About this Book

Our cardiovascular system is composed of a central pumping device - the heart muscles - and a blood vessel pipeline, consisting of arteries, veins and capillaries. The heart muscles pump blood through the blood vessel system to deliver oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body. The blood vessel system is over 60,000 miles long and has a surface of more than half an acre. The 60 - 100 trillion cells in the body depend on the frictionless flow of blood through this vast network of channels.

The tiny blood capillaries, which have the thickness of one tenth of a human hair, are of particular importance to the body. Unlike the arteries, capillaries permit oxygen, water, and nutrients to pass through their thin walls in order to bring nourishment to the surrounding tissues. At the same time, they have to allow certain cellular waste to return to the blood so that it can be excreted from the body. If the capillary network becomes congested for reasons explained below, the heart has to pump the blood with greater pressure to reach all the different parts of the body. This considerably increases the heart's workload and makes its muscles tense and tired. In due time, the exertion of the heart leads to stress and fatigue and impairs all major functions in the body.

Since the blood capillaries are also responsible for nourishing the muscle cells of the arteries, a reduced supply of oxygen, water, and nutrients will gradually injure and destroy arteries. To counteract this form of involuntary self-destruction, the body responds with inflammation. The inflammation response, which is often mistaken for and treated as a disease, is actually one of the body's best methods to increase the blood supply and deliver vital nutrients to promote growth of new cells and repair damaged connective tissue. However, continuous inflammatory responses eventually generate sizable lesions in the arteries, which, in turn, lead to the development of atherosclerotic deposits. Hardening of arteries (atherosclerosis) is commonly believed to be the main cause of heart disease, although this is, as new studies have shown, not entirely true.