YOUR HEART: THE ENGINE OF LIFE
Explore the heart's incredible function, common challenges, and powerful steps you can take to protect your most vital organ.
Understanding the Heart's Blueprint
Click on the labels to explore the heart's chambers, valves, and the path blood takes on its life-sustaining journey. This intricate structure ensures efficient circulation.
Select a part of the heart.
The heart is a four-chambered muscular pump that circulates blood throughout the body, delivering oxygen and nutrients while removing waste. Its precise structure ensures efficient, one-way blood flow.
Major Cardiovascular Conditions
Cardiovascular disease encompasses a broad spectrum of conditions affecting the heart and blood vessels. Explore some of the most common types below.
Understanding Your Risk Profile
While some risks like age and genetics are fixed, many others are modifiable through lifestyle choices. Understanding these factors empowers you to take control of your heart health.
Relative Impact of Modifiable Risk Factors
Smoking, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol are among the most impactful modifiable risks for heart disease.
Non-Modifiable Risks
Age, sex, and family history form a baseline risk that cannot be changed but underscore the importance of managing what you can control.
Modifiable Risks
Smoking, an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and chronic stress are major factors you can influence to protect your heart.
Emerging Risks
Poor oral health, sleep apnea, and gut microbiome imbalances are increasingly recognized as contributors to cardiovascular disease.
The Heart's Interconnected Network
The heart doesn't work in isolation. Its health is deeply connected to other vital organs and bodily systems. Click on an organ to see how it relates to cardiovascular health.
The Body is a Network
Click a connected organ to learn about its specific relationship with the heart, revealing how cardiovascular health impacts the entire body.
Prevention & Lifelong Health
Adopting a heart-healthy lifestyle is the most powerful step you can take to prevent cardiovascular disease and live a longer, healthier life.
URGENT WARNINGS: ACT FAST!
Recognizing these critical symptoms of heart attack or stroke is vital. Immediate action can save a life and prevent permanent damage. **Call emergency services immediately.**
💔 Chest Pain / Discomfort
Pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain in the chest that lasts more than a few minutes or goes away and comes back.
💨 Shortness of Breath
Difficulty breathing, with or without chest discomfort.
💪 Discomfort in Other Areas
Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw, or stomach.
😵 Lightheadedness / Cold Sweat / Nausea
Sudden dizziness, breaking out in a cold sweat, or feeling sick to your stomach.
🚨 Stroke: F.A.S.T. Signs
**F**ace drooping, **A**rm weakness, **S**peech difficulty, **T**ime to call 911.
⚠️ Other Sudden Symptoms
Sudden severe headache, confusion, trouble seeing, difficulty walking, or loss of balance.