• Heart Facts

     

    • Your heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year.  During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times.

     

    • Resting Heart Rates
      • Canary Heart 1000 beats/minute
      • Human Heart 70 beats/minute
      • Mouse Heart 700 beats/minute
      • Whale Heart 5 beats /minute
      • Elephant Heart 25 beats/minute

     

    • Your heart weights about as much as a sneaker.

     

    • If you could stretch your blood vessels end to end, they would reach around the world 4 times.

     

    • The heart pumps 5000 to 6000 quarts of blood a day!

     

    • Your heart is about the size of your fist.

     

    • Arteries and Veins carry blood to and from the heart to the rest of your body.

     

    • Give a tennis ball a good, hard squeeze.  Youre 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 twice as hard as the leg muscles of a person sprinting.

     

    • Feel your pulse by placing two fingers at pulse points on your neck or wrists.  The pulse you feel is blood stopping and starting as it moves through your arteries.  As a kid, your resting pulse might range from 90 to 120 beats per minute.  As an adult, your pulse rate slows to an average of 72 beats per minute.

     

    • The aorta, the largest artery in the body, is almost the diameter of a garden hose.  Capillaries, on the other hand, are so small that it takes ten of them to equal the thickness of a human hair.

     

    • lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB.  Sound familiar?  If you listen to your heart beat, youll hear two sounds.  The lub and DUB sounds are made by the heart valves as they open and close.

     

    • A tireless, powerful muscle, the heart performs enough work in one hour to lift 3,000 pounds (1,400 kilograms) roughly the weight of a small car about one foot  (30 centimeters) off the ground.

     

    • Blood makes up 1/3 of the bodys weight.

     

    • Did you know that the heart is the first organ to begin functioning during a fetus life?

     

    • Did you know that when attempting to locate their heart, most people place their hand on the left side of their chest?  Actually, your heart is located in the center of your chest between your lungs.  The bottom of your heart is tipped to the left, so you can feel more of your heart on your left side of your chest.

     

    • Did you know that the electrocardiograph (ECG) was invented in 1902 by Dutch  physiologist Willem Einthoven?  This test is still used to evaluate the hearts rate and rhythm.

     

    • Did you know that blood pumped by the heart takes about 20 seconds to circulate throughout your entire system?

     

    • Hold out your hand a make a fist.  If youre a kid, your heart is about the same size of your first.  If youre an adult, its about the same size as two fists.

     

    • Your body has about 6 quarts (5.6 liters) of blood.  These 6 quarts of blood circulates through the body three times every minute.  In one day, the blood travels a total of 12,00 miles (19,000 km) thats four times the distance across the US from coast to coast.

     

    • The heart pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime thats enough to fill more than 3 super tankers.

     

    • A Blue Whales Heart is the size of a small car