Description of Heart Disease

The heart is a muscular pump in the chest. Throughout life it beats continuously and rhythmically to send blood to the lungs and the rest of the body.

The normal heart weighs approximately 10 1/2 ounces and is about the size of your fist. It beats 60 to 120 times a minute, depending on whether you are excited or resting.

The average blood cell makes a round trip through the body's arteries and veins every 60 seconds, and can hit speeds of up to 10 mph. The heart pumps your five quarts of blood around your body 500 times a day.

When the arteries become clogged with deposits made up of "bad" cholesterol, plaque, scar tissue, or calcium, the heart has a harder time circulating blood. This clogging causes a myriad of heart problems from angina pectoris (chest pain) to heart failure to a heart attack.