25 Facts About My Heart that Left Me Stunned!

Courtesy:R B Kishore 25 Facts About My Heart that Left Me Stunned! 25  Incredible Facts About the Human Heart The humanheart is perhaps one of the biggest engineering miracles in the world. It works tirelessly, for the many years of ourlives, to pump vitality through our body. Since ancienttimes, we have expressed our admiration for this amazingorgan, keeping us alive and well. Our heart is our biggest defender as well as the chink in our armor, being the most prevalent cause of death in many countries, specifically  developed countries.  Here are 25 facts you may not have known about your incredible  heart. Every day you are alive, your heart  creates enough energy to power a truck for 20 miles of  driving. For your whole lifetime, that wouldbe enough to drive that truck to the moon and  back. Your heart pumps blood to almost allof your cells, quite a feat considering there are about 75  trillion of them. Only our corneas receive no blood  supply. Of all your muscles, the heart does  the most physical work. During a normal life span, the heart  will pump about 1.5 million barrels of blood - enough to  fill about 200 train tank  cars. The first heart - a tiny group of  cells, begins to beat as early as when the pregnancy is in  its 4th week. The biggest heart on earth belongs  to the blue whale, with a heart that weighs 1,500  pounds. Studies show an interesting linkbetween education and heart disease. More education=less  heart disease. That said, heart disease is still  the greatest threat to your  health. It has even been found in mummies  over 3,000 years old. A few things that keep your heart  healthy: Lack of stress, exercise, happiness and a healthy  diet! Of the days of the year, Christmas  Day sees the most heart attacks, followed by December 26th,  followed by New Year. The time when the most heart attacks  occur? Monday morning. The size of a heart valve is roughly  the size of a 50 cent coin. The very first pacemakers had to be  plugged into the wall. Suffice to say, those patients did  not do much walking. The heart is amazingly resilient,  and provided with oxygen, can continue beating even after  separated from the body. The first cardiac catheterization  was performed in 1929, with the doctor, a German surgeon bythe name Wener Forssmann, putting the catheter in his own  arm vein, and examining his own  heart. The first successful heart  transplant was performed in 1967 by Dr. Christian Barnard ofSouth Africa. The recipient only lived 18 days, it was a  huge medical breakthrough.   If you grab a tennis ball and  squeeze it with all your might, you would roughly understandhow hard the heart works to pump blood, every second of  every day. Typically, a woman's heart will  beat faster than a man's. Laughter has terrific benefits for  your heart. Laughter can actually send 20% more bloodflowing through your entire body, relaxing the walls of your  vessels. Why has the heart become such a  symbol of love? Maybe it is because the ancients believedthe heart was the center of our soul and emotion? Some historians believe it began with the Greek culture, and not  before. People can actually die from a  broken heart. After suffering a terrible loss or traumaticevent, the body releases stress hormones into your bloodstream that can temporarily mimic the symptoms of a  heart attack, even causing heart  failure.   A recent study in Sweden found that  when a choir sings, an amazing thing happens - their heart  rhythms actually  synsynchronizes!  ___