Take care of your heart. It’s an incredible organ. Here are 28 amazing facts about your heart from Cleveland Clinic — celebrating 28 years as America’s No. 1 Heart Center!
28 Amazing Facts About Your Heart
The heart pumps blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels!
24
Every cell in your body gets blood from your heart, except for your corneas.
23
Your heart has its own electrical supply and will continue to beat when separated from your body.
22
A woman’s average heartbeat is faster than a man’s by almost 8 beats a minute.
21
Heart cancer is very rare because heart cells stop dividing early in life.
20
You control your heart health through diet, exercise and managing stress.
19
Celebrities who’ve had open heart surgery include David Letterman, Bill Clinton, Barbara Walters, Jeff Green and Shaun White.
18
Your heart is a coordinated machine. The right side pumps blood into your lungs, while the left side pumps it back into your body.
17
Each minute, your heart pumps 1.5 gallons of blood.
16
The beating sound is the clap of valve leaflets opening and closing.
15
Heart disease is
your greatest health threat (and is a greater
danger than breast cancer or prostate cancer).
14
Regular exercise is the single most important key to heart health. And it's FREE.
13
It beats 100,000 times a day.
12
Your heart is about the size of your two hands clasped together...
11
Heart disease has been found in 3,000-year-old mummies.
10
Modesty prompted the invention of the stethoscope. Before it existed, doctors had to press their ears directly to each patient’s chest.
9
The blue whale has the
largest heart — weighing over 1,500 pounds.
8
The first “study” showing benefits of a vegetarian diet
appears in the Bible’s
Book of Daniel (600 BCE).
7
People really can have a broken heart. Sometimes, life situations can cause temporary heart failure.
6
The number of heart attacks peaks on Christmas Day, followed by December 26th and New Year’s.
5
Happiness and a strong sense of emotional vitality help lower your risk of heart disease.
4
The first heart pacemakers
plugged into a wall socket.
3
A normal heart valve is
about the size of a half dollar.
2
The more education you have,
the lower your risk of heart disease.
1
This
Beat
© 2022 Cleveland Clinic
25
A normal heart pumps approximately 4 tablespoons of blood with each beat.
26
The 26.2-mile marathon can now be run in less than two hours, but runners of any speed have a 45% lower risk of heart disease or stroke.
27
27 is the atomic weight
of cobalt, which caused heart damage when it was used to make foamier beer. “Beer drinker’s heart disease” is now only of historical interest.
28
Many heart problems are, in part, inherited, but managing smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol can minimize their impact.
