50 Fun Facts About Cardiology

Which Bee Gees disco hit, at about 103 beats per minute, is used to teach the rhythm of CPR chest compressions?

Stayin' Alive sits inside the 100 to 120 compressions a minute that rescuers aim for. The American Heart Association built a public training campaign around it.

Which well-known pill was first developed by Pfizer as a treatment for chest pain and high blood pressure?

Viagra, or sildenafil, did little for heart patients in early trials, but the volunteers reported an unexpected side effect. Pfizer changed course and launched it for erectile dysfunction in 1998.

Which Swedish industrialist was prescribed nitroglycerin, the explosive behind his fortune, for his heart?

Alfred Nobel wrote to a friend in 1896 that it was an irony of fate to be told to swallow the stuff. In tiny doses the explosive relaxes blood vessels and eases chest pain.

Which instrument did French doctor René Laennec invent in 1816 by rolling sheets of paper into a tube?

The stethoscope began as a paper tube because Laennec felt it improper to press his ear to a young woman's chest. The tube carried her heartbeat more clearly than his bare ear ever had.

In which country did Christiaan Barnard perform the first human-to-human heart transplant in 1967?

South Africa made headlines around the world when Barnard gave Louis Washkansky a new heart at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. Washkansky lived for 18 days.

Heart surgeons pronounce CABG, short for coronary artery bypass grafting, like the name of which vegetable?

Cabbage is how the letters CABG are spoken in operating theatres. The operation reroutes blood around a blocked heart artery using a vessel borrowed from elsewhere in the body.

In 2022, surgeons in Maryland gave David Bennett a genetically modified heart from which animal?

A pig carrying 10 genetic modifications supplied the heart, the first of its kind successfully transplanted into a person. Bennett survived for two months after the operation.

Which implanted heart device was first fitted in 1958 to Swede Arne Larsson, who went on to receive 26 of them?

A pacemaker sends small electrical pulses to keep the heartbeat regular. Larsson's first one failed after three hours, yet he lived to 86 and outlived both its inventor and his surgeon.

A healthy human heart, like the hearts of all mammals and birds, is divided into how many chambers?

Four chambers work as two pumps side by side: the right pair sends blood to the lungs to collect oxygen, and the left pair pushes it out to the rest of the body.

Which everyday painkiller, sold by Bayer since 1899, is given straight away to people with a suspected heart attack?

Aspirin makes blood platelets less sticky, which slows a growing blockage in a heart artery. In the ISIS-2 trial it cut deaths after a suspected heart attack by about a fifth.

Which artery, the largest in the human body, carries oxygen-rich blood out of the heart's left side?

The aorta leaves the top of the heart, curves over it and runs down to the abdomen, where it splits into two smaller arteries.

Which chest pain, typically brought on by exertion and eased by a few minutes of rest, warns of narrowed heart arteries?

Angina strikes when the heart muscle needs more oxygen than its narrowed arteries can deliver. The full Latin name, angina pectoris, translates as a strangling feeling in the chest.

Which device, kept in public places in boxes marked AED, delivers an electric shock to reset a chaotic heart rhythm?

A defibrillator small enough to carry was invented in Belfast by Frank Pantridge. Today's public units read the heart rhythm themselves and decide whether a shock is needed.

Which painless test uses electrodes stuck to the skin to draw the heart's electrical activity as a line graph?

An ECG, short for electrocardiogram, needs only ten sticky electrodes on the limbs and chest, yet it gives doctors twelve different electrical views of the heart.

Which medical term names long-term high blood pressure, a condition that usually causes no symptoms of its own?

Hypertension rarely announces itself, so many people learn of it only at a routine check. Left untreated for years, it strains the arteries, the heart and the kidneys.

Which waxy substance travels through the blood in particles nicknamed good HDL and bad LDL, and can clog arteries?

Cholesterol is not all bad: every animal cell uses it to build its outer membrane, and the body turns it into hormones and vitamin D.

