Heart quiz: What do you know about the body's hardest-working muscle?

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Get pumped up — it's time to show off your knowledge about the heart.

an illustration of a heart
The heart delivers life-sustaining blood to all the body's tissues. What do you know about how it works? (Image credit: Richard Drury via Getty Images)

Your heart pumps blood from your head to your toes, provides cells with fresh oxygen, and removes waste products. Located in the middle of your chest and tilted slightly to the left, your heart pushes out about 1.5 gallons (5.7 liters) of blood every minute to over 60,000 miles (97,000 kilometers) of blood vessels.

When things go wrong with the heart and circulatory system, the consequences can be dire. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S., where about 1 in 3 deaths is attributable to heart disease. In the U.S. alone, one person dies every 34 seconds from cardiovascular disease, and heart disease costs the country over $400 billion annually.

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Marilyn Perkins
Marilyn Perkins
Content Manager

Marilyn Perkins is the content manager at Live Science. She is a science writer and illustrator based in Los Angeles, California. She received her master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins and her bachelor's degree in neuroscience from Pomona College. Her work has been featured in publications including New Scientist, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health magazine and Penn Today, and she was the recipient of the 2024 National Association of Science Writers Excellence in Institutional Writing Award, short-form category.

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