The startling reality about our understanding of the heart
is that our conceptual framework is completely wrong and this obviously leads
to seriously flawed therapeutic protocols. Ouch!
Read this and marvel.
The quick take home is that the whole circulatory
system operates by pulsing which continuously entrains the blood flow and adds
energy as needed. The heart actually acts
more as a reservoir and governor. This is
a complete surprise and explains explicitly why the continued application of
CPR saves lives for hours of real times.
The blood is actually still circulating so long as a pulse is maintained
somewhat by massage. Add in proper
understanding of biological oxygen containment and so long as movement is
sustained oxygen depletion is staved off for a great deal of time.
In fact easily long enough to successfully intervene. That means that everyone dying from cardiac arrest
is doing so needlessly if help is at hand.
The Heart is Not a Pump – The Blood Moves the Heart,
not Vice Versa
October 17, 2013
Paradoxes about the
Heart as a “Pump”
·
The sheer volume of work which the heart would
have to do if it were solely responsible for pumping inert blood through the
vessels of the circulatory system. Blood is five times as viscous as water.
According to the propulsion premise the heart would have to pump 8000 liters of
blood a day in a body at rest and considerably more during activity, through
millions of capillaries the diameters of which are sometimes smaller than the
red blood cells themselves – a huge task for a relatively small, muscular organ
weighing only 300 grams.
·
Once the questions start being asked, the
anomalies in currently accepted dogma become apparent. For instance, if
blood were pumped under pressure out of the left ventricle into the aorta
during systole, the pressure pulse would cause the aortic arch to try and
straighten out, as happens in any Bourdon tube pressure gauge. In practice the
exact opposite happens; the curve increases, indicating that the aorta is
undergoing a negative, rather than a positive, pressure.
·
Another paradoxical finding concerns the
mechanics of fluid flow under pulsatile pressure. When a pressure pulse is
applied to a viscous fluid in a closed vessel, the liquid initially resists
movement through its own inertia. The pressure, therefore, peaks before the
fluid velocity peaks. In the aorta, exactly the opposite happens where a
peak flow markedly precedes peak pressure, a fact which was observed in
1860 by Chaveau and Lortet. So just what is going on inside the circulation?
Four Faulty Premises of the
Heart as a “Pump”
As Marinelli et al point out, the
pressure-propulsion model of blood circulation rests on four major premises:
1. blood
is naturally inert and must, therefore, be forced to circulate;
2. there
is a random mix of formed particles in the blood;
3. blood
cells are under pressure at all times;
4. blood
is amorphous and is forced to fill its vessels and take on their form.
All of these premises can be shown to be faulty.
For example, far from having a random mix of the blood components in vessels,
the cellular elements arrange themselves in a highly organized flow pattern in
which the heavier red blood cells flow nearest to the axis of the vessels while
the lighter platelets are nearer to the periphery. All of the formed
elements are surrounded by a sleeve of plasma which is in contact with the
vessel wall. However, a major misconception about how blood circulates is
the assumption that it flows in a laminar fashion, whereas in reality the
main pattern appears to be a vortex. This leads to a whole new concept of
circulatory dynamics–one which goes a long way towards explaining the close
interaction between the heart and the blood– both of which are derived from the
same embryonic material.
Clues to circulatory physiology are found in
embryology. Two of the main embryological observations have been that the blood
starts circulating before the heart has been fully formed and that it
circulates in a spiraling fashion, as in the single-stage tube heart of the
chick before the valves have developed.
Why are we concerned about the way in which
the blood circulates and the `heart as a pump’ paradox? Do we not already know
enough about circulation in conventional terms for all practical purposes? No.
Is all this really relevant? Yes. Not only should truth be sought for its own
sake, but therapy based upon faulty premises can only be bad therapy.
Reprinted with
permission from the Journal of
Anthroposophical Medicine, Volume 13, Spring 1996.
