Essay on Cardiovascular System

The cardiovascular system is made up of the blood vessels, heart, and blood. The blood contains waste, immune, nutrients, and oxygen all through the human body. The cardiovascular system also helps to fight diseases and maintain a stable internal environment through maintaining a proper temperature and pH. The heart is the central organ in the circulatory system and it acts as a muscular pump which propels blood throughout the body. A normal human being has a blood volume of 5 liters and it usually goes through the heart once in a minute. This frequency can change depending on a person's needs. For instance, the body requires more oxygen when exercising or frightened and it requires less blood when we are at rest. The heart is made up of four main blood vessels which are the pulmonic valve, pulmonary artery, aorta and vena cava.

There are two major circulatory loops in the human beings which are the systematic circulation loop and the pulmonary circulation loop (Herman, 2016). The systematic circulation loop transports blood that is rich in oxygen from the left side of the heart to all the body tissues except the heart and lungs. The systematic circulation also removes waste materials from the tissues in the body, and returns blood that lacks oxygen to the right side of the heart. The left ventricle and left atrium are the pumping chambers of the systematic circulation loop in the heart. The pulmonary circulation carries blood that lacks oxygen from the right part of the heart to the lungs where it gets oxygen and returns it to the left part of the heart. The pulmonary circulation loop is facilitated by the right ventricle and right ventricle atrium.

The blood vessels act as the bodys highway which allows blood to flow effectively from the heart to all the other body parts and back again. The blood vessels size is size is equivalent to the blood that goes through the vessel. The blood flows through the lumen which is found in all blood vessels. The lumen is surrounded by the wall of the vessel which is either thin for capillaries or very thick for the arteries.

The blood vessels are classified into three classes which are veins, arteries, and capillaries. The arteries usually carry blood away from the heart. The blood in the arteries is oxygenated blood which has comes from the lungs and is being transported to tissues in the body. However, the pulmonary trunk and arteries carry blood that lacks oxygen from the heart to the lungs to get oxygen (Naeije, 2010). The capillaries form the thinnest and the smallest of all the blood vessels in the human body. The capillaries are also the most common blood vessels and they are found in most of the body tissues. Capillaries facilitate the exchange of nutrients, gases and waste products between the blood and cells of the body tissues. The veins are the big return vessels of the body and they do the reverse work of the arteries. To enable the movement of the blood, some of the veins have a one-way valve that stops the blood from flowing away from the heart.

The cardiovascular system works closely with the other systems in the human body. It supplies nutrients and oxygen to the body together with the respiratory system. The heart and the blood vessels create an intricate network all over the human body. Arteries, capillaries, and veins all work together to keep all tissues healthy by supplying oxygen and nutrients and removing carbon dioxide and other types of waste from the bloodstream.

References

Herman, Irving P. "Cardiovascular system." Physics of the Human Body. Springer International Publishing, 2016. 533-621.Naeije, Robert. "Physiological adaptation of the cardiovascular system to high altitude." Progress in cardiovascular diseases 52.6 (2010): 456-466.