Ilene S. Ruhoy, MD, PhD
Chief Medical Officer
Our heart beats 60 to 80 times per minute. It may go higher when we exercise or lower when we sleep. Each beat pumps blood out of a large vessel called the aorta and sends it on its way to all the arteries and arterioles that feed every piece of every organ of our body. These pieces of tissue extract oxygen and nutrients from the blood, both important for functioning. Nutrients play critical roles as substrates and co-factors for all the enzymes and their reactions that work to maintain homeostasis of our organ systems. And oxygen is necessary for these cells to function at all. Oxygen itself is carried by proteins that require an appropriate nutritional state of our body.