THE HEART IS NOT A PUMP:
A REFUTATION OF THE PRESSURE PROPULSION PREMISE OF HEART FUNCTION
A REFUTATION OF THE PRESSURE PROPULSION PREMISE OF HEART FUNCTION
by Ralph Marinelli 1; Branko Fuerst 2; Hoyte van der Zee 3; Andrew McGinn 4; William Marinelli
1. Rudolf Steiner Research Center, Royal Oak, MI
2. Dept. of Anesthesiology, Albany Medical College, Albany, NY
3. Dept. of Anesthesiology and Physiology, Albany Medical College, NY
4. Cardiovascular Consultants Ltd., Minneapolis, MN. Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota, MN
5. Hennipen County Medical Center and Dept. of Medicine, University of Minnesota, MN
2. Dept. of Anesthesiology, Albany Medical College, Albany, NY
3. Dept. of Anesthesiology and Physiology, Albany Medical College, NY
4. Cardiovascular Consultants Ltd., Minneapolis, MN. Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota, MN
5. Hennipen County Medical Center and Dept. of Medicine, University of Minnesota, MN
Abstract
In 1932, Bremer of Harvard filmed the blood in
the very early embryo circulating in self-propelled mode in spiralling streams
before the heart was functioning. Amazingly, he was so impressed with the
spiralling nature of the blood flow pattern that he failed to realize that the
phenomena before him had demolished the pressure propulsion principle. Earlier
in 1920, Steiner, of the Goetheanum in Switzerland had pointed out in lectures
to medical doctors that the heart was not a pump forcing inert blood to move
with pressure but that the blood was propelled with its own biological
momentum, as can be seen in the embryo, and boosts itself with “induced”
momenta from the heart. He also stated that the pressure does not cause the
blood to circulate but is caused by interrupting the circulation. Experimental
corroboration of Steiner’s concepts in the embryo and adult is herein
presented.
Introduction
The fact that the heart by itself is incapable
of sustaining the circulation of the blood was known to physicians of
antiquity. They looked for auxiliary forces of blood movement in various types
of `etherisation’ and `pneumatisation’ or ensoulement of the blood on its
passage through the heart and lungs. With the dawn of modern science and over
the past three hundred years, such concepts became untenable. The
mechanistic concept of the heart as a hydraulic pump prevailed and became
firmly established around the middle of the nineteenth century.
The heart, an organ weighing about three
hundred grams, is supposed to `pump’ some eight thousand liters of blood per
day at rest and much more during activity, without fatigue. In terms of
mechanical work this represents the lifting of approximately 100 pounds one
mile high! In terms of capillary flow, the heart is performing an even more
prodigious task of `forcing’ the blood with a viscosity five times greater than
that of water through millions of capillaries with diameters often smaller than
the red blood cells themselves! Clearly, such claims go beyond reason and
imagination. Due to the complexity of the variables involved, it has been
impossible to calculate the true peripheral resistance even of a single organ,
let alone of the entire peripheral circulation. Also, the concept of a
centralized pressure source (the heart) generating excessive pressure at its
source, so that sufficient pressure remains at the remote capillaries, is not
an elegant one.
Our understanding and therapy of the key areas
of cardiovascular pathophysiology, such as septic shock, hypertension and
myocardial ischemia are far from complete. The impact of spending billions of
dollars on cardiovascular research using an erroneous premise is enormous. In
relation to this, the efforts to construct a satisfactory artificial heart have
yet to bear fruit. Within the confines of contemporary biological and medical
thinking, the propulsive force of the blood remains a mystery. If the heart
really does not furnish the blood with the total motive force, where is the
source of the auxiliary force and what is its nature? The answer to those
questions will foster a new level of understanding of the phenomena of life in
the biological sciences and enable physicians to rediscover the human being
which, all too often, many feel they have lost.
Overview
Implicit in the notion of pressure propulsion
in the cardiovascular system are the following four major concepts.
(1) Blood is naturally inert and therefore must be forced to
circulate.
(2) There is a random mix of the formed particles in the blood.
(3) The cells in the blood are under pressure at all times.
(4) The blood is amorphous and is forced to fill its vessels and thereby takes on their form.
(2) There is a random mix of the formed particles in the blood.
(3) The cells in the blood are under pressure at all times.
(4) The blood is amorphous and is forced to fill its vessels and thereby takes on their form.
