Blood Vessels

Blood vessels are 100,000 kilometers of your body's highways that allow blood to flow quickly and efficiently from the heart to every region of the body and back again. The size of blood vessels corresponds with the amount of blood that passes through the vessel. All blood vessels contain a hollow area called the lumen through which blood is able to flow. Around the lumen is the wall of the vessel, which may be thin in the case of capillaries or very thick in the case of arteries. Types of Blood vessels are Arteries, Capillaries, Vain and Sinusoid.

• Arteries are elastic vessels that transport oxygen rich blood away from the heart, where they need to go.
• Capillaries are extremely thinner than hair vessels located within the tissues of the body that transport blood from the arteries to the veins.
• Veins are elastic vessels that carry deoxygenated blood to the lungs where they receive oxygen and transport oxygen reach blood to the heart.
• Sinusoids are extremely small vessels located within the liver, spleen and bone marrow.