Human heart - something you certainly cannot manage without!
From the ancient times personalities had a pretty good idea that human heart is such an important center of life, no individual could do without it. From those times the heart is a symbol of something entirely important and necessary for the very survival of any man. That is exactly why our discourse is full of word-combinations mentioning the heart.
Persons used to think that the power of any individual is in the heart. Some nations were sure human soul resides in the heart, others we sure every idea, either kind or cruel, is born in the heart, that is why they were certain that a bad man has a black heart beating in the chest!
“You are my heart” - so we say about the most dear individual in our life. The individual able of enchanting everybody gets the nickname of “the heart of the company”. When something bad happens to our beloved ones we always convince them not “to take it all to heart”. A brutal and indifferent personality is called “heartless”. And if someone really enjoys meals we refer him or her to “hearty eaters”. Certainly you can supplement this list with your own examples proving how important is the heart for human beings!
Today having every fracture of knowledge up-to-date science provides us with we do realize that the heart is a mere organ, but it keeps counting throbs in joy when we are happy and continues crying when we have bad periods of our lives. God only knows, maybe that is the reason why numerous failures in the functioning of human hearts are responsible for the quarter of the total deaths all over the world! Let us get some information about the heart to decipher the first symptoms of any heart disorder and to be able to keep your personal biological engine safe and sound!
Your heart just as hearts of all animals, is a hollow muscular organ of the body’s circulatory system. It keeps pumping blood throughout the veins. Its permanent rhythmic contractions pump as much as 5-6 liters of blood every minute, about 360 liters of blood every hour and 8 000 - 10 000 liters of blood daily! Normal contraction rate of any healthy grownup man or woman is about 60-80 a minute, i.e. about 4 500 contractions an hour or 100 000 - 108 000 daily! Sounds amazing, doesn’t it! Physicians ofter refer heart diseases to cardiac affairs. The point is term cardiac comes from the Greek “kardia” meaning “related to the heart”. Our hearts are very complicated. Normal work of the heart and numerous heart illness called cardiopathies are thoroughly studied by cardiology.
Your heart is divided into four chambers. The two upper chambers are called the left and right atria, while the two lower chambers are called the right and left ventricles. Sometimes medical people speak about the right heart (right atrium and right ventricle together) and the left heart (the left atrium and left ventricle together).
In the majority of cases human heart is the size of a fist, it takes up the main part of the chest, it is a little shifted to the left and it weighs as much as 250 and 350 grams.
We have already mentioned it above that, the basic work of the heart is pumping blood, but this job is a very complicated affair! The heart always moves our blood in one direction. It gets from the atria to the ventricles and moves on through arteries. Powerful triscupid, mitral, aortic and pulmonary valves in the heart prevent the blood from getting backwards. It is extremely important because the heart simultaneously sends de-oxygenated blood towards the lungs and oxygenated blood to every system and organ of our body!
The right heart is responsible for collecting de-oxygenated blood in its atrium and pushing it through the ventricle right into the lungs, where carbon dioxide is dropped off (when we exhale) and oxygen picked up (when we breathe in). This occurs with the help of red blood cells taking part in the process of diffusion.
The left heart is responsible for collecting oxygenated blood from the lungs in its atrium and sending it through the ventricle and via the aorta out to the body. As you have already guessed, a much greater force is needed to send the blood through the large systemic circulation. No wonder the muscle wall surrounding the left ventricle is much thicker than that of the right ventricle sending the blood right into the lungs.
The main part of men and women irresponsibly think their personal biological ticker will always be there for them and they never do a thing to support it. As some cardiologists say, you have a healthy heart if it never reminds you of the fact it is there, in your chest and keeps working 24/7. Sorry to say, people start taking care of the heart only when it fails them for the first time when it is to late to prevent a trouble.
