Facts About the Human Heart

It makes us keep up with our daily rhythm, it beats with every single thing we do, and most importantly, it pumps blood to almost all our body, which allows us to move our limbs to our will. And sometimes we do not even notice it until we are rushing to go somewhere or making big physical efforts, like exercising. It is even one of the first organs to form while we are inside our mother’s womb. Our heart, as well as our circulatory system, is one crucial organ inside our body and some of its most surprising features are still very much unknown by most people. Let’s find out some interesting facts about our heart.

According to the LiveScience website, the heart is “an organ that pumps blood throughout the body via the circulatory system, supplying oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and removing carbon dioxide and other wastes”. Its size can vary depending of the individual’s gender and health conditions, but in broad terms, it weights from 10 to 12 ounces in men, and from 8 to 10 ounces in women. The heart has two main pathways to where it makes blood circulate: the pulmonary circuit and the systemic circuit. Each circuit uses a different side, either left or right. However, here are the parts that really make it an amazing organ.

Can you count your heart beats?

The American Heart Association estimates that an adult human heart beats around 100,000 times every day, which makes more than 2.5 billion times during an average lifetime. It can vary, of course, between 86,000 times a day and 144,000 times a day.

Your heart can make you sick

Dr. James Beckerman, director of the Center for Prevention and Wellness at the Providence Heart and Vascular Institute in Portland, Oregon, and author of Heart to Start (2015), states that heart disease does not discriminate gender, and it is also the main cause of death for both women and men. For women especially, it is deadlier than any other type of cancer combined.

Heart’s real size

Even though most hearts are the size of the person’s fist, this is actually only true for those individuals with healthy hearts. According to Kathryn Boling, MD, certain diseases and conditions, like heart failure, can make the organ larger.

Where does the blood go?

The heart pumps blood, about 2,000 gallons of it everyday, through a system of blood vessels that can be up to 60,000 miles long. They reach almost all of our organs, both internal and external, except for our corneas.