How Does the Heart Work?

Are you interested in the human body, and have you wondered how does the heart work? The heart is one of the most vital organs in your body. It is a muscular organ, and it is found in all animals that have a circulatory system. It pumps blood throughout blood vessels.

The heart is made up of cardiac muscle. This cardiac muscle is involuntary striated muscle, and it is only found in the heart. The fact that the muscle is involuntary means that you do not have to think in order to move the muscle.

The heart is enclosed in a double walled sac that is called the pericardium, and this pericardium protects the heart. It also prevents the heart from overfilling with too much blood.

In the average adult female, the heart weighs about two hundred and fifty grams. In the average adult male, the heart weighs about three hundred grams. The average human heart beats at about seventy two beats per minute. Each time that your heart beats, the valves of the heart open. This allows the blood to flow freely in one direction. The valves then close to ensure that blood will not flow backwards.

What the Heart Does

The heart is one part of the circulatory system in your body, and the circulatory system is only one part of several different organ systems in your body. The circulatory system is an extensive network of vessels that are throughout your body and loop back to your heart.

The purpose of your body is always to maintain homeostasis, and thus that is also the purpose of this organ system. Homeostasis is how your body regulates the inner environment to maintain stability depending upon the outer environment (such as weather).

The circulatory system maintains homeostasis by regulating the temperature of your body by changing the amount of blood that flows to areas of your body, such as to your skin.

Heart and Blood

In the average adult, there is about five liters of blood. Blood is composed of plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. The majority of blood is composed of plasma (about fifty-five percent of the blood), and the rest is composed of the additional substances.

The heart pumps this blood throughout the body. For this reason, the heart is the most important organ in your body and heart disease is a serious illness. The heart pumps oxygenated blood throughout your body.

Blood that does not have any oxygen travels to the right side of your heart. This deoxygenated blood then travels through the tricuspid valve into your right ventricle. Once this blood is in the right ventricle, it is then pumped through the pulmonary valve and into your pulmonary artery.

Once it is in the pulmonary artery, the blood travels to the lungs. Once inside the lungs, the blood becomes oxygenated. This oxygenated blood then travels back through the pulmonary veins to the left atrium of your heart. As the blood travels to the left ventricle of your heart, it passes the mitral valve. Here, the blood is pumped out through the aortic valve into the aorta. Your aorta then transports the oxygenated blood throughout your body.

Your body then uses this oxygenated blood and the blood that is depleted of oxygen then pumps back into the right side of your heart and the process begins again. Thus, the right side of your heart deals with deoxygenated blood, and the left side of your heart deals with blood that is rich with oxygen.

The two sides of your heart are actually separated by a partition. This partition is called the septum, and it separates the deoxygenated blood from the oxygenated blood and ensures that they do not mix in the heart.

The heart is a magnificent organ and one of the most vital organs in your body.