The word cardiology comes from kardia, meaning heart, and logia, meaning study, in which ancient language?

Greek supplied the kardia in cardiac and cardiogram, while the Latin word for heart, cor, survives in cordial and courage.

Which English physician showed in 1628 that the heart pumps blood around the body in one continuous circuit?

William Harvey set out the idea in a 72-page book printed in Frankfurt, home of a book fair that would spread it quickly. Doctors still took about twenty years to accept it.

Which grim nickname do doctors give a heart attack caused by a blockage in the left anterior descending artery?

The widowmaker earned its name from its poor outlook: the blocked vessel feeds much of the front wall of the heart, so a large area of muscle is starved at once.

Which mineral can trigger dangerous heart rhythms if its level in the blood strays too high or too low?

Potassium helps reset the electrical charge of heart cells between beats, which is why hospitals check it in routine blood tests. A level far out of range can stop the heart.

Lipitor, once the world's best-selling medicine, belongs to which class of drugs taken to prevent heart attacks?

Statins slow the liver's production of blood fats. Lipitor alone brought in more than $125 billion in about 14 years, at times a quarter of Pfizer's revenue.

In a blood pressure reading such as 120 over 80, what name is given to the first, higher number?

Systolic pressure is the peak reached as the heart squeezes blood out. The second figure, the diastolic, is the low point while the heart refills between beats.

Which procedure, first done on a coronary artery by Andreas Gruentzig in 1977, widens a blockage with a tiny balloon?

Angioplasty needs no open surgery: the balloon rides in on a thin tube threaded through an artery in the wrist or groin. Gruentzig's first patient in Zurich stayed awake throughout.

For a coronary bypass, surgeons often borrow the great saphenous vein from which part of the patient's body?

The leg can spare it: the great saphenous is the longest vein in the body, and removing a length does not materially hinder the limb's circulation.

Which invention, first used successfully by John Gibbon in 1953, takes over a patient's circulation during surgery?

The heart-lung machine pumps and oxygenates blood outside the body, giving surgeons a still, empty heart to work on. Gibbon's first success was an 18-year-old in Philadelphia.

Which heart valve, the only one with two flaps instead of three, is named after a bishop's headdress?

Mitral comes from mitre, the two-peaked hat of a bishop, which the valve's pair of flaps resembles. It guards the doorway between the two left-hand chambers of the heart.

Which cluster of cells that sets the heartbeat was discovered by student Martin Flack in the heart of a mole?

The sinoatrial node fires on its own, and each spark spreads across the heart as one beat. Flack made the find while his mentor, Arthur Keith, was out on a bicycle ride.

Which term, built on a word for rapid, describes an adult's resting heart rate above 100 beats per minute?

Tachycardia is normal during exercise or a fright and matters when the heart races at rest. The opposite, a resting rate under 60, is common in well-trained athletes.

Which irregular heart rhythm, the most common serious one, makes the upper chambers quiver and can cause a stroke?

Atrial fibrillation can be so quiet that some people learn they have it only after a stroke. Blood-thinning drugs are often prescribed to cut that risk.

Which protein, released into the blood by damaged heart muscle, do hospitals measure to confirm a heart attack?

Troponin belongs inside muscle cells, so finding heart troponin loose in the blood means those cells have been injured. Levels can stay raised for up to two weeks.

In a standard cardiac stress test, patients are usually monitored while exercising on which piece of gym equipment?

A treadmill lets the team raise the speed and slope in stages until the heart is working hard. Patients who cannot manage the walk are given a drug that speeds the heart instead.

Which name is given to the sound of turbulent blood flow in the heart, a finding that is often harmless in children?

A murmur is common in healthy children, and most of those are the harmless kind that doctors call innocent.

Which fluid-filled sac wraps around the heart and lubricates it so that every beat is free of friction?

The pericardium has a tough outer layer and a slippery double lining, with a little fluid between the two to cushion the heart against jolts.

