• Question: How does the heart pump blood all around the body?

    Asked by anon-251721 on 24 Apr 2020.
    • Photo: Sophie Arthur

      Sophie Arthur answered on 24 Apr 2020:


      Your heart is a giant muscle, so it contracts to push the blood through the different compartments in our heart and out in the blood vessels to circulate around our body

    • Photo: Anabel Martinez Lyons

      Anabel Martinez Lyons answered on 24 Apr 2020:


      Great question – the heart is a muscle that pushes blood around the body through a network of veins and arteries by beating (which makes the ‘lub-dub’ sound that you’ve heard of). Arteries carry oxygen-rich blood away from the heart and veins carry oxygen-less blood to the heart. The pumping of the heart pushes this blood all the way from the top of our heads to the tips of our toes and back again about 3 times every minute (that’s more than 4,000 times a day!), and the heart does this relative to our need for oxygen. If we do exercise, our hearts pump faster to make sure we get enough oxygen to our muscles which are working harder than normal. When we sleep, our heart rate goes down as we lie down and breathe less quickly. The heart and lungs work together to make sure we always have enough oxygen. Hope that helps!

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