However, there are observations that challenge
these notions. It is seen that the blood has its own form, the vortex, which
determines rather than conforms to the shape of the vascular lumen and
circulates in the embryo with its own inherent biological momentum before the
heart begins to function. Just as an inert vortex in nature pulses radially and
longitudinally, we tentatively assume that blood is also free to pulse and is
not subject to the pulse-restricting pressure implied in the pressure
propulsion concept. The blood is not propelled by pressure but by its own biological
momenta boosted by the heart.
When the heart begins to function, it enhances the blood’s momentum with
spiraling impulses. The arteries serve a subsidiary mimical heart
function by providing spiraling boosts to the circulating blood. In so doing
the arteries dilate to receive the incoming blood and contract to deliver an
impulse to increase the blood’s momentum.
History
The history of the pressure propulsion premise
goes back to Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci. The concept of the heart
functioning as a pressure pump that forces the blood, assumed to be amorphous
and inanimate, into its vessels and taking on the shape of its vessels was
suggested by Borelli 1, a student and a close friend of Galileo, who observed
the spiraling heart and compared its function to wringing the water out of a
wet cloth. Borelli did not confirm his conjecture with experiments but was
supported by misleading drawings of the left ventricle found later in
Leonardo’s work. In Leonardo’s Notebooks the left ventricle wall was shown to
be of uniform thickness as one expects to find in a pressure chamber. (See Fig.
1-A.)
However, quite the contrary, the left
ventricle wall thickness varies by about 1800%, as we found by dissecting
bovine hearts. The thickness ranges from 0.23 cm in the apex to 4.3 cm in the
equatorial area. The apex wall is so soft and weak that it can be pierced with
the index finger. The peculiar variability in the ventricular wall thickness is
not in keeping with the idea of the heart being a pressure generator. However,
one could conceive of such a wall configuration as maximizing the moment
inertia with no static pressure in the ventricle.The thin, flexible, cone
shaped apex and suspension from the aorta suggest the accommodation of a
twisting function especially, when taking into account the spiral orientation
of the myocardial muscle layers2. (See Fig. 1-B.)
The rotary motion of the heart, arteries, and
blood has been measured or detected by several investigators 2, 18, 19. With
slight variations, the erroneous sketch in Leonardo’s Notebooks has been used
in most biology, physiology, and medical texts during the last few hundred
years as well as in most modern anatomy texts in the last decades. Thus,
false sketches have served to bear witness to a false premise. (See Fig.
1-C.)
William Harvey (1578-1657) attended the
University of Padua while Galileo was on its Faculty. He seemed to be deciding
in favor of momentum propulsion from his own experiments focusing on the blood
flow and pressure propulsion probably under the influence of Borelli who
focused on heart motion. At times he implied a momentum propulsion concept:
“The auricle (atria) throws the blood into the ventricle” and “the ventricle
projects the moving blood into the aorta.” “The blood is projected by each
pulsation of the heart.” At other times he used expressions that imply a
pressure propulsion concept. “The heart squeezes out the blood.” “The blood is
forced into the aorta by contraction of the ventricle.” In a few cases he
speaks of the pressure of the blood. However, he also used neutral terms, “the
blood is transferred, transfused, transmitted, and sent” – from place to place.
Subsequent investigators who helped to firmly
establish the pressure propulsion concept were as follows: Stephen Hales (1677-1761)
who inserted a glass tube into the artery of a horse and assumed that the
column of blood was balanced out by static pressure. Jean-Leonard-Marie
Poiseuille (1799-1869) discovered that arterial dilation was in phase with
ventricular ejection. Therefore, he assumed that the dilation was the passive
response to the pressure in the blood. Among other things he substituted a
mercury manometer for the blood manometer of Hales. Carl Ludwig (1816-1895)
invented the recording manometer by adding a float with writing pen and moving
chart to Poiseuille’s mercury manometer, and ushered in the age of continuous
pressure recording. Finally, Scipione Riva-Rocci (1896-1903) perfected the
sphygmomanometer in 1903 and brought the consideration of blood pressure into clinical
practice.
