heart attack warning signs men

      You probably don’t think about your heart often, yet it continues to pump with its faithful, steady beat — carrying blood to all your organs. From the size of the heart to the timing of heart attacks, here are facts about the human heart everyone should know.

• A normal heart valve is about the size of a half dollar coin.

• The average adult heart beats 72 times a minute; 100,000 times a day; 3,600,000 times a year; and 2.5 billion times during a 70-year span.

• The pressure created in the heart during a heartbeat is enough to squirt blood a distance of thirty feet.

• Electrical impulses in the heart muscle (the myocardium) are what cause the heart to beat

• A kitchen faucet would need to be turned on all the way for at least 45 years to equal the amount of blood pumped by the heart in an average lifetime.

• The heart pumps blood to almost all of the body’s 75 trillion cells. Only the corneas receive no blood supply.

• Grab a tennis ball and squeeze it tightly: that’s how hard the beating heart works to pump blood.

• A good belly laugh can send 20% more blood flowing through your entire body. One study found that when people watched a funny movie, their blood flow increased. That’s why laughter might just be the perfect antidote to stress.

• It takes just four to six minutes after cardiac arrest before a person experiences brain death and then complete death. 

• Researchers suggest that those who stay up late may be more prone to heart disease even if they get eight hours' sleep. Also, in one study, women who slept five hours or less a night were 39% more likely to develop heart disease than women who got eight hours. All of this is possibly due to habits or events associated with late nights or short sleep hours rather than the time factors themselves

• Two-thirds of deaths from heart attacks in women occur in those who have had no history of chest pain

• Hypertension, or when the pressure in the arteries is higher than normal, increases the risk of coronary artery disease (atherosclerosis). High blood pressure usually has no symptoms and not only damages the heart, but the kidney and the brain as well

• The skin inflammation associated with psoriasis has been linked to an increased incidence of myocardial infarction or heart attack

•  Multivitamins increase the risk of cancer and heart disease, according to recent studies.