https://i.ibb.co/f96s7bf/heart-leaf.jpg Science brings us closer to understanding the environment and ourselves. Breaking down biology has been a long time focus that has served many fields of human related sciences. The fitness industry has boomed over the last few decades and has become an integral part of culture across the world. We have been aware of how unhealthy a society that locks people into a sedentary lifestyle can be and emerging research reaffirms this with various studies. No matter the state of the body, a healthy circulatory system is essential for all activities in life. Genetics, lifestyle and other factors will influence performance but how much thought do we really put into our choice of daily activities? Aesthetic appearances are not an indication of overall health and focus of what is happening internally is of utmost importance. https://i.ibb.co/5FpgjWF/evolution.jpg // Hearts of Man and Ape // Cardiovascular health has great reliance on its driving engine, the heart. Training the heart will see great benefit in performance but type of training and general lifestyle will dictate the forms of optimisations the body will realise over time. Researchers dived into the matter of whether activity type would impact the development of the heart with the intent to understand features that come about to accommodate certain activity types. As an extension of this venture, adult chimps were also used in the study to explore the possibility of commonality between humans and inked activity profiles. Chimps are regarded as generally inactive but expel bursts of energy when engaging in daily activities. General foraging, fighting and climbing activities were deemed as a typical activity profile for the animal. // Thick and Thin // When movement requires surge like movement of blood in the body, the heart needs to be adjusted for such functions to supply enough blood in a limited time frame. Ultrasound technology allows non-intrusive imagery of internal organs and allows for a swift exploration of heart development. Hearts of adult chimps were generally observed to feature smaller chambers with thick walls so cope with rapid supply of blood around the body. Visual representation on the following graphics reveals the shapes of various case studies. Those requiring bursts of blood due to activity requirement possessed rounded shapes and thickened walls. Sedentary lifestyles resulted in a similar thickening as did the hearts of those who required explosive movements such as line-backers. This doesn’t mean that those living a sedentary lifestyle would perform well at explosive movements, the stress profile on general activities would be similar. https://i.ibb.co/Gnb1yyQ/results-1.jpg https://i.ibb.co/0rxCh5J/results-2.jpg // Hearts Moulded by Society // Modern society has thus shaped our hearts to some extent with literal meaning as some lines of professions and lifestyles are built around sedentary activities. Hours in the office at a computer, driving around or similar without sustained cardiovascular training potentially leads to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. For those excelling in strength training, regular supplementary endurance training would be beneficial long-term health, perhaps even as a transitional focus of training. Technology and scientific understanding allows us to see what we look like inside and the steps to maintaining a healthy ‘looking heart’ lie in the way of routine moderately intense exercise. Reshaping a heart is very possible and a healthy makeover inside might be one for life. So look and live healthy Steemians, we are beautiful both inside and out! Sources https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/09/10/1906902116 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/running-or-sitting-can-change-shape-your-heart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulatory_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_culture
Originally posted here: https://steemit.com/science/@higgs/shape-of-your-heart-and-life
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