Heart: What’s in a heartbeat?

Have you ever wondered what a doctor is listening for when he or she uses a stethoscope to listen to your heart?  A great deal about the health of your heart can be learned from just listening to heart.  Here is what you might hear.

Lub-DUB, Lub DUB…..

Your heart is a powerful muscle that consists of four chambers that work in a coordinated fashion to pump your blood through your body.  In fact, it propels about 6 quarts of blood from your heart to your feet and back several times a minute. 

Blood enters the heart from the vena cava, the largest vein in your body.  It flows into the right atrium and collects. When the right atrium fills, the blood is ejected into the right ventricle.   From there, it is pumped into t he lungs to collect the oxygen it will carry to the cells throughout your body. Once filled with oxygen, it enters the left atrium and then fills the left ventricle.  From the left ventricle, the blood is forcefully expelled through the aorta to the rest of your body.

Valves between the chambers keep blood in the proper part of the heart so it can function efficiently.  It is the sounds of these valves working that create the sounds your doctor is listening for when he examines you. 

A system of four valves allows the blood to collect in the proper chamber to make the heart function as efficiently as possible. It’s the action of the valves that makes the familiar “lub DUB… lub DUB” sound we hear when listening to the heart. Valves also prevent the mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. The tricuspid valve separates the right atrium and right ventricle. The pulmonary or pulmonic valve allows blood to flow between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery into the lungs. The mitral valve separates the left atrium and left ventricle.  The aortic valve is at the exit of the left ventricle, controlling flow into the aorta, the major blood vessel supplying the entire body.  The aorta is bout the size of a garden hose.

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