Health

Understanding Your Heart

Learn About Your Heart And Cardiovascular System

The cardiovascular system consists of:

The heart:

  • a muscular pump that pushes blood throughout the body
  • beats an average of 70 times per minute (that’s over 1000 beats per day!)
  • pumps about 7,200 litres of blood per day

The blood vessels:

  • elastic tubes, called arteries and veins, carry blood throughout the body
  • the blood carried by arteries is blood that has just come from the heart and is rich in oxygen picked up from the lungs. The cells of the body require a constant supply of oxygen, chemicals and nutrients from the food we eat – the blood carries these supplies.
  • blood carried by veins is blood that has been collected from the cells in the body after the cells have taken the oxygen, chemicals and nutrients that they need out of the blood. The cells also produce a waste product, called carbon dioxide, which is dumped into the blood from the cells and carried back to the lungs to be breathed out.

‘Cardiovascular disease’ is a term used to refer to a variety of diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels. It includes such diseases as heart attack, heart failure, stroke, atherosclerosis, some forms of kidney failure, damage to the small blood vessels in the eyes, reduced blood supply to the brain and poor circulation or gangrene of the feet and legs. While stroke can be thought of as a form of cardiovascular disease, it is more commonly referred to as a ‘cerebrovascular disease’ because it affects the blood vessels in the brain specifically.

Cardiovascular disease and stroke are the number
one cause of death for men and women in the United States.

On the bright side, however, deaths from cardiovascular disease and stroke have decreased significantly over the past 40 years. Reasons for this decrease include: