What I learned about the heart

I started reading Sandeep Jauhar‘s book Heart: A History a year ago on and off and finally finished it.  Out of all the body systems that I knew I didn’t know that much about beyond what I’d picked up from public school education, undergrad, grad school, popcultural depictions of medicine, and reading about the human body for fun, the circulatory system didn’t seem to be that mysterious to me.  I knew heart disease is the number one killer of adults in the US, that adminstering CPR is crucial in increasing the likelihood that someone survives an accident that causes them to be unresponsive, but I hadn’t considered the “why” of it.  Subjectively, I’ve never had any complaints with my heart,  never regarded it with suspicion or antagonism, and even enjoy the experience of heart palpitations.  It’s an odd sensation, but it’s an effective reminder that my heart is still there.

 

The text is accessible for readers whose only regular consumption of medical terminology is from a pamphlet or a TV show to those who also read about the human body for fun but not always through a medical journal lens.  It’s also engaging for those who enjoy a wide variety of scientific inventions.  Put another way, you won’t feel intimidated or unstimulated by the word choice, sentence structure, or organization of the material.  

Some of what I learned about the heart:

~ “If the heart is the last major organ to stop working, it is also the first to develop–starting to beat approximately three weeks into fetal life, even before there is blood to pump… When the heart stops, death is instantaneous… The heart can continue to beat for days, even weeks, after an animal has died” (10).

~ “…a record of our emotional life is written on our hearts.  Fear and  grief, for example, can cause profound myocardial injury.  The nerves that control unconscious processes, such as the heartbeat, can sense distress and trigger maladaptive fight-or-flight response that signals the blood vessels to constrict, the heart to gallop, and blood pressure to rise, resulting in damage” (23).

~ “Sid Fuchs, the cardiac catheterization chief…resembled a bearded Art Carney… “In the end, cardiology is mostly a problem of plumbing” (52). 

~ “The typical distance from hand to heart in an adult is sixty to eighty centimeters” (105).

~ “In 1966, the United States became the first country to require warning labels on cigarette packages.  Four years later, primarily because of Framingham, President Nixon signed legislation banning cigarette ads on television and radio, one of the great public health triumphs of the second half of the twentieth century” (121).

~ Too many words to type, but the passages from the bottom of page 121 through 130 are a must-read so you can get the full context of “Heart disease…is no longer strictly biological; it is cultural and political as well” (125) and “The American Heart Association still does not list emotional stress among the key modifiable risk factors for heart disease–perhaps in part because serum cholesterol is so much easier to reduce than emotional and social disruption” (130).  (Jauhar’s book was published in 2018; it seems the AHA has changed their stance and acknowledged the link between psychological stress and cardiac unrest).

~ Another example of too many words to type, if you’re interested in understanding more about how heart failure presents itself such as why so much swelling of limbs occur and what the kidneys’ role is, read the chapter called “Replacement Parts” (183 to 198).

Original pic cred: SandeepJauhar.com