• Question: How much blood does an average heart of adult pump?

    Asked by you cant see me to Theresia, Duane, Andy on 13 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Duane Mellor

      Duane Mellor answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      I think the stroke volume (amount pumped out each beat is about 60-80ml so if your heart beats 60 time a minute that is 3.6l per minute or about 5000l per day!

    • Photo: Andrew Philp

      Andrew Philp answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      The amount of blood that your heart pumps out each minute is called your cardiac output. You cardiac output is based on the stroke volume (the amount of blood from the heart in each heartbeat), multiplied by the heart rate per minute. Like Duane says, resting stroke volume is on average 60-80mls and your resting heart rate on average between 60-80 beats per minute. So resting cardiac output is somewhere between 3.6L and 6.4L. With exercise our heart rate can increase to higher than 200 beats per minute, and stroke volume increases as the strength of each heart beat increases. This combined effect means that cardiac output could potentially reach ~30L per minute which is pretty incredible don’t you think!!!

Comments