What Are the Heart Arteries and What Impact Can They Have on a Heart Attack?
Certain heart arteries are responsible for sending blood to all parts of the body while other heart arteries are responsible for returning it to the heart where the cycle can begin again. Terms such as aorta (away), pulmonary artery (away), inferior vena cava (to), superior vena cava (to), pulmonary veins (to), and descending aorta (away) are well known to your cardiologist but for the rest of us these heart arteries and veins are not all that well known, with the possible exception of the aorta. How do the heart, arteries, and veins really work? For this information we will be forced to turn to the AMA Encyclopedia for answers. Let’s quickly go back to high school anatomy/biology class for a quick refresher course. The pulmonary veins deliver oxygen rich blood from the lungs and deposit it into the left atrium of the heart. Then the atrium channels the oxygen rich blood into the left ventricle, where it is pumped through the main artery of the body, the aorta. The aorta divides into s
