The human body is endlessly fascinating, isn’t it? Consider how humans get started in the first place – only after one tiny sperm, one of hundreds of millions, has somehow negotiated its way past the lethal acid coating the vagina and made its long journey up to the waiting egg. The odds are stupefyingly against that one brave little sperm. And then, consider the heart.
Before my heart attack, I had never heard of the heart’s little collateral arteries. These are small, normally closed arteries that, in times of dire need (like a blocked coronary artery that leads to a heart attack) can wake up, open wide, and enlarge enough to form a kind of detour around the blockage, thus providing an alternate route of blood supply to feed the oxygen-starved heart muscle. Do-it-yourself bypass surgery! (more…)
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