Heart Health with the Heart Sound Recorder

The heart pumps about 100,000 times a day and moves about 6000-7500 liters (about 2 gallons) of blood daily.  It has it's own pacemaking cells that allow it to continuously contract.  It is considered to be the most important muscle of the body and can be affected by physical, emotional, nutritional and chemical stressors.  Therefore, with cardiovascular disease on the rise, it is more important than ever to address heart health as it relates to whole body health.  Cardiovascular disease frequently does not have any symptoms or may just show up as shortness of breath or chest pain.  Underlying reasons of it may vary but things like smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, among other things may contribute to it.  Cardiologists will usually listen to the heart and run an EKG and ultrasound to diagnose it while simple screenings of the carotid artery, c-reactive protein levels and tests for peripheral arterial disease can aid in the diagnosis.  More recently with studies showing how the coronavirus can affect the heart and other organs it is more important than ever to start thinking about maintaining heart health.  

Based on the principles of heart auscultation, the heart sound recorder will make observations on the rate, rhythm and tone on each of the valves of the heart.  Tradtional heart auscultation requires a very acute and trained ear to be able to hear subtle discrepencies in the 'lub-dub' of a heartbeat.  With this device, you can actually see each lub-dub sound and then by observing the three indications (rate, rhythm and tone) mentioned, we can try and determine the overall health of the heart. 

The Rate tells us how slow or fast a heart beats.  It's an indication of your sympathetic and parasympathetic system. There needs to be a balance between the two.  Too fast or too slow for a long period of time may cause issues in the future. 

The Rhythm tells us the regularity of the beat.  There is a work to rest ratio which optimizes your heart function.  The 'lub-dub' beats of the heart at rest should have a particular rhythm.  Anything outside the rhythm may indicate a heart working too hard or not able to work enough.  

The Tone of each beat can tell us how efficiently the heart is functioning.  Each valve closure causes the 'lub-dub' sound and by observing the strength of the sound, we can try and determine how efficient each valve is. 

The heart sound recorder allows the observation of heart sounds as it happens.  It is able to give us information on how well and efficient the heart is functioning by showing the rate, rhythm and tone of the heart through a series of graphs and by interpreting these graphs, it may be possible to determine if any nutritional deficiencies needs to be addressed.  I include this with my initial acupuncture session to help me determine what needs to be addressed.  If you would like to schedule an appointment please contact me at david@bhany.com for availability.  It's a non-invasive procedure that takes 20 min to do.