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The main job of your heart is to supply all organs and tissues with oxygen and nutrient-rich blood. Your heart is an involuntary muscle, meaning, you don’t have to “tell” it to beat or work like other muscles in your body. Regarded as the strongest and most important muscle in your body, the heart is fatigue-resistant beating over 100,000 times per day - that’s ove 35 million times per year! Your heart is about the size of your fist and weighs about as much as one baseball.
The cardiovascular system is made up of the myocardium (heart muscle), valves (one-way “doors” controlling the blood flow within the heart), the electrical conduction system (which regulates the heart beat), coronary arteries (blood vessels which carry blood away from the heart), veins (blood vessels which carry blood back to the heart) and the pericardium (outer protective layer of the heart). Cardiovascular disease can affect one or more of these parts. The most common form of heart disease is coronary artery disease, often referred to as CAD, which is the build-up of fatty deposits on the walls of the coronary arteries. This build-up slows the amount of blood that flows to the heart, which can cause a heart attack.
For More Information
Please call the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation at (612) 863-3979 or email us at educ@mplsheart.org for more information on this or other heart-health topics. Remember too, that information provided on this site is meant to supplement, not take the place of recommendations from your primary health care provider.
REFERENCES:
American Medical Association, Medical Library. Atlas of the Body: The Circulatory System.
http://www.medem.com/medlb/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZ2O6756JC&sub_cat=72
http://www.medem.com/MedLB/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZG57C56JC&sub_cat=72
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (1993). Mayo Clinic Heart Book. New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Stephenson, L.W. & Rodengen, J.L. (1999). State of the Heart. The Practical Guide to Your Heart and Heart Surgery. Fort Lauderdale, FL: Write Stuff Enterprises, Inc.
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