The Problem and Its Proposed
Solution
The problematic situation in cardiovascular
physiology was expressed by Berne and Levy 3 who wrote: “The problem of
treating pulsatile flow through the cardiovascular system in precise
mathematical terms is virtually insuperable.” A fundamental aspect of this
problem relates to the fact that the major portion of our knowledge of cardiac
dynamics has been deduced from pressure curves. In fact our knowledge of the
system has two independent sources: experimentally determined facts and
logically deduced concepts from the pressure propulsion premise. The situation
is so confusing that some life scientists are considering chaos theory and
mathematics to try to find the order in the system. It will be shown that the
chaos derives from a mix of facts and conjectures and not from the nature of
the phenomenon itself.
It is our purpose to demonstrate that
Borelli’s premise is incorrect and to propose the concept that the blood is
propelled by a unique form of momentum. First, the aortic arch does not respond
as expected if the blood in it were under pressure. The aorta is a curved tube;
as such it has the basic form of the widely used pressure sensitive element of
the Bourdon tube gage*.
When the curved tube of the Bourdon gage is
subject to positive pressure, it is forced to straighten out as one sees in a
garden hose. When subject to a negative pressure, the tube’s curvature is
increased. During the systolic ejection (period when blood is ejected from
ventricle), the aorta’s curvature is seen to increase, signifying that the
aorta is not undergoing a positive pressure, but rather is undergoing a
negative pressure 4.
We demonstrate that this negative pressure is
that associated with the vacuum center of traveling vortices of blood. Thus the
motion of the aorta, when considered as nature’s own pressure sensor,
contradicts the pressure propulsion premise. Of course, the swirling streams of
the vortex have potential pressure, so any attempt to measure pressure will result
in a positive pressure reading due to interrupted momenta.
Movement without applied pressure is movement
with momentum, as we observe so dramatically in the long leaps of racing cats.
It is also manifest in nature in flowing water in open streams, traveling
tornadoes, and jet streams which are actually horizontal spirals of air and
moisture that can be thousands of miles long and move around like meandering
rivers in the upper atmosphere. A thrown ball in its trajectory also moves
without pressure.
What about the measured blood pressure? The
concept under consideration here is the well known ratio of force to area:
pressure = force/area (force per unit area)
The pressure is an arithmetical ratio derived
from the average force of the moving blood, and as such, indicates the
phenomenon of the moving blood indirectly. In a momentum system the pressure is
a potential while the object is in motion and becomes manifest when the
velocity is impeded:
momentum (mass x velocity) = impulse (force x
time)
The blood moves with various velocities in its
vortex streams. At the moment of impact of an object moving with momentum, the
velocity decreases while the pressure of a certain magnitude appears.
Rudolf Steiner, scientist and philosopher,
pointed out on several occasions that the blood moves autonomously 5, and that
the pressure is not the cause of blood flow but the result of it 6. The
clinicians of old used elaborate methods of describing the nature of the
arterial pulse and the ictus cordis or the apex beat, which is the impulse of
the heart against the chest wall. Many descriptive terms such as thready pulse
of hypovolemic shock, collapsing or water-hammer pulse of aortic incompetence
and `heaving’ apical impulse of left ventricular hypertrophy, convey the intuitive
understanding of the real mechanism of the heart’s action.
An attempt to characterize left ventricular
function by indices such as the maximal velocity of contraction (Vmax) and the
maximum change of left ventricular pressure with time (dP/dtmax) suggests the
felt inadequacy of the simple pressure propulsion concept.
Flow and Pressure
Considerations
When fluid mass is subject to force in the
form of a pressure, it will first resist movement because of its inertia and
viscosity. In a pressure driven system the pressure rises faster than the fluid
moves; the pressure will peak before the fluid velocity peaks. However, when
one simultaneously measures pressure and flow in the aorta, the peak flow
markedly precedes the peak pressure. This phenomenon was observed as early as
1860 by Chauveau and Lortet and, as reported by McDonald 7, it contradicts the
law of inertia in the pressure propulsion concept. (See Fig. 2.) While this
phase relationship actually confirms the momentum propulsion principle, it
nevertheless remained a source of conjecture for a considerable period of time
in the 1950s until it was `rescued’ with the help of elaborate mathematical
modeling for oscillating flow.
