Episode 2: The Spark of Life
The past 50 years have brought enormous advances in our ability to understand the precisely timed dance that squeezes the heart muscle and pushes out blood to the lungs and the rest of the body. Dramatic new treatments have been developed to help sustain its vital rhythm and to prolong life. These treatments, in turn, have inspired new, very modern dilemmas for patients and doctors alike. Even with advances, arrhythmias lead to 300,000 cases of sudden cardiac death in America each year.
In this hour, learn how the body's internal electrical system synchronizes the four chambers of the heart pushing blood throughout the entire body - once a second, 100,000 times a day, three billion times over a lifetime.
