The heart is the most critical organ in the human body and must function at its full capacity in order to maintain high quality of life and support the function of all other organs and systems. Therefore, a number of characteristics must be considered in order to understand how the organ functions and contributes to positive health. Although all persons at different life stages possess different levels of heart health, there are a number of functions that must operate normally in order to achieve optimal heart health, and when these functions are affected by scarring or disease, there are likely to be any number of complications, some of which could be life-threatening or fatal for some persons, depending on other factors that may contribute to these events throughout the life span.

The left ventricular wall of the heart is thicker in some patients than in others, due to a number of factors; for instance, a healthy thicker wall is often attributed to a high level of exercise in athletes and in women who are pregnant, which may be as thick as 1.3 centimeters rather than the traditional 1.1 centimeters in other patients (Martini, Nath, & Bartholomew, 2014). However, left ventricular hypertrophy may also occur in patients with different levels of cardiac-related risk, such as hypertension and myocardial infarction, thereby increasing the thickness of this wall with subsequent scarring and a limited ability to pump blood properly (Martini et.al, 2014).

The coronary vessels are located on the surface of the heart because they provide the ability to autoregulate and to manage blood flow in accordance with how the heart muscle functions (Martini et.al, 2014). In addition, they provide blood to the myocardium, which is critical for routine cardiac function; however, if these vessels become blocked, they may be caused by atherosclerosis and may cause additional problems, such as myocardial infarction (Martini et.al, 2014). Furthermore, the SA node, which is located at the top of the atrial mass, is designed to maintain a normal heart rate, and this supports normal atrial contraction because it supports a routine cardiac cycle to move blood from the atria through the atrioventricular openings and into the ventricles (Martini et.al, 2014). Within this cycle, there is a closure of the tricuspid and bicuspid values so that blood does not go back into the atria and interfere with normal cardiac function and eliminates the risk of blood regurgitation on a regular basis (Martini et.al, 2014).

Finally, when the myocardium contracts, this is in response to a reaction on the cell membrane, identified as depolarization, thereby initiating action potential; therefore, the contraction of the myocardium is affected by an electrical response or impulse, thereby creating what is considered as a heartbeat (Martini et.al, 2014). Achieving a normal heartbeat is essential to heart function and supports all other activities in a normal fashion. Each of these responses is critical to achieving optimal functionality of the heart and requires an understanding of the factors which impact heart health throughout the life span.

The heart is a complex organ which feeds all other organs and systems throughout the human body by pumping blood and providing oxygen to other areas that need these components for survival. Therefore, when damage to the heart is sustained in different forms, such as atherosclerosis or myocardial infarction, there is a much greater risk of cell death and limited function of the heart muscle, which may compromise health in many different ways. These actions must operate in a routine manner in order to effectively maintain heart health and contribute to organ and system function throughout the body.