Do you know what activities, lifestyles and behavior destroy your unique biological engine? First of all, stressful jobs and family relations make your heart beat at a crazy speed. Lack of sleep and relaxation, a stream of bad emotions and the feeling of hopelessness make the situation worse. Bad ecology, irregular recreations give some strain to your heart, too. Junk and fast food, irregular meals and wrong diets do not provide your heart with elements important for its flawless work. Lack of physical exercise make your heart muscles weaker, as a result your motor is not always able of managing extra strain. Bear in mind that extra heavy physical activity permanently forces your heart to work at the top of its abilities making it wear out.
Any health disorders you ever survived or have now affect your heart, too. To guarantee your soon recovery your tireless ticker doubles and triples its efforts and keeps sending blood through your vessels when you have a fever, when you are intoxicated or when you have to struggle with some infection! Obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol considerably increase the risk of getting a heart problem, too.
To help your heart be healthy:
- avoid mental stress and strain;
- try to obtain stable position in life;
- think positive, be optimistic, avoid overreacting;
- walk a lot, go in for some sport;
- choose a well-balanced diet;
- control your body weight and blood pressure.
Please, make an appointment with your doctor immediately if:
- you feel your heart working in your chest;
- you are short of breath without considerable physical activity;
- you have trouble breathing (blood may back up into the lungs);
- you have pain in the chest (meaning the heart muscle is not getting enough blood flow);
- your heart feels unusually big;
- your legs and feet swell (blood is backing up from in the lower body);
- you feel weak (the body and brain do not get enough blood to supply them with oxygen);
- your skin and lips turn blue (too little oxygen is in the bloodstream to supply the cells in the body);
- your heart beats irregularly (palpitations).
Those could be the premonitory symptoms of a heart disease!
Heart disease is a umbrella notion for a number of troubles with the heart. Physicians use the word cardiopathy. Irrestective of the term, any heart disease means that the biological engine does not work normally.
The short classification of heart troubles counts congenital heart diseases and acquired heart diseases. Congenital heart diseases are the heart disorders a baby is born with. Acquired heart diseases are those diseases that are developed by people in the course of their lives. The majority of heart diseases are acquired ones.
Cardiologists state there are three usual kinds of acquired heart diseases:
1. The problem with the blood vessels carrying blood to the heart muscle - so called Coronary Artery Disease. The blood vessels in question get thinner, some of them can be blocked, that is why blood cannot get through them at normal speed, as a result the heart muscle cannot work as it should, it becomes weak and thin. In the most difficult cases the blood flow stops altogether and the heart muscle dies. Coronary Artery Disease is believed to be hereditary, but it shows itself if a man smokes or drinks too much alcohol, has a history of diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.
2. When the heart cannot pump blood at normal levels we face Congestive Heart Failure. In some cases the valves of the heart do not let through enough blood because they are too thin. They can let some blood get backwards in the wrong direction, i.e. inside the heart. Forced to do additional work, the heart gets tired or fatigued and its muscle becomes too worn out to cope with any serious strain.
3. The problem with electrical activity in the heart is known as Bad Heart Rhythms. The heart can beat too fast or too slow without any plausible cause. The point is our heart can pump the blood well only if it enjoys normal rhythm. Otherwise this task becomes next to impossible. With the fast rhythm the heart does not have enough time to let the right amount of blood into the chambers, as a result the ticker pumps too little blood with each beat. With the slow rhythm the heart does not make enough contractions to supply the body with the proper quantity of blood. Extremely bad heart rhythms can prevent the heart from pumping any blood at all.
The sad point is that your tireless engine can become the reason of your instant death! But in reality the things are not as bad as that! Day by day contemporary pharmacology keeps saving hundreds of lives of persons having different heart troubles.
If you know exactly what kind of heart disorder you have, you can avoid bothering moments in the waiting room and order your medications without prescription in any trusted online pharmacy. You will be agreeably stunned by the perfect service and the swiftness of delivery of your order. What is more, a good web drugstore is a cheapest pharmacy. Actually is no usual pharmacy is able of offering you the discounts available web. Raise the quality of your life right now! A great number of highly effective meds are able of bringing you back your usual lifestyles.