DID YOU KNOW? It takes about 20 seconds to pump blood to every cell in your body. Your body has about six quarts of blood. In one day, the blood travels about 12,000 miles. Humans’ blood is red, octopus’ blood is blue; caterpillars’ blood is green.

DID YOU KNOW? By the age of 12, an estimated 70% of children have developed the beginning stages of hardening of the arteries. One in five Americans has high cholesterol. Children are less physically fit now than they were when their parents were young. You should consume no more than one teaspoon of salt per day. Sodium retains fluid in the body, which makes the heart work harder.

Working That Muscle Your heart is really a muscle. It's located a little to the left of the middle of your chest. The heart sends blood around your body. The blood provides your body with the oxygen and nutrients it needs. It also carries away waste.

The right side of your heart receives blood from the body and pumps it to the lungs. The left side of the heart does the exact opposite: It receives blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body.

The Heart Doctor A doctor who specializes in preventing and treating heart disease is known as a cardiologist.

SMOKEOUT Smoking is the most important preventable risk factor for coronary heart disease. In fact, smokers’ risk of heart attack is more than twice that of non-smokers

Why smoking is bad for your heart. Carbon monoxide found in cigarettes is a poisonous gas ( also present in car exhaust fumes) and is picked up by the blood more readily than oxygen, leaving less ‘room’ for oxygen in the blood. The oxygen-carrying capacity of a smoker’s blood can be cut by up to 15%. This means that the heart has to work much harder to get enough oxygen all around the body.

Why is smoking so bad for our hearts? Cigarettes contain nicotine, which causes blood vessels to narrow, temporarily increasing your blood pressure. Nicotine produces adrenaline which makes the heart beat faster, causing the heart to work harder. Nicotine makes the blood “sticky” and more likely to clot and block the blood vessels.

Your heart beats about 100,000 times a day. Fascinating Facts It is a fact that the heart, when taken out of the body, will continue to beat. Even when cut into parts, the muscles in the heart will continue to beat. The heart pumps over 300 quarts of blood an hour. Your heart will beat approximately 2,700,000,000 times in a lifetime. Your heart beats about 100,000 times a day.

You try this!! Put your hand on your heart. Did you place your hand on the left side of your chest? Many people do, but the heart is actually located almost in the center of the chest, between the lungs. It's tipped slightly so that a part of it sticks out and taps against the left side of the chest, which is what makes it seem as though it is located there. Hold out your hand and make a fist. If you're a kid, your heart is about the same size as your fist, and if you're an adult, it's about the same size as two fists. 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.

You try this!!! Give a tennis ball a good, hard squeeze. You're 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.

Your body has about 5. 6 liters (6 quarts) of blood. This 5 Your body has about 5.6 liters (6 quarts) of blood. This 5.6 liters of blood circulates through the body three times every minute. In one day, the blood travels a total of 19,000 km (12,000 miles)--that's four times the distance across the US from coast to coast.

When blood returns to the heart, it follows a complicated pathway When blood returns to the heart, it follows a complicated pathway. If you were in the bloodstream, you would follow the steps below one by one.    Oxygen-poor blood (shown in blue) flows from the body into the right atrium.    Blood flows through the right atrium into the right ventricle.    The right ventricle pumps the blood to the lungs, where the blood releases waste gases and picks up oxygen.

How the Blood Flows    The newly oxygen-rich blood (shown in red) returns to the heart and enters the left atrium    Blood flows through the left atrium into the left ventricle.   The left ventricle pumps the oxygen-rich blood to all parts of the body.

Troubled Hearts                                                                                                  

If you want your heart to be healthy for the rest of your life, follow this prescription: 1. Get plenty of exercise. 2. Follow a good diet. 3. Keep your heart clean and drug-free.

So be smart and take care of your heart