Science

the human heart

why is the human heart on the left hand side of the body and not in the middle or on the right hand side?

sandman666 Tue 30/09/08 22:52

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kempie
Wed 01/10/08
00:00

Why is your nose not on your forehead?

Why is your thumb not on the other side of your palm?

It is what it is.

BTW not all humans have their hearts on the left.

kempie
Wed 01/10/08
00:01

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situs_inversus

dundurn
Wed 01/10/08
08:06

It's a question of plumbing. Our hearts have two inlets, one from the lungs and one from the rest of the body and two outlets, again one to the lungs and one to the body. If the heart was situated centrally and all these inlets and outlets were symmetrically placed on top of each other we'd need a bump in the middle of our ribcage to accommodate all the pipework. We tend to be wider than we are deep, however, so the natural solution is to twist the heart round so that the plumbing now fits side to side. So we end up with a right and left side to the heart and the length and position of the major blood vessels determines where it sits. It's actually quite central; it's not way over to either side, but for the vast majority of people this turns out to be turned to the left. As kempie has pointed out, for some people it's the other way round. I'm not sure whether this is a case of DNA or of an 'accident' in development.

sandman666
Wed 01/10/08
13:37

Question Author

so do people born with the heart on the right experience any health problems?

rov1200
Wed 01/10/08
20:41

Its always been considered a mystery why we are born with just 1 heart. We have 2 eyes, 2 lungs and 2 kidneys, not forgetting 2 arms and legs. Even our brain is split into two. Must be a design flaw!

dundurn
Thurs 02/10/08
10:02

Check out the wikipedia reference that kempie gave you - it goes into the difficulties inherent in the condition and the extent to which the condition can be associated with other problems.

peanut273
Thurs 23/10/08
02:55

kempie..hahahaha I was going to write something like that!

Weird question...why question this?

peanut273
Thurs 23/10/08
02:57

rov1200...There are however 4 chambers to the heart.

2 ventricles

&

2 atriums

:D

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