An observation in favor of the concept of the
blood having its own momentum was reported by Noble 8 in 1968. By simultaneous
pressure measurements in the left ventricle and the root of the aorta of a dog,
he demonstrated that the pressure in the left ventricle exceeds the aortic
pressure only during the first half of the systole and that the aortic pressure
is actually higher during the second half. He found it paradoxical that the
ejected blood from the ventricle continues into the aorta despite the positive
pressure gradient. The erroneous concept of left ventricular pressure exceeding
the aortic pressure during entire systole proposed by Wiggers in 1928 is still
depicted in many modern texts of physiology. (See Fig. 3A and B.) Noble
proposed that this type of pressure pattern could be a result of momentum flow;
however, this idea was overshadowed by the edifice of pressure propulsion.
The concept of pressure propulsion sent
physiologists and scientists from diverse fields on a crusade that resulted in
numerous hypotheses and theories about the cardiovascular system mechanics. The
saying that, “fluid dynamists in the nineteenth century were divided into
hydraulic engineers who observed what could not be explained and mathematicians
who explained things that could not be observed,” still stands true to this
very day.
Embryological Observations
Steiner 6 indicated that embryology provides
the clues for solving the problem of the circulation. In relation to this,
Bremer 9 performed a remarkable series of observations of blood circulation in
the very early chick embryo before the formation of the heart valves. He
described the two streams of spiraling blood with different forward velocities
in the single tube stage heart. Nevertheless, the blood is noted to have a
definite direction of flow within the conduits and moves without an apparent propelling
mechanism.These streams spiral around their own longitudinal axes and around
each other. The streams appear to be a considerable distance apart, do not fill
their vessels, and appear to be in discontinuous segments.
In a movie made by Bremer of the beating
embryonic heart, one observes that the spiraling blood is boosted by the
pulsating heart without creating turbulence in the blood. This suggests that
the momentum transfer occurring between the heart and blood is in phase;
the heart must somehow sense the motion of the blood and respond to it in turn
with a spiraling impulses at the same velocities as the blood, thereby
combining blood and heart momenta.
It is assumed that heart muscle layers have
the same velocity distribution pattern as the concentric streams of a free
vortex to enable heart and blood motions to couple in multi-velocity phase. It
was significant to observe that the movement of the heart occurred with minimal
inward motion of the heart wall. That the streaming of the blood can be
observed before the functioning of the heart is supported by observations that
the circulation in the early chick embryo is maintained for around 10 minutes
after the heart had been excised 10. Moreover, the inherent mobility of the
blood was highlighted by Pomerance and Davies 11, who found an embryo that
lived to term without a heart but was born dead and grossly disfigured. Thus,
the composite view of the embryonic cardiovascular system tells us that the
blood is not propelled by pressure, but rather moves with its own biological
momentum and with its own intrinsic flow pattern.
Alternations of Liquid and Gas
Vortices in the Blood
The existence of apparently empty space
between and within the spiraling liquid stream can be explained as space filled
with gas or vapor. However, this hypothesis appears absurd when considering
that even small bubbles in the arterial side of circulation can result in
significant embolism. Each 100 cm of arterial blood contains 0.3 ml of free
physically dissolved oxygen, 2.6 ml of carbon dioxide and 1 ml of nitrogen.
The importance of the small amount of
dissolved oxygen is recognized only in extreme cases of anemia when it becomes
a significant alternative source of tissue oxygenation. When viewed in terms of
a highly differentiated distribution of solid, liquid and vapor/gas components
of the composite vortex, this amount of free gas assumes critical importance.
The fact that the gas is elusive in the
escaping liquid blood is very much in accord with the finding that the blood,
as individualized liquid and gas vortices, moves with pressure-free momentum.
The vortex in tornadoes is a very stable cohesive configuration with a vacuum
center strongly held together by a centripetal force system. It does not have
the physical properties of amorphous gas under pressure that tends to expand.
