Basic heart questions

[Amazoniac]

Does anyone know how or why:

- the heart muscles prevent the thickening of its muscular walls, since blood/nutrients are supplied constantly and it never stops?
- some valves in the heart are divided in 3 while other in 2?
- it prevents the build up of lactate?

 

[jyb]

- it prevents the build up of lactate?

I'm going to speculate...a cell may not produce lactate if it uses fat for energy, which could be the case of heart cells. In general, there seems to be a good reason why each organ require specific energy sources (glucose or different types of fatty acids). In particular neurons and heart cells probably have a very strong preference for which source they each use in order to minimise risk of dying off from a source that is too unreliable or is not protective against free radicals.

 

[Amazoniac]

- it prevents the build up of lactate?

I'm going to speculate...a cell may not produce lactate if it uses fat for energy, which could be the case of heart cells. In general, there seems to be a good reason why each organ require specific energy sources (glucose or different types of fatty acids). In particular neurons and heart cells probably have a very strong preference for which source they each use in order to minimise risk of dying off from a source that is too unreliable or is not protective against free radicals.

I don't know, but great speculation. I'll investigate further and if I find something interesting I'll post.