How the Heart Turns to Bone
In matters of the heart, a lot can go wrong. As we age, high blood pressure can overburden this tenacious muscle, causing stroke or heart failure. Smoking cigarettes may harm your heart and blood vessels, as well as damaging individual blood cells. Or the natural effects of old age can render the heart simply too weak to do its job, manifesting in tiredness, shortness of breath or even death. But the heart can also harden, its soft muscle changing into bone.