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There are five types of blood vessels: the arteries, which carry the blood away from the heart; the arterioles; the capillaries, where the exchange of water and chemicals between the blood and the tissues occurs; the venules; and the veins, which carry blood from the capillaries back towards the heart.
Arteries branch into small passages called arterioles and then into the capillaries. [19] The capillaries merge to bring blood into the venous system. [20] The total length of muscle capillaries in a 70 kg human is estimated to be between 9,000 and 19,000 km. [21]
The anatomy of arteries can be separated into gross anatomy, at the macroscopic level, and microanatomy, which must be studied with a microscope.The arterial system of the human body is divided into systemic arteries, carrying blood from the heart to the whole body, and pulmonary arteries, carrying deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs.
In the mesentery, metarterioles form an additional stage between arterioles and capillaries. Individual capillaries are part of the capillary bed, an interweaving network of capillaries supplying tissues and organs. The more metabolically active a tissue is, the more capillaries are required to supply nutrients and carry away products of ...
The process depends on the difference of gradients between the interstitium and blood, with molecules moving to low concentrated spaces from high concentrated ones. [8] Glucose, amino acids, oxygen ( O 2 ) and other molecules exit capillaries by diffusion to reach the organism's tissues.
In a healthy vascular system, the endothelium lines all blood-contacting surfaces, including arteries, arterioles, veins, venules, capillaries, and heart chambers. This healthy condition is promoted by the ample production of nitric oxide by the endothelium, which requires a biochemical reaction regulated by a complex balance of polyphenols, various nitric oxide synthase enzymes and L-arginine.
The smaller arteries and arterioles have higher resistance, and confer the main blood pressure drop across major arteries to capillaries in the circulatory system. Illustration demonstrating how vessel narrowing, or vasoconstriction, increases blood pressure. In the arterioles blood pressure is lower than in the major arteries.
In 1920, August Krogh was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovering the mechanism of regulation of capillaries in skeletal muscle. [6] [7] Krogh was the first to describe the adaptation of blood perfusion in muscle and other organs according to demands through the opening and closing of arterioles and capillaries.