ALTHOUGH the breakdown of relationships can cause “heartaches,” many reasons for heartaches are normally not felt. Sometimes, they just happen silently inside the heart, making it a deadly assassin inside the human body. One such potential assassin is the left atrial appendage (LAA), particularly in people with irregular heartbeats.
The LAA is a small ear-like sac found in the muscle wall of the left atrium, the upper chamber in the left side of the heart. When the heart contracts (each heart contraction results into a heartbeat), the blood in the left atrium, including that found in the LAA, is squeezed out into the left ventricle, which is the left bottom chamber of the heart.
So far, researchers have no idea of the LAA’s function. However, it does increase the reservoir capacity of the upper chamber for blood because this structure is distensible.
Nevertheless, in persons with atrial fibrillation (irregular heart rhythm beginning at the upper chambers of the heart), the electrical impulses controlling the perfect rhythm of the heartbeat fire simultaneously. This causes the heart to move faster but uncoordinated due to chaotic impulse firing. As a result, the upper chambers cannot react enough to contract and squeeze the blood into the lower chambers.
Because the LAA is technically a minute pouch, some blood gets trapped inside it and clots (thrombus).
When these clots dislodge into the blood stream, that can block smaller blood vessels in critical parts of the body, such as the brain blood vessels and even the blood vessels supplying the muscles of the heart. When that happens, the person can die of heart attack (ischemic stroke).
However, investigations by 10 medical doctors (Quang Tan Phan and colleagues) from three university hospitals in South Korea (Chung-Ang University Hospital and Korea University Guro Hospital) and Vietnam (Quang Nam Central General Hospital) found that the procedure mostly results in an enlargement of the left atrium in terms of dimension (size), volume (capacity) and filling pressure (volume index), which may have potential problems because it becomes unnaturally larger compared to the right atrium.
These potential problems are still unknown today. Well, of course, except for the cultural association of having a “big heart” as with great generosity. Former NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson believed the same thing about his mother: “I have the smile and charisma of my mother and the big heart of my mom because she wants to save the world and help the world.”