The Cardiovascular System Project

[hMint77LTIN]

Dear Life Technologies Scientist,
Our project centered around modeling the human heart, using a bucket as the heart and water as the blood and some different sized tubing as the arteries. We filled the bucket with water and then allowed the water to go through the tubes and into a measuring cup. We timed how long it took the water to get to 1/2 a cup through the different sized tubing and then repeated the procedure again with more water to represent more blood pressure. The data proved that the water took more time to go through the smaller tube. This lead us to questioning some things involving clogged arteries; Because clogged arteries allow less blood to flow through compared to an unclogged artery, how do clogged arteries affect the rest of the body? Also, what causes a person to have clogged arteries?
Thank you so much!
-Heather, Madison, Emma, and Kaitlyn

[deleted-63393]

Hi Heather, Madison, Emma and Kaitlyn,
I think you can answer your question regarding the affect of clogged arteries by doing some research on what blood provides to various organs. For instance, what does blood do for the liver? What does it bring to it and what does it take away. If the flow was impacted, what would be the result. You can ask these same questions for a variety of different organs in the body to determine what the impact of having clogged arteries would be on overall health.

In regards to what causes clogged arteries...you could type that into google and have a TON of stuff that comes up. The most common cause is high cholesterol in the blood.

Hope this helps!
Katie

[hMint77LTIN]

Thank you so much for your help! We had a few more questions to ask as well;
Does high blood pressure have any affect on the rate of blood flow through clogged arteries?
How can you prevent clogged arteries?
Thanks again,
Heather, Madison, Kaitlyn, and Emma

[deleted-63393]

Hello Again!

If you think about a clogged artery as an even smaller tube than you initially used, what do you think the out come would be if you added more water? You said before that it increase speed when you did that correct? Think about what would happen in your body if the speed your blood speeds up . Where do you think that extra energy from the added pressure would go? How would it impact the walls of the blood vessels over time? Would it affect any organs?

You can probably get a ton of information if you google "how do you prevent clogged arteries?" The basic message is to reduce the amount of cholesterol in the blood. There are a variety of ways to do this so I recommend reading a few articles online to help you get the full picture.

Katie

[deleted-71536]

Hi Heather, Madison, Kaitlyn, and Emma,

You have a very interesting and relevant project! Katie has already given you some great advice.

If you search the term hemodynamics, you should be able to find information about how blood pressure affects the flow of blood through the cardiovascular system.

Another thing to keep in mind is that increased blood pressure due to clogged arteries will cause the heart to have to work harder (pump harder). Since the heart is a muscle, this will affect the size of the heart muscle and its long-term function. Clogged arteries can also prevent the movement of blood into some tissues, which means that those tissues may not get enough oxygen. When the heart does not get enough oxygen, it results in a heart attack. When a part of the brain does not get enough oxygen, it is called a stroke.

Hopefully this will help you interpret your data. Please post again (in this same thread) if you have more questions!

Heather

[Halden]

Hi Katie,
Thanks for the post and your reply will not be helpful for Heather, Madison, Kaitlyn and Emma but also for those who are are working on cardiovascular system project.