To further elucidate our observations, we
contrived a model ventricle with a sealed, inverted cone-shaped, 0.5 liter
clear glass flask filled with water. The instrumentation consisted of
installing two tubes within the flask connected to pressure transducers to
record vacuum in the vortex center and the potential pressure impulse in the
momentum of the swirling water. The signal of pressure versus time was
displayed on the oscilloscope screen and also fed to the computer for further
analysis. The `ventricle’ was operated by holding it in the hand and giving it
a wobble and twist simultaneously to create a vortex. To enhance visibility, we
filled the canister with methylene blue colored water.
Even the most energetic operation resulted in
virtually no motion of the water. With some experimenting we determined that
unless the model ventricle had about 1/3 of its volume as air space, a vortex
could not be formed. This led us to reason that the highly organized
gas/rarified plasma is a necessary component of the blood vortex. This also
raises the question of how the gas and fluid elements can express the life
property of locomotion.
The idea of the composite blood
cells-plasma-gas vortex is in accord with the `gaps’ in the flow of the
embryonic vessels. To evaluate how valid our model ventricle was, we measured
its potential impulse pressure (blood pressure as it is typically measured) in
the swirling water and the vacuum in its center and found them to be in the
range of +130 to -180 mm Hg, respectively. (See Fig. 4.)
Furthermore, we constructed a glass
`ventricle’ with an attached `aorta’ and showed that up to 50% of the volume of
the liquid could be ejected by subjecting it to a rotary-wobbling impulse, without
the inward motion of the `ventricular’ wall.
A Well Known Vortex Function
It is well known that the pattern of blood
flow through the heart significantly contributes to heart valve dynamics as has
been shown by several studies utilizing contrast cineradiography and more
recently color Doppler imaging. Taylor and Wade 12 confirmed stable vortex flow
patterns behind the cusps of mitral and tricuspid valves visualizing the fine
stream contrast injection. Furthermore, the vortex formation in the aortic sinus
has not only been demonstrated in the model heart, but also visualized with
three-directional magnetic resonance velocity mapping 13. Without the vortex
formation in the aortic sinus, it is conceivable that with the blood rushing
out of the left ventricular outflow tract at one to two meters per second, the
coronary arteries would be ill perfused, as is the case in severe aortic
stenosis (narrowing), where high velocity blood flow does not allow for
formation of the normal supravalvular vortices.
Evidence of Momentum Flow in
the Adult
Not only is the blood flow well maintained in
the embryo before the formation of the valves; there are reports of adults in whom
both infected tricuspid and pulmonary valves were surgically removed and not
replaced by prosthetic valves, without significant problems 14. Werner et
al. 15 using two dimensional echocardiography observed that the mitral and
aortic valves were open during external chest compression and that cardiac
chambers were passive and did not change in size.
The Perpetual Vortex in the
Ventricle
The widely used technique of cardiac output
measurement using the thermodilution method is fraught with significant
deviations of individual measurements. This technique is based on the principle
of warm blood mixing with the bolus of cold saline in the ventricle and
detecting the rise in temperature of the resulting mixture in the pulmonary
artery. A final value is obtained by averaging the results of several
measurements.
By measuring electrical conductivity at various
locations in the left ventricle of a dog, Irisawa 16 was unable to show uniform
mixing of saline. The conductivity records showed the swirling streams of blood
of different concentrations of saline within the ventricles during systole and
diastole (the dilation or expansion stage of the heart muscles that allows the
heart cavities to fill with blood), further supporting the concept of the
highly organized vortical patterns inside the chambers of the heart.
Brecher 17 conducted an experiment on a dog
that demonstrated a region of continuous negative pressure in the ventricle by
observing the continuous flow of Ringer’s solution from a vessel outside the
heart through a cannula positioned in the left ventricle via the atrial
auricle. This further confirms our concept of the persistence of the vortex in
the ventricle with its negative pressure center and positive pressure impulse
potential in its swirling periphery throughout the cardiac cycle. Thus the
heart as a minimum functional organ consists not only of its tissue but also of
the perpetual vortex of blood which provides the perpetual vacuum in its center
that probably helps to pull the blood back to the heart from capillaries and
veins. The persistence of the vortex explains the anomaly to engineers of a
supposed pump that retains 40 % of its charge with each ejection; a pump is
expected to eject close to 100 % of its charge. As a pump concept it is absurd;
as presented herein it is ingenious. Pettigrew 2 found three columns of
spiraling blood in the left ventricle.
