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Heart Month Fast Facts
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Heart disease is the primary cause of death in men over the age of 45 and in women over the age of 55
Over half a million Canadians suffer from some form of heart disease with over 50,000 being treated for advanced heart failure annually. Nearly 40% of patients die within the first year of diagnosis
Heart failure is presently the most common cause of hospitalization in North American adults
Many classical philosophers believed the heart, not the brain, to be the seat of human thought, reason, and emotion
The first human-to-human heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1967; Canada’s first heart transplant took place one year later
In an average lifetime, your heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times
Theories on the origins of the ubiquitous heart symbol range from a North African seedpod (the silphium plant, used for birth control and now extinct) in the 7th century BC to a 16th-century saintly vision.
The symbol was popularized in the 17th century
The term “heart strings” comes from an old anatomy theory about the “tendons and nerves that brace the heart”
