• In an adult the heart beats 60-70 times a minute at rest, It can accelerate to as many as 160-180 beats a minute during exercise, anxiety, stress or fear.
• It beats about 100,000 times a day and by the end of a long life, a person’s heart may have beaten more than 3.5 billion times.
• The heart propels 5 litres of blood through the body every minute. In one day it pumps about 7,000 litres of blood and potentially with such an output the heart can fill a 10km long goods train with blood in 60 years.

Heart Valves

Four types of valves regulate blood flow through your heart that act like ‘gates’ that open and close,

making sure that blood travels in one direction through the heart.

• The tricuspid valve regulates blood flow between the right atrium and right ventricle.
• The pulmonary valve controls blood flow from the right ventricle into the pulmonary arteries, which carry blood to the lungs to pick up oxygen.
• The mitral valve lets oxygen-rich blood from the lungs pass from the left atrium into the left ventricle.
• The aortic valve opens the way for oxygen-rich blood to pass from the left ventricle into the aorta, the body’s largest artery, where it is delivered to the rest of the body.