How Does Blood Flow Through Your Heart?
How the Blood Flows Through the Lungs?
Contact Doctor Arun for Any Type of Heart Problem
Know Your Heart
Do you know your heart well? The heart happens to be a wonderful organ in the body. It constantly pumps oxygen & nutrient-enriched blood throughout the body for sustaining life. This powerhouse with the size of a fist beats (expanding & contracting) 1 lakh times in one day, thereby pumping 5/6 quarts of blood every single minute, or about two thousand gallons of blood in one day. The heart is made up of muscles. When the strong muscle walls contract (or squeeze), the heart pumps blood into the arteries.
How the Heart Works?
Know your heart’s working process! When your heart beats, it tends to pump blood through a network system of blood vessels which is known as the circulatory system. These are flexible tubes, which tend to carry blood to all body parts. Blood is vital! Apart from carrying oxygen & nutrients from lungs to tissues, they also carry waste products from your body, including CO2, out of the tissues. It’s essential for life’s preservation & promotion of health of all body tissues. Blood is constantly flowing through the blood vessels of your body. The heart is like a pump, which makes everything possible. There are 3 major blood vessels, as follows:
- Arteries. These start in the aorta, which is the large artery that comes out of the heart. Arteries tend to carry oxygen-enriched blood from heart to all body tissues. They branch many times smaller & smaller while carrying the blood away from the heart.
- Capillaries. They happen to be smaller, thinner blood vessels, which connect arteries & veins. The thin walls of capillaries allow nutrients, oxygen, CO2, and other waste to enter & leave the body cells.
- Veins. These blood vessels return blood to the heart; this blood lacks oxygen (poor in oxygen) and is rich in waste products, which get excreted/removed from the body. Veins tend to become larger as they go closer to the heart. The superior vena cava happens to be a large vein bringing blood from the head & the arms to the heart. The inferior vena cava tends to bring blood from the abdomen & legs to the heart.
Where Is the Heart Located?
Know your heart’s location! The heart happens to be situated under the body’s ribcage, which is to the left of the sternum & between the lungs. When you look at the heart from outside, you see that it is made of muscles. The strong muscle walls squeeze (contract) and pump the blood into the arteries. Main blood vessels connected to heart happen to be the following:
- The aorta
- The superior vena cava
- The inferior vena cava
- The pulmonary artery (carrying deoxygenated blood from heart to lungs, where it gets oxygenated)
- The pulmonary veins (bringing oxygenated blood from lungs to heart)
- The coronary arteries (carrying blood to heart muscles).
Internally, the heart happens to be a 4-chambered hollow organ, which is divided into left walls & right walls, known as septum. The right sides & left sides are then divided into 2 upper chambers called atria (receiving blood from veins), and 2 lower chambers called ventricles, (pumping blood into arteries). The atria & ventricles work together, by contracting & relaxing so as to pump blood out of the heart. When the blood leaves each of the heart’s chambers, the blood tends to pass through a valve. You have 4 valves inside your heart, which are as follows:
- Mitral valve
- Aortic valve
- Tricuspid valve
- Pulmonary valve (this also happens to be known as the pulmonic valve)
The tricuspid valve & the mitral valve happen to be located between the atria & the ventricles. The aortic valve & the pulmonary valve happen to be located between the ventricles & the great blood vessels that leave the heart. Heart valves tend to work just like the check valves in your home’s plumbing. They save the blood from flowing in the wrong directions. Each valve tends to have a set of flaps that are known as the leaflets/cusps. The mitral valve tends to have 2 leaflets; others have 3. The leaflets tend to be attached to & supported by a ring of strong fibrous tissue that is known as the annulus. This ring helps in keeping the valve in the right shape. The leaflets of the tricuspid valve and the mitral valve tend to be supported by tough fibrous cords called chordae tendineae, which happen to be quite similar to the support cords like in a parachute.
How Does Blood Flow Through Your Heart?
The heart’s right side and the left side work together.