Orbiting Blood Corpuscles
In contrast to the parabolic velocity profile
assumed by small particle suspensions in rigid tubes of small diameter under
pressure, the cellular elements in the blood arrange themselves in a flow
pattern in vivo, such that the heavier red blood cells orbit nearest the center
with lighter platelets in more distant orbits surrounded by a sleeve of plasma
at the vessel wall. Such an ordered arrangement of blood particle configuration
in a sectional view of the arteries denies an omnidirectional pressure
propulsion mechanism and confirms the vortex/momenta premise.
One can demonstrate this phenomenon of
differentiation by mass in the vortex by allowing spheres chosen for
convenience, same size (3 mm diameter), differently colored for different
weight, to swirl freely in water. It will be seen that the heaviest spheres
orbit nearest the center of rotation. The vortex orbital velocities increase as
the orbits approach the center of rotation. On the contrary, during the time that
a force couple is applied to rotate the vessel, creating a forced vortex, all
of the spheres are forced out to the periphery where the velocities are the
greatest as in a centrifuge.
To further confirm the existence of the free
vortex velocity pattern in vivo, we probed the blood flow in the carotid artery
by positioning a Doppler transducer at 900 to the wall to sense the blood’s
swirling motion and processed the Doppler echoes through a variable band pass
filter looking for frequency (velocity) distribution patterns. We detected
echoes from groupings of particles at 400 to 650 Hz, 650 to 900 Hz and below
200 Hz Doppler-shifted frequencies. These three groupings indicate three
separate orbital regions and velocities. Preliminary observations point to a highly
ordered distribution of the blood’s cellular and plasma components.
Also, when moving through larger arteries the
red cells are in toroidal shape, with their mass at the periphery to maximize
the moment of inertia, and are assumed to rotate about their individual axes
due to the phenomenon of vorticity (the creation of micro-vortices between
swirling layers in the main vortex moving at different velocities). Thus we can
expect to find that the billions of red cells are actually traveling in their own
unique space as further evidence of the extreme order of the blood motion.
The Spiral Theme
The spiral theme is also apparent in the heart
and vessel form and function. The musculature of the heart and arteries all the
way down to the pre-capillaries is spirally oriented, and both the heart and
arteries move spirally to augment the momenta of the blood 2,(18), 19. The
literature on anatomical and physiological considerations of the twisting
motion of the heart and vessels is comprehensive and has recently been reviewed
2. The fact that arterial endothelial cell orientation closely follows the
blood flow patterns is well established 18, (19).
In a group of patients undergoing
reconstructive vascular surgery of the lower extremities, Stonebridge and
Brophy observed by direct angioscopic examination that the inner surface of
arteries was organized in a series of spiral folds that sometimes protruded
into the lumina. They commented that the folds occur as a result of spiral
blood flow, which may be more efficient, requiring less energy to drive the
blood through tapering and branching arterial system 19. They also observed the
vortexing blood with fiber optics in the region of the endoluminal folds. In
relation to this, enthusiasts know that rifled gun barrels forcing spin on the
bullet make it more stable in flight and therefore more accurate in reaching
its target. In the vessels the blood “grooves” its own conduits for the purpose
of enhancing its torsional impulse. However, these spiral folds are not found in
excised arteries; they are dynamics of living tissue.
Physiological Conclusions
The autonomic vortex movement of the blood
discussed herein is inherent to the blood motion. It is not an accidental local
disturbance often explained as turbulence or eddy currents, nor a localized
phenomena with a single functional purpose as in heart valve dynamics. From a
broader view it is to be expected that blood should so move, considering that
fluids in nature tend to move curvilinearly, which is their path of least energy.
The extreme expression of this tendency in nature, in terms of order, stability
and minimal expenditure of energy are tornados and “jet” streams.
