The Heart
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The heart is an amazingly complex organ. It is a muscle that works constantly beating every second throughout your life. It pumps 5 litres of blood around your body every minutes and beats because electricity travels through the muscle in the blink of an eye.
Many cardiac problems are due to degeneration of parts of the heart but some can be caused by genetic problems such as cardiomyopathy, some valve disease and certain arrhythmias. Problems can arise from in heart if the muscle fails (cardiomyopathy and heart failure), if the electrical activity becomes abnormal (arrhythmia), if the blood supply to the heart is compromised (angina and heart attack) or the blood does not move correctly through the heart valves. The other common problem which occurs in about 50% of people aged more than 65 years is high blood pressure. |