Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2019 December 25

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December 25[edit]

How do systemic hypertension causes to LVH?[edit]

By googling I found that many sites which state that the most common cause to LVH is high blood pressure (I assume they mean systemic blood pressure). It's difficult to me to understand it, because systemic blood pressure should influence on the right ventricle only, while the left ventricle gets its blood from the pulmonary vein which has totally different pressure system; so it should be under pulmonary hypertension. Isn't it? What important thing do I miss here? ThePupil (talk) 07:34, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've got your left and right circulations confused. The right side of the heart is a low pressure system, pumping blood to the lungs through the pulmonary artery, in which the normal mean pressure is 12-16 mmHg. The left ventricle's peak pressure is about 120 mmHg. - Nunh-huh 15:16, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I got my mistake and I understand it well now. Thank you.ThePupil (talk) 01:37, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
All standard diagrams show the heart from an observers point, located at the front of the specimen. Not surprisingly, L and R are reversed. I fervently hope that you are not a cardiac surgeon. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:15, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Easy way to understand this intuitively: it's easy to see from a diagram that the left ventricle is larger than the right, and this is because it needs to push blood out to the whole body, while the right ventricle only pushes it through the pulmonary circulation. The bigger one pumps blood to the systemic circulation. The heart is also a bit asymmetric because of this difference in size; the left ventricle protrudes caudally, producing the apex of the heart (a.k.a. the "pointy part"). --47.146.63.87 (talk) 08:36, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]