When people die, physicians are asked to fill out a death certificate stating the cause of death. There are many reasons put down - cancer, CoVid-19, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, heart attack (cardiac arrest). But the true answer is always the same - the heart stopped. That is the true cause of death.

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     Every other organ in the body, and for that matter every disease within the body - cancer, CoVid-19, bacteria, et cetera - is ultimately dependent upon the heart to supply it with what it needs to survive - oxygen & nutrients -  and to removal the waste products of its survival - carbon dioxide, toxins, dead cellular material, et cetera.

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     To do this, the heart must pump blood around the body. To pump the blood the heart must contract and to contract, it must have an electrical stimulation of the cardiac muscles.

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     Unlike any other organ in the body, the heart has a unique ability to survive. Many people have seen images of a heart beating outside of the body or have heard about the ability to transplant a living heart from one person to another - although usually in horror films like Frankenstein.

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     The ability to transplant a heart from one person to another is only possible because the heart has a unique ability to survive. This ability - the ability of the heart to beat on its own even when removed from the body - is called automaticity, and it begins long before birth.

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     As a consequence of this automaticity, the heart pumps blood around the body, keeping the body and everything in it alive.

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     The heart is unique in another way. Like all good leaders, it takes care of the rest of the body first, by pumping blood out to the body. Once the oxygenated blood is pumped out to the body - first entering the Aorta - the Aorta with it's elasticity acts like a rubber band.

 

     The Aorta first expands to accommodate the increased volume of blood coming out of the left ventricle. The Aorta then snaps back into place and in doing so returns some of the blood back to the heart.  That blood then enters the arteries of the heart during diastole - the period of time when the heart muscle is not squeezing to pump blood out to the body.

 

     Without the squeezing action of the heart muscle against the walls of the coronary arteries, there is less pressure placed upon the coronary arteries, making it easier for the coronary arteries to dilate and carry more blood to the heart to meet the metabolic demands of the heart.

 

     In essence, the very action of waiting for the blood to be returned to the heart, makes it possible for the coronary arteries to relax, dilate and enhance the amount of blood flowing through them to meet the increased cardiac metabolic demand, making it possible for the heart to keep the body and itself alive.

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     The only arteries in the body that are able to relax, dilate and enhance the amount of blood that can go through them by a factor of 5 to 6-times baseline blood flow, are the arteries of the heart.

 

     When this ability to increase regional blood flow (RBF) through a coronary artery is impaired it results in a regional blood flow difference (RBFD) and an inability to increase blood flow to meet the metabolic demands of that area of the heart.

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     The following video gives a brief overview of the coronary arteries,  which supply blood to the heart, and the coronary veins, which return blood back to the heart.

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