Which wall between the heart's left and right sides has a gap in babies born with a hole in the heart?

The septum keeps oxygen-rich blood on the left from mixing with oxygen-poor blood on the right. Many small gaps close by themselves as a child grows.

Which rare condition, seen in roughly 1 in 12,000 pregnancies, leaves the heart pointing to the right side of the chest?

Dextrocardia takes its first half from the Latin for the right-hand side. In one form, every organ in the chest and belly is mirrored along with the heart.

Which US president had a heart attack while on vacation in Colorado and was then prescribed cycling by his doctor?

Dwight Eisenhower spent six weeks in hospital while his aides ran day-to-day business, then won a second term the next year. He had seven heart attacks in all.

Which old name for swelling caused by trapped fluid was the complaint William Withering treated with foxglove in 1785?

Dropsy was often the visible sign of a failing heart, and foxglove strengthened the beat enough to shift the fluid. Withering is said to have found the plant in a folk healer's recipe.

A heart attack usually begins when a fatty plaque ruptures inside a coronary artery and what forms on top of it?

A blood clot can seal the artery within minutes, cutting off the muscle downstream. That is why treatment aims to reopen the vessel as fast as possible.

Which two-word medical term do doctors use for a heart attack, the death of heart muscle starved of blood?

Myocardial infarction joins the words for heart muscle and tissue death, and doctors shorten it to MI. The longer the artery stays blocked, the more muscle is lost.

Which emergency, unlike a heart attack, means the heart has suddenly stopped pumping and calls for immediate CPR?

Cardiac arrest is an electrical failure, while a heart attack is a supply problem caused by a blocked artery. A heart attack can set one off, which is partly why the two are confused.

Which nickname, coined in 1978, describes an irregular heartbeat brought on by a bout of binge drinking?

Holiday heart syndrome got its name because cases cluster around festive seasons, when otherwise healthy people drink far more than usual.

Which term describes a balloon-like bulge at a weak spot in an artery wall, usually silent until it ruptures?

An aneurysm in the body's main artery most often forms in the abdomen and is several times more common in men. A rupture there causes massive internal bleeding.

Which artery, lying just under the skin on the thumb side of the wrist, is the usual place to take a pulse?

The radial crosses the end of the forearm's radius bone, so a fingertip can press it against something firm. French anatomists named the spot the gutter of the pulse.

Which American physiologist devised the wartime K-ration and later popularised the Mediterranean diet for heart health?

Ancel Keys argued that eating less animal fat protects the heart, after noticing how many people in southern Italy reached a great age. He lived to 100 himself.

Which passage between the heart's upper chambers lets blood skip the lungs before birth, then seals soon after?

The foramen ovale is pushed shut by the change in pressure when the lungs fill with air. A fetus can use the shortcut because its oxygen arrives through the placenta.

Which lab technician with no college degree helped Alfred Blalock and Helen Taussig develop the blue baby operation?

Vivien Thomas was classified and paid as a janitor while doing the work of a research scientist. Johns Hopkins awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1976.

Which German doctor threaded a catheter through a vein in his own arm and into his heart in 1929?

Werner Forssmann then walked to the X-ray department on the floor below, tube still in his arm, to prove where its tip had reached. The stunt opened the way to modern heart catheterisation.

Which Dutch doctor built the first practical machine to trace heartbeats and named its waves P, Q, R, S and T?

Willem Einthoven's lettering is still used on every heart tracing. His machine sensed each beat with a silver-coated thread, drawn out of molten glass by shooting an arrow across the room.

Which country was home to René Favaloro, who pioneered coronary bypass surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in 1967?

Argentina drew Favaloro home in 1971 to build a heart centre modelled on the Cleveland Clinic, where he went on to train more than 450 young doctors.

Which pair of large veins, one superior and one inferior, return oxygen-poor blood from the body to the heart?

The venae cavae take their name from the Latin for hollow veins. The upper one drains the head and arms, while the lower one carries blood up from the lower body.