Do you know your Heart?

Our body is really amazing or else how could it be so simple to look at and so complex to understand. Undeterred of the complexity involved, we have managed to discover a lot about ourselves.Our heart is the one we are going to take in account for this discussion.After all it is the most hardworking muscle which is active even when you're asleep.

People have also made it fascinating at the same time by bringing in stuffs like the Brain and Heart battles where the brain always talks practical and the heart plays insane and what not.

Take a while to admire this caricature by some skilled cartoonist before we switch on the realism and talk more about our heart.

Why Is The Heart vital?

Isn't it something that all of us already know? What does the heart do?

It pumps oxygenated blood to the body. Cells in our body depend on the heart for blood and oxygen. At the same time it pumps the deoxygenated blood received from the cells to the lungs where blood gets oxygenated again and reaches the heart back for another similar cycle.

How Does It Look Like And How Does It Function?

So our heart looks a little complex to understand.Let me make it simpler.

  The blue vessels in the diagram represent the blood vessels carrying deoxygenated blood. 

          (superior Venacava, Inferior Venacava, Pulmonary Artery)

                                                                                                               

  The red vessels in the diagram represent the blood vessels carrying oxygenated blood. 

          (Aorta, Pulmonary Vein)                                                                                                       

The left part of the heart (red colored) stores oxygen rich blood which comes to the heart from the lungs via the Pulmonary Vein (Lungs remove CO₂ from the blood and also oxygenate the blood) and leave the heart via the Aorta(arteries) to be distributed across the body.

The right part of the heart (blue colored) stores deoxygenated blood which comes back to the heart from the rest of the body via the Venacavas(veins) and leave the heart to reach the lungs for oxygenation via the Pulmonary Artery.

Note:-Veins and Arteries are names given to blood vessels depending on whether they carry blood inwards to or outwards of the heart.These names have nothing to do with the type of blood (oxygenated/deoxygenated).

Example : Pulmonary Veins carry oxygenated blood and other veins like the venacavas carry deoxygenated blood. Similarity being veins carry blood into the heart.

Both the left and the right parts of the heart have two compartments. The upper compartment which receives the blood into the heart is called the Atrium. For oxygenated blood it is the Left Atrium and for deoxygenated blood it is the Right Atrium. The lower compartment which pushes the blood out of the heart is called the Ventricle. Analogously the Left Ventricle and the Right Ventricle. There are flap like valves between an Atrium and a Ventricle which prevent the blood flow in the wrong and opposite direction.

This is how our heart keeps us alive by working nonstop, pumping blood throughout our body, cycling and purifying it.

Note:- The term Pulmonary means Relating to the Lungs.

Do You Know?

• The heart beats 100,000 times a day.
• A woman's heart typically beats faster than a man's.
• The size of your heart is approximately the same as the size of your closed fist.
• The speed by which our heart pumps blood out of the Aorta is approximately 1.5-1.6 kmph.
• A healthy heart pump's 2000 gallons of blood through 96500 kms of blood vessels every day.
• The 'Dhak-Dhak'  sound of the heart is produced by the opening and closing of valves present between the Atrium and Ventricle compartments of the heart.
• Regular exercise is the single most key important key to heart-health and is totally FREE.
• Heart disease is the greatest threat to life (more dangerous than Breast cancer in women and Prostate cancer in men)

Keep Your Heart Healthy and Happy :)