At rest, a normal heart beats 60 to 100 times a minute, depending on your age and level of fitness. This means your heart beats at least 86,400 times a day or 31,536,000 times a year. That's a lot of work for a muscle the size of your fist. And just like any other muscle that is exercised, the heart will grow bigger when it is forced to strain.
Your Heart and Other Conditions
In a disease where seconds count, quicker diagnosis allows faster care, which saves lives and improves quality of life for stroke survivors.
Companies are addressing this need in various ways. One of the most intriguing is a visor that uses electromagnetic waves to assess the volume of fluid in the brain. A difference in volume between the right and left hemispheres indicates a stroke has occurred. In studies, the...
Your Heart and Other Conditions
A pacemaker will give your heart the boost it needs.
Most people who need pacemakers are over age 60. Their slow heart rate often is caused by a malfunction in one of the heart's electrical timers called the sinus node. This node, located in the upper right chamber of the heart, emits electrical pulses that keep the heart beating...
Your Heart and Other Conditions
It can be a symptom of significant heart trouble or heart attack.
Heart attacks are caused by coronary artery disease (CAD), which limits or blocks blood flow in the arteries supplying blood to the heart muscle. CAD is caused by atherosclerosis, a process in which cholesterol, fats and white blood cells accumulate in the walls of coronary...
Your Heart and Other Conditions
When you don't have symptoms, this common disease may not be on your physician's radar.
Legs that cramp when walking are a classic symptom of peripheral arterial disease (PAD). The discomfort occurs because atherosclerosis has narrowed the arteries in the legs, restricting blood flow. This makes PAD a close cousin of coronary artery disease (CAD) and cerebrovascular...
Your Heart and Other Conditions
French researchers analyzed the results of food questionnaires completed every six months by 44,551 adults ages 45 and older participating in an ongoing study on food habits. On average, more than 29 percent of their total calories came from ultra processed foods. During the...
Your Heart and Other Conditions
Watch not only what you eat, but how much you eat.
There's strong evidence that people with heart disease or its risk factors benefit from eating more of certain foods and less of others. That's why many cardiologists recommend the Mediterranean diet, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet or plant-based vegetarian or...
Your Heart and Other Conditions
The patients were divided into five groups based on level of fitness. The highest fitness category (comparable to endurance athletes) had the lowest mortality rate (80 percent lower than the least-fit group) even when the analysis controlled for age, gender and heart risk factors....
Your Heart and Other Conditions
At rest, a normal heart beats 60 to 100 times a minute, depending on your age and level of fitness. This means your heart beats at least 86,400 times a day or 31,536,000 times a year. That's a lot of work for a muscle the size of your fist. And just like any other muscle that is...
