Fun and weird facts you may not know about the heart

1. Your heart is roughly the size of your fist.
2. In an average life time the human heart beats more than 2.5 billion times.
3. The first heart pacemakers plugged into a wall socket.
4. Heart disease has been found in 3, 000 year old mummies.
5. Your heart pumps about one million barrels of blood during an average life time, which is enough to fill more than three super tankers.
6. Your heart is a coordinated machine – The right side pumps blood into your lungs, while the left side pumps it back into your body.
7. The first open-heart surgery occurred in 1893. It was performed by Daniel Hale Williams, who was one of the few black cardiologists in the United States at the time.
8. Because the heart has its own electrical pulse it can continue to beat even when it is separated from the body, as long as it has an adequate supply of oxygen.
9. The heart pumps blood to almost all of the body’s 75 trillion cells.
10. The ‘thump-thump’ of a heartbeat is the sound made by the four valves of the heart closing.
11. Alcohol, especially red wine, contains antioxidants and a compound called resveratrol. This means that drinking it in moderation, up to two drinks per day, may protect your heart against artery damage.
12. The youngest person to receive heart surgery was only a minute old. She had a heart defect that many babies don’t survive. Her surgery was successful.
13. The power output of the heart ranges from 1-5 watts. While the quadriceps can produce 100 watts for a few minutes, an output of one watt for 80 years is equal to 2.5 gigajoules.
14. A woman’s heart typically beats faster than a man’s.
15. It is possible to have a broken heart. It’s called broken heart syndrome and can have similar symptoms as a heart attack. The difference is that broken heart syndrome is caused by a rush of stress hormones.
16. The heart begins beating at four weeks after conception.
17. When the body is at rest, it takes only six seconds for the blood to go from the heart to the lungs and back, only eight seconds for it to go to the brain and back, and only 16 seconds for it to reach the toes and travel all the way back to the heart.
18. Heart cells stop dividing which means that heart cancer is extremely rare.

References

11 fascinating facts about the human heart, http://www.mercola.com/infographics/human-heart-facts.htm

22 amazing facts about your heart (infographic), https://health.clevelandclinic.org/2016/08/22-amazing-facts-about-your-heart-infographic/

Fun facts about the heart you didn’t know, http://www.healthline.com/health/fun-facts-about-the-heart#2