze it tightly: that’s how hard the beating heart works to pump blood.

Galen of Pergamum, a prominent surgeon to Roman gladiators, demonstrated that blood, not air, filled arteries, as Hippocrates had concluded. However, he also believed that the heart acted as a low-temperature oven to keep the blood warm and that blood trickled from one side of the heart to the other through tiny holes in the heart.

Galen argued that the heart constantly produced blood. However, William Harvey’s (1578-1657) discovery of the circulation system in 1616 revealed that there was a finite amount of blood in the body and that it circulated in one direction.

Galen agreed with Aristotle that the heart was the body’s source of heat, a type of “lamp” fueled by blood from the liver and fanned into spirituous flame by air from the lungs. The brain merely served to cool the blood.

French physician Rene Laennec (1781-1826) invented the stethoscope when he felt it was inappropriate to place his ear on his large-buxomed female patients' chests.

For men, there is a strange link between the ring finger and the heart. According to scientific studies, the longer a man’s ring finger is, the lower his chance of having a heart attack.

Five percent of blood supplies the heart, 15-20% goes to the brain and central nervous system, and 22% goes to the kidneys.

Every year, your heart beats approximately 35 million times. That is 100,000 beats per day and 70 beats per minute. Over the course of a lifetime, that adds up to an average of 2.5 billion heartbeats.

Every day, the heart creates enough energy to drive a truck 20 miles. In a lifetime, that is equivalent to driving to the moon and back.

Every day 2,700 people die of heart disease.

Even long time smokers can benefit from stubbing out their cigarettes. Within three years of quitting, the risk of heart attack for former smokers is the same as it is for lifetime non-smokers.

Electricity going through your heart makes the muscle cells contract.

Electrical impulses in the heart muscle (the myocardium) are what cause the heart to beat

Early Egyptians believed that the heart and other major organs had wills of their own and would move around inside the body.

During an average lifetime, the heart will pump nearly 1.5 million gallons of blood—enough to fill 200 train tank cars.

Cocaine affects the heart’s electrical activity and causes spasm of the arteries, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke, even in healthy people.

Clench your fists and put them side by side. This is roughly the size of your heart. A child’s heart is approximately the size of on clenched fist on an adult hand.

Cape Town, South Africa, was the location of the first successful heart transplant. The surgery was completed in 1967.

Blood that leaves the heart is carried through arteries. The main artery leaving the left ventricle is the aorta while the main artery leaving the right ventricle is the pulmonary artery.

Blood takes about 20 seconds to circulate through the entire human body.

Blood pressure is a measure of the pressure exerted by blood on the walls of the heart chambers. Systolic is a measure of the pressure when the heart is pumping and diastolic is a measure when the heart is relaxed.

Blood is actually a tissue. When the body is at rest, it takes only six seconds for the blood to go from the heart to the lungs and back, only eight seconds for it to go the brain and back, and only 16 seconds for it to reach the toes and travel all the way back to the heart.

Blood going towards the heart is carried through veins. Blood coming from the lungs to the left atrium is carried through the pulmonary veins while blood coming from the body to the right atrium is carried through the superior vena cava and inferior vena cava.

Blood flows into the right atrium and through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle. From here it is pumped to the lungs to dispose of CO2 and pick up O2. Next the oxygenated blood is pumped into the left atrium and then to the left ventricle, through the bicuspid valve. Finally it is pumped out of the left ventricle to the body via the aorta.

Because the heart has its own electrical impulse, it can continue to beat even when separated from the body, as long as it has an adequate supply of oxygen.

Arteries carry oxygenated blood away form the heart to the muscle cells. Veins carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart.

An anonymous contributor to the Hippocratic Collection (or Canon) believed vessel valves kept impurities out of the heart, since the intelligence of man was believed to lie in the left cavity.

An adult man's heart weighs about 10 ounces and a woman's about 8 ounces.

An adult heart pumps approx. 2,000 gallons of blood throughout the body.

A woman’s heart typically beats faster than a man’s. The heart of an average man beats approximately 70 times a minute, whereas the average woman has a heart rate of 78 beats per minute.

A newborn baby has about one cup of blood in circulation. An adult human has about four to five quarts which the heart pumps to all the tissues and to and from the lungs in about one minute while beating 75 times.

A kitchen faucet would need to be turned on all the way for at least 45 years to equal the amount of blood pumped by the heart in an average lifetime.

“Atrium” is Latin for “entrance hall,” and “ventricle” is Latin for “little belly.