Your heart does many wonderful things—we say we “feel something in our heart,” for example, or we “give our heart” to the person we love.

From a medical standpoint, the heart is a highly complex organ—the principal organ that keeps you alive. It’s basically a pump made out of muscle that has two chambers, two valves, and a powerful electrical conduction system that keeps it beating and doing its job.

The heart’s primary job is to pump blood into your lungs for oxygen and then through your arteries, veins, and capillaries. When it’s working properly, you don’t give much thought to it. But because of its complex structure and its critical importance, when it functions poorly the consequences are usually serious and sometimes even life-threatening.

The term “heart disease” can refer to a wide range of conditions. Some of these conditions can be present at birth (congenital), while other forms of heart disease can be acquired at any point throughout life.