The Human heart is an amazing organ. Without it, one cannot live a single minute. It is known to all. But there are little-known and at the same time incredible facts about the heart: the heartbeat of the people in a choir gets synchronized, the heart generates electrical impulses. And this is only a small part of incredible facts about the heart. In this review, we will share much more interesting things.
1. A flight to the moon and back
The heart produces energy, which is not a secret to anyone. But how much energy is produced remains a less known fact. Every day, the heart creates enough energy for a heavy truck to drive 35 km. Another example shows that the total energy produced by the heart during the entire life of a person would be enough for a flight to the moon and back.
2. The cornea of the eye is an exception
The heart pumps blood through almost all of the 75 trillion cells in the body. The only exception is the cornea, which does not get blood supply from the heart.
3. 240 million liters
The heart is doing the greatest physical work of all the muscles in the body. During an average human life, the heart will pump about 240 million liters of blood. That’s enough to fill 200 rail tankers.
4. Heart disease
The more educated a person is, the lower the risk of a heart disease becomes. Despite this, heart disease remains the biggest threat to health. The symptoms of the disease were found even in 3000-year-old mummies.
5. Laughter
However, there are ways to minimize the risk of heart disease. Happiness, absence of stress, exercise and a healthy diet belong to the factors that keep the heart healthy. Another means of promoting heart health is laughter. It increases blood circulation intensity by 20%, relaxing the walls of blood vessels.
6. Boxing Day, Christmas, New Year
The highest number of heart attacks falls on Christmas. The second place goes to December 26 and the third is New Year’s Day. As for days of the week, a heart attack is most likely to happen on a Monday morning.
7. Electrical impulses
It is known that the heart produces its own electrical impulses. That is why it can continue functioning even when it is removed from the body … as long as the heart is supplied with oxygen.
8. Catheterization
In 1929, German surgeon Werner Forssmann examined the inside of the heart by threading a catheter into a vein in his arm. It was the first cardiac catheterization, which is a routine procedure today.
9. Heart transplant
Dr. Christian Barnard from South Africa transplanted the donor heart into the body of Louis Washkansky on December 3, 1967. Although the patient lived for only 18 days afterwards, this surgery was considered to be the first successful heart transplant.
10. A heart attack
No one knows why the heart has historically been associated with love (many ancient civilizations have associated it with emotions), but some historians believe that it was done by the ancient Greeks for the first time. It is interesting that the image of a broken heart is really science-motivated. Once a person is experiencing an emotionally traumatic event, the body releases stress hormones into the bloodstream. These hormones can lead to a temporary “shock” for the heart and even cause heart attack symptoms.
