Function of the arteries

Adults have an average of between 5 and 6 liters of blood in our body. The trick to find out our exact amount is to divide our weight by 13; thus, a man or woman weighing 65 kilos will have about 5 liters of blood. It is curious if we stop to think about it, but more curious to know that all this amount of blood is in continuous movement within us, going back and forth to our heart through the veins and arteries. The latter, specifically, are responsible for transporting all the blood from the heart to the rest of the body and do so for good reasons. In this article of .com we explain the functions of the arteries, tiny ducts in our interior that keep us alive.

What are the arteries?

As explained above, arteries are the vessels that carry blood from the heart to the other parts of our body, forming along with veins and other organs, such as the heart, which is known as the circulatory system. This system is responsible for transporting oxygen and nutrients to all cells in our body, keep moving the cells of the immune system and proteins, and remove carbon dioxide and products that we do not need inside us. That is, it is a circuit by which we obtain what is necessary to stay alive and discard what we do not need.

The arteries are born from the ventricles of our organs and are incredibly resistant and elastic. In fact, both arteries and veins have the ability to regenerate when pierced by a sharp object (for example, a needle) or cut. Its visual aspect would be like that of a large tree extremely branched and each of these twigs is composed of three layers: the external or adventitious, the middle and the internal or intimate. Each of them conformed, in turn, by different types of tissues.

What are the functions of the arteries?

The functions of the arteries, like those of the veins, is how we explained transferring the blood from the capillary vessels to the heart. This is the essential part of the circulatory system, the system in charge of keeping the motor of our body going. Any type of system failure can be, therefore, fatal to our life.

Thus, the main function of the arteries is to serve as a transport to the blood, helping it to move from all parts of the body to the heart. But for what? Well, so that every inch of us (each and every one of our cells) receives through the blood the oxygen and nutrients that it needs to live. All a messenger network in our interior.

But not only that, as we explained earlier when talking about the circulatory system, the arteries also function as a kind of waste collection service of our body: they are responsible for removing carbon dioxide from our interior and maintaining physiological ph in their correct levels.

In the next article, we explain what is the difference between arteries and veins.

The main arteries

Our body houses two large systems of arteries. The first of these is called the aorta artery and is the main artery of the human body. From the aorta, which arises from the left ventricle of the heart, the carotid arteries, bronchial arteries, the renal, lumbar, coronary and genital arteries are born. That is, it goes from the heart, down the abdomen to the fourth lumbar vertebra, bifurcates into two so-called primitive arteries that move through the pelvis to reach the part of the rectum.

Second, we have the arteries of the pulmonary system. This system transports blood that, instead of containing oxygen, contains carbon dioxide. Unlike the previous system, the pulmonary arteries are born from the right ventricle of the heart and are divided into two branches that end in the lungs: the right and left pulmonary artery.