The lymphatic and cardiovascular systems

Introduction

The cardiovascular system is one of most important system in the human body . It includes the heart which in most cases becomes an indicator of life . The cardiovascular system connects with the lymphatic system and both system forms networks of tubes around our body that spans from the head to the toes . They are connected with each other in such a way that they form some sort of mutual relationship . The cardiovascular system provides fluid to the lymphatic system while the lymphatic system helps provides protection by creating antibodies . A careful

look at how the two systems works together is therefore a very interesting endeavor Cardiovascular System

Structure Overview

Figure 1 . Cardiovascular System (Rose , 2000

The cardiovascular system or otherwise known as the circulatory system ' consist of the blood vessels , the heart , and the blood that flows within it . The blood vessels are consists of interconnected networks of arteries , veins and capillaries . These vast networks spans from the head to the toes . The arteries are the larger blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood from the heart to the other parts of the body through the smaller networks called the capillaries . The blood after distributing oxygen , returns through the veins for re-oxygenation process . In figure 1 , the arteries are shown as large red colored blood vessels while the veins are shown as blue colored blood vessels . In our body , these blood vessels also look like the color indicated where the oxygen rich blood flows through the arteries taking up a red color while the oxygen deficient blood flows through the veins taking up bluish color

The networks of interconnected blood vessels are sometimes referred to as circulatory circuits because they form connections like electrical circuits . The circulatory system is divided into two circuits , the pulmonary circulation , which involves the right heart , delivers blood to and from the lungs and the systemic circulation , which involves the left heart , delivers blood into the other parts of the body (Rose , 2000

Function Details

The purpose of the circulatory system is to deliver oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the human body . The delivering of oxygen starts with the pulmonary circulation , where oxygen-poor blood is pumped by the right portion of the heart into the lungs through the pulmonary arteries . The lungs perform the oxygenation and removal of carbon dioxide from the blood . Oxygen-rich blood returns to the heart through the pulmonary vein . The left heart then delivers this oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body through the systemic circulation

The flow of oxygen-rich blood in the systemic circulation starts from the largest artery connected to the heart called the aorta . Arteries are basically strong and elastic able to withstand the changing pressure applied by the pumping of the heart (Rose , 2000 . The blood from the aorta distributes to smaller arteries . These arteries further divides into smaller tubes and eventually into finer arteries called arterioles These arterioles then connect to capillaries which are bathed with lymph , fluids produced by the lymphatic system...