We can go on without some of our organs such as the spleen and the intestines, but when the heart goes, we go. Anything we can do to keep that organ healthy, we must try to do.

The heart is made up of muscles, and its job is to pump blood through the blood vessels to all parts of the body. It does this by rhythmic contractions that we call “heartbeats.” Normal beats per minute (BPM) are 72. For a person who lives to be 66 years old, the heart will have contracted 2.5 billion times.

The embryonic heart begins beating about 21 days after conception, beating at a rate near its mother's, 75-80 BPMs. However, it accelerates in the embryo until it is beating as many as 165 to 185 BPM at the 7th week. Then at about 9.2 weeks, it goes back down to about 152 BPM then it continues to go down to about 145 BPM at term. Gender doesn't seem to matter in this pattern.

While there may be abnormalities, the heart is usually in the middle of thorax and the larger part will be off to the left under the breast bone. A pericardium (sac) encloses the heart. The name of the heart cavity is the mediastinum. The beat may be heard on a stethoscope by placing it over the apex, the blunt point at the bottom left of the heart. A normal heart is about the size of a clenched fist and has four chambers, two upper called atria (singular atrium) and two lower ones called ventricles.

Aside from keeping us alive, what is the work of the heart? The right side takes in de-oxygenated blood from the body and pumps it through the right ventricle into the lungs. The purpose is to get rid of carbon dioxide and take in oxygen. Then the left side of the heart takes oxygenated blood from the lungs into the left atrium. The blood goes from there to the left ventricle. This is where the blood is pumped to the body. The blood is divided between arteries for the upper and lower body and is pumped out to the body by the muscles in the left ventricle.

Anything that interferes with the function of the heart is serious. Some of the illnesses and ailments:

• Coronary artery disease
• Heart attack
• Heart failure
• High blood pressure
• Stroke

Most illnesses of the heart have to do with damage caused by atherosclerosis, a disease that affects the arteries that carry oxygen and nutrients to the body. Healthy arteries are flexible, strong, and elastic. If there is too much pressure on the arteries, they become thick and stiff. When that happens the blood flow is hampered. This is the major culprit in heart disease.

So what causes this? Actually, the causes are pretty widely known. It's just that people tend not to act on what they know. For example, smoking is a major cause of atherosclerosis, yet people continue to smoke. Overweight and an unhealthy diet are two other causes, yet people who are overweight continue to eat their favorite foods, even though they’re unhealthy. Lack of exercise is another cause, and doctors often advise their patients to get out of their easy chairs and get moving, but nothing happens.

Diets to prevent atherosclerosis proliferate. Some people like Dr. Atkins have made fortunes on their diets even though they haven't been shown to make people healthier. What can make people healthier is to go back to the form of eating that is most natural to human beings–what they ate before all the processed and overcooked foods were introduced into the lives of human beings.

Living and raw foods can change your life. They can certainly change the way your heart works. It isn't complicated. You don't need to pay a lot of money for someone to work out a diet for you. Just substitute more living and raw foods–preferably organic–in your daily diet for processed and overcooked ones. Raw foods are–well–raw; living food is sprouts. For example, if you put raw almonds in water for awhile, they will sprout. The sprouted nuts are more beneficial than the nuts themselves. However, there are many raw foods such as nuts, vegetables (uncooked), fruits, seeds. How strict you are about the balance between raw and cooked foods is up to you. The higher the balance of living/raw foods to processed/cooked ones, the greater the benefit.

By TTS Cofounder Botanical Chef Omid Jaffari