Potential Clinical Consequences
These observations should foster an
accelerated understanding of the cardiovascular system through a reexamination
of the vast amount of valuable experimental data gathered world wide. Since we
have observed that the blood has a highly ordered dynamic form and an ordered
blood corpuscle motion, and orientation, we should be able to develop devices
and techniques to detect small deviations from group and individual norms and
thus form a basis for very early diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, which
remains the number one cause of death in the U.S. Novel, more effective therapies
for cardiovascular disease hopefully will also evolve from this new perspective
on cardiovascular physiology.
End notes
* The Bourdon tube gage is named after its
inventor, Bourdon. Its pressure sensitive element consists of a circularly bent
tube that is flattened to increase its sensitivity to pressure. When the tube
is subjected to an internal positive pressure it tends to straighten; when
subjected to an internal negative pressure its radius of curvature is
increased. The deformation of the tube is proportional to the pressure and is
transmitted via links and gears to motions that turn a pointer on a scale
calibrated to indicate pressure.
Acknowledgments
We thank Larry W. Stephenson, M.D., Chief of
Cardiothoracic Surgery, Wayne State University School of Medicine, and Beverly
Rubik, Ph.D., for their comments on this work.
References
1. Borelli,
De Motu Animalium. Rome, 1681.
2. Marinelli,
R., Penney, D.G., et al. 1991. Rotary motion in the heart and blood vessels: a
review. Journal of Applied Cardiology 6: 421-431.
3. Berne,
R., Levy, M., 1986. Cardiovascular Physiology. St. Louis, MO: C.V. Mossy Co.,
p. 105.
4. Rushmer,
R.F., D.K. Crystal. 1951. Changes in configuration of the ventricular chambers
during cardiac cycle. Circulation 4: 211-218.
5. Steiner,
R., 1990. Psychoanalysis and Spiritual Psychology. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic
Press, p. 126.
6. Steiner,
R., 1920. Spiritual Science and Medicine. London, England: Rudolf Steiner
Press, 24-25.
7. McDonald,
D.,1952. The velocity of blood flow in the rabbit aorta studied with high speed
cinematography. Journal of Physiology 118: 328-329.
8. Noble,
M.I., 1968. The contribution of blood momentum to left ventricular ejection in
dog. Circulation Res. 26: 663-670.
9. Bremer,
J. 1932. Presence and influence of spiral streams in the heart of the chick
embryo. American Journal of Anatomy, 49: 409-440.
10. Manteuffel-Szoege,
L., 1969. Remarks on blood flow. J. of Cardiovasc. Surg. 10: 22-30.
11. Pomerance,
A., Davies, M. 1975. Pathology of the Heart London, England: Blackwell
Scientific Publications, pp. 538-39.
12. Taylor,
D.E.M., J.D. Wade. 1973. Pattern of blood flow in the heart. Cardiovascular
Research 7:14-21.
13. Kilner
P.J., Z. Y. Guang, et al. 1993. Helical and retrograde secondary flow patterns
in the aortic arch studied by three-directional magnetic velocity mapping.
Circulation 88: 2235-2247.
14. Arbulu,
A., I. Asfaw. 1981. Tricuspid valvulectomy without prosthetic replacement. J.
Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 82: 684-691.
15. Werner,
J.A., H.L. Greene, et al. 1981. Visualization of cardiac valve motion in man during
external chest compression using two dimensional echocardiography. Circulation
63: 1417-1421.
16. Irisawa,
H., M. F., Wilson, R.F. Rushmer. 1960. Left ventricle as mixing chamber.
Circulation Research 8:183-87.
17. Brecher,G.A.
1956. Experimental evidence of ventricular diastolic suction. Circulation
Research 4:513-18.
18. Lowell,
L.B., L.S. Adamson. 1980. Relationship between blood flow direction and
endothelial cell orientation at arterial branch sites in rabbits and mice.
Circ. Res. 48: 481-488.
19. Stonebridge,
P.A., C. M. Brophy. 1991. Spiral flow in arteries? The Lancet 338:1360-61.
No comments:
Post a Comment