All
About Your Heart
When you picture your heart, I bet you see a heart like the
ones on Valentine cards. The heart actually looks like an up-side
down pear and is about the size of your clenched fist. Did you
know that the heart is a muscle? Thats right, just like the ones
in your arms and legs. This powerful pear-shaped muscle pumps
about 4300 gallons of blood per day. That's like 4300 full
gallons of milk! Wow! To pump this 4300 gallons of blood per day
your heart has to beat(expand and contrast) 100,000 times a day.
For an average 70 year lifetime your heart would beat around 2.5
billion times.
used with permission from Access Exellence,
Genetech, Inc.
You can view image at http://www.gene.com/ae/AE/AEC/CC/heartbackground.html
The heart is the organ that provides energy to the rest of
the body. To do this arteries carry oxygen rich blood from the
heart to nurish the rest of the cells in the body. The cells then
turn this oxygen into energy. Where does it get the oxygen you
ask? When the red pure blood in the arteries reaches its
destination is turns into blue impure blood without any oxygen in
it. The blue impure blood now travels in veins back to the heart.
On it's way back to the heart it goes through the lungs to pick
up more oxygen and the heart pumps the red pure blood through the
arteries and the cycle begins again.
Think about your muscles after playing some active sport or
game. They're tired right. Your heart is continually pumping
blood. From the moment you develop in the womb to the moment you
die your heart is always pumping. The heart beats about 70-80
times on average in one minute. Although when you are active such
as running or playing basketball your heart beats quicker. When
you sleep though your heart slows down.
What your heart looks like
The heart has 4 chambers, or four open spaces. The top two
chambers are called the right and left atria. They recieve blood
from the body or lungs. The bottom two chambers are called the
right and left ventricles. The right chamber pumps blood to the
lungs to pick up oxygen. The left chamber is the strongest
chamber and pumps blood to the rest of the body.
on the bottom is the right and left ventricles
on the top is the right and left atrims and the
aorta
used with permission from Access Exellence,
Genetech, Inc.
You can view image at http://www.gene.com/ae/AE/AEC/CC/heartbackground.html
Works Cited
http://www.jhbmc.jhu.ed...ehab/healthy.heart.html
http://www.amhrt.org/
http://www.bharatonline.com/heart/htcod2.html
http://www.fi.edu/biosci/structure/structure.html