| …And you thought you had the best heart. You may be in sound health and look absolutely robust but that doesn’t save you from getting a heart disease. Heart disease is one of the most common diseases, and it does take a toll on human health. But if you are diagnosed of a heart disease does not mean that your world has come to an end. In today’s scientifically advanced world, there are numerous therapies to manage a diseased heart. Hence, World Heart Day – a day to create public awareness of the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and to promote preventive measures - is celebrated every year on the last Sunday of September. And on this day get yourself acquainted with some unbelievable facts about your heart along with some informative articles. Now read these incredible facts to pump up your IQ! Did you know that the heart beats about 100,000 times each day? Three times, every minute, an amazing 5.6 litres (equal to 6 quarts) of blood circulates through the body. The blood travels a total of 19,000 km (12,000 miles), in one day. The blood vessels of the body - arteries, veins and capillaries - are over 60,000 miles long. Long enough to go all the way around the earth, more than twice. Approximately 78% of your blood is actually, water. Blood takes about a blazing 20 seconds to circulate throughout the entire vascular system. Clench your own fist and take a look at it. That is the size of your heart. The aorta, the largest artery in the body, is approximately the diameter of a garden hose. That’s how thick your aorta is. Can you guess exactly how thin your capillaries are? Your capillaries are so small that it takes ten of them to equal the thickness of a human hair. The heart pumps about 5 litres of blood each minute. Makes you wonder where so much blood is stored, doesn’t it? In an average 70 year lifetime, our heart beats an unbelievable 2.5 billion times. As a kid, your resting pulse might range from 90 to 120 beats per minute. But as you grown up, your heart slows down. As an adult, your pulse rate slows to an average of 72 beats per minute. Within a year of quitting smoking, the chance of having a heart attack drops by half because your heart becomes that much stronger. The heart can produce enough pressure to squirt blood to a distance of 30 feet. Yes, a full 30 feet. The heart pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime. And you thought the oil wells in Iraq were working overtime! If you listen to your heart beat, you'll hear two sounds – “Lub” and “DUB” - made by the heart valves as they open and close. “LUB” is the sound of the valve opening and “DUB” is the sound of the valve closing. Over a hundred years ago, in 1902, a Dutch physiologist, Willem Einthoven, bless his heart; invented the electrocardiograph (ECG). This test is still used to evaluate the heart's electrical activity. The human heart is fully developed about eight weeks after conception, when the embryo is only about one inch long. The heart actually begins to beat even earlier - about four weeks after conception. In fact, the heart is the very first organ to begin functioning in the foetus. Give a tennis ball a good, hard squeeze. Believe it or not, you're using about the same amount of force your heart uses to pump blood out to the body. Even at rest, the muscles of the heart work hard—in fact, twice as hard as the leg muscles of a person running. The heart, which weighs 9 -11 ounces in an adult, consists chiefly of muscle and can perform enough work in one hour to lift 3,000 pounds, roughly the weight of a small car, about one foot off the ground. Still wondering??? These are facts not myths. Or are you ready to read some more enlightening articles? So, what are you waiting for! Click on the links given above to gain further knowledge on cardiovascular care. Ready Steady GO! | 
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