Every day your heart pumps 4,300 gallons of blood through your body via a complex network of blood vessels known as the vascular system. These blood vessels include arteries, which bring blood containing oxygen and nutrients to the various organs and tissues of the body, and veins, which drain the blood from the organs and tissues and carry it back to the heart. Laid end to end, all the blood vessels in your body would stretch some 60,000 miles. Diseases of the vascular system are common and can cause significant disability and, sometimes, death.
Major disorders affecting the arteries fall into several categories.
Aneurysms represent a weakness in an artery wall, commonly the aorta, the major artery exiting the heart. The area fills with blood, balloons out, and in severe cases, eventually ruptures. Blood clots can develop in arteries or veins, causing a blockage where they form or traveling in the bloodstream to cause a blockage elsewhere. Inherited structural abnormalities , which impair the efficiency with which blood drains from the legs back to the heart, are the most common condition. Published under license from Houghton Mifflin Company.