Everyone knows that the size of a heart can be compared with a clenched fist. But not everyone knows that in a day it can pump about sixteen thousand three hundred sixty liters of blood. The weight of this most important organ is from two hundred twenty five to three hundred and forty grams. On how the heart works, overall human health depends. In its structure, the heart can be compared with a two-story house. Each of its parts has an upper room, an atrial ear and lower room, a right ventricle and a left.
The work of the heart does not stop for a second. And if you analyze in detail the connection of all parts adjacent to it, you can simply admire their coordinated activities. There is a door on both sides of the ear and ventricles, called a valve. The ventricles and arteries have exits, and the entrances pass from the veins to the ears. A healthy heart has perfectly fitted doors, since blood displaced by the heart should not fall back into the same door. Closing and opening of the valves occurs with every rhythmic beat of the heart.
On both sides, the heart has one pump. Blood enriched with oxygen rises to the left side of the lungs and spreads throughout the body. Blood flows to the right side with less oxygen, but it contains more carbon dioxide and returns to the lungs.
The ears of the atrium consist of thinner walls, since they pump blood over small distances. The walls of the right ventricle are thicker because it directs blood to the lungs. But the left ventricle is the most important part of the heart , and it has the thickest walls, because the distance he needs to pump blood is the largest.
Not everyone can imagine how serious the work of the heart is, the compression and decompression of which is about one hundred thousand times a day.
The force with which the heart contracts is not always the same. In the process of physical work, the small arteries and capillaries expand in the working muscles, and the blood flow to them increases. Muscles in the process of contraction compress veins and push a large amount of blood to the heart. The strength of muscle contraction, including cardiac, depends on the initial stretching. If they are stretched, that is, have elongated fibers, then their compression will be more powerful. The heart, which receives an increased amount of blood, will expand, while the muscle fibers will be elongated. The contraction of such a heart is stronger. Getting more blood, it also pushes it in large quantities in the arteries. Blood circulation, thus, increases, and all organs along with this receive more nutrients and, accordingly, oxygen.
If a person is healthy, the work of the heart is carried out rhythmically without causing any complications. However, with a sick heart, his muscle weakens, it is not able to work hard and distill a large amount of blood with increased physical exertion. The work of the weakened heart is also disturbed. If it cannot provide enough blood flow to the organs, then this condition is called heart failure.
In people with heart disease, the pulse during physical activity is significantly faster, and instead of eighty beats per minute, it reaches one hundred and forty beats. Heart failure primarily affects brain function. If a small flow of blood and an insufficient amount of oxygen is carried out to the respiratory center, and carbon dioxide is excreted at a slower rate, then respiratory organs are irritated. In this case, the patient feels shortness of breath.
A disease of this vital organ is often accompanied by discomfort, tingling in the heart. Also, an increased heartbeat is observed with severe excitement, neurosis.
Even if the work of the heart of a healthy person does not cause concern, this does not mean at all that it does not need to be protected. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the load on it to a minimum, because it is the work of the heart that determines the length of human life.