The heart pumps blood through the body, with systole and diastole being the two phases of its movement. End-systolic volume is the blood left in the heart after a contraction. Measuring these values helps identify and treat heart problems.
The human heart is an involuntarily contracting muscle responsible for distributing blood throughout the body. The sequence of heart movements can be classified as contraction, known as systole, and diastole, which is a term used to describe relaxation. End-systolic volume is simply the volume of blood that remains in the heart after a contraction is complete.
Blood is the nutrient-rich fluid that fills the veins and arteries of the body, enabling the organs and other structures it reaches to perform their functions. Without the oxygen, clotting factors, vitamins and minerals in the blood, the organs that rely on these life-sustaining particles could not function. The heart is the engine behind the blood transfer mechanism, and without its contractions and relaxations, blood would have no way to move throughout the body.
End systolic volume can be thought of as the blood left in the heart. When the heart relaxes, its chambers expand, causing a decrease in the pressure in the chamber that carries blood in. When enough blood enters the chambers, the pressure equalizes, at which point, in a healthy heart, contraction begins. Not all of the blood that was once in the chambers comes out with each beat, leaving a specific end-systolic volume remaining.
More blood circulating generally means the more abundant nutrients are to the body, making healthy physiological function more likely. There is also a direct relationship between the blood available to be ejected from the heart and the volume actually ejected. This principle is known as Frank Starling’s law after the physiologist who first recognized it. Basically, the higher the preload, or volume of blood in the heart before the contraction, the higher the stroke volume, which is the amount of blood sent throughout the body with a single contraction.
The heart, blood, and end-systolic volume aren’t directly visible without medical intervention, so using specific measurements can help illustrate what’s actually going on in the heart. End-systolic volume, for example, is typically between 16 and 143 milliliters, with the mean usually in the 50 milliliter range. Stroke volume averages about 70 milliliters, and final diastolic volume, the amount of blood after the relaxation phase, ranges from 65 to 240 milliliters.
The significance of measuring many of these values is to better evaluate any aspects of the heart that may be malfunctioning. It is therefore much easier to identify and treat potential ailments. These values, of course, are subject to change and are slightly dependent on the instruments used to measure them.
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