The right side
- Blood gets into the heart through 2 big veins (these 2 big veins happen to be (1) the inferior vena cava & (2) the superior vena cava), carrying deoxygenated blood from your body into your right atrium.
- When the atrium contracts, the blood tends to flow from the right atrium into the right ventricle via the open tricuspid valve.
- When the chamber becomes full, the triangular valve closes, which saves the blood from flowing back into the atrium while the ventricles contract.
- When the ventricles tend to contract, the blood tends to leave the heart via the pulmonary valve into the pulmonary artery & the lungs, where it receives oxygen.
The left side
- The pulmonary vein tends to carry oxygenated blood from your lungs to the left atrium.
- When the atrium contracts, blood flows from the left atrium via the open mitral valve into the left ventricle.
- As the ventricle becomes full, the mitral valve tends to close, which saves the blood from flowing back into the atrium when the ventricles tend to contract.
- As the ventricles now contract, the blood tends to leave the heart via the aortic valve into the aorta & to the body.
How the Blood Flows Through the Lungs?
When blood passes through the pulmonary valve, it enters the lungs. This is known as pulmonary circulation. From the pulmonary valve, the blood tends to travel into the pulmonary artery into the small capillaries of the lungs. This is where the oxygen passes from the small air sacs of the lungs via the walls of the capillaries into the bloodstream. Simultaneously, CO2, a waste product of metabolism, tends to move from the blood into air sacs. CO2 leaves the body during exhalation. After the blood is cleaned & oxygenated, it moves back to the left atrium via the pulmonary veins.
What Is a Coronary Artery?
Like all organs, the heart is constructed of tissues, which need oxygen & nutrients. Though the chambers of the heart are full of blood, still it receives no such nourishment from this blood. The heart tends to receive its blood supply from a network of arteries, which are known as the coronary arteries. Near the junction of the aorta & the left ventricle, 2 large coronary arteries branch off from the aorta:
- The right coronary artery tends to supply blood to the right atrium & the right ventricle. This generally branches into the posterior descending artery that supplies blood to the lower part of the left ventricle & the septum’s posterior part.
- The left coronary artery tends to branch into the circumflex artery & the left anterior descending artery. This circumflex artery tends to supply blood to the left atrium, side as well as back of the left ventricle. The left anterior descending artery tends to supply blood to the front & bottom of the left ventricle, and anterior side of the septum.
These arteries along with their branches tend to supply blood to all parts of the heart muscles. When coronary arteries narrow down to the point where the blood flowing to the heart muscles is restricted (which is also called as the coronary artery disease), the network of small blood vessels inside the heart, which are not normally open, known as the collateral vessels, can get enlarged & become active. This tends to allow blood to flow around the blocked artery into the heart muscle, thus saving the heart tissue from any damages.
How the Heart Beats?
The atria & ventricles work collectively, by turns contracting & relaxing for keeping the heart beating & pumping blood. Your heart’s electrical system is the energy source making all this possible. Heartbeats are powered by electrical impulses, which travel through a special pathway through the heart. The impulse begins in a little bundle of specific cells in the right atrium; these cells are known as the SA node (that is the sinoatrial node). This node is called the natural pacemaker of the heart. Electrical activities spread through the atria walls & tend to cause them to contract. One calls’ cluster in the heart’s centre between the atria & the ventricles, happens to be the atrioventricular node (which is abbreviated as the AV node); it is like a gate reducing the speed of the electrical signals before entering into the ventricles. Such a delay tends to provide the atria enough time before the ventricle contracts. The His-Purkinje network happens to be a pathway of fibres sending an impulse to the ventricles’ muscular walls, leading them to contract. At rest, a normal heart beats about 50-99 times in one minute in adults. Exercises, emotion, fever, & certain medicines can make your heartbeat faster, even over 100 beats in one minute at times.
Contact Doctor Arun for Any Type of Heart Problem
Now that you know your heart well; it is time to ensure your heart’s health! So, you must visit Doctor Arun even for the slightest of the symptoms being experienced!
