The Cardiovascular System and Blood

The Cardiovascular System and Blood 

HEART
Your heart is a four-chamber holding and receiving organ with a system of valves that allow blood in and out. You have two chambers on the right and two chambers on the left. The upper chambers are called atrials and the lower, larger chambers are called ventricles. Fresh, oxygenated blood comes from the pulmonary arteries into the upper left atrial and moves through the mitral valve into the lower left chamber (left ventricle), then out into the body to feed and oxygenate. This blood comes back around after making its journey through miles of the vascular system, back into the upper right arterial, then down to the right ventricle, and then off to the lungs for more oxygen. Your adrenal glands play a major role in how strongly the heart pumps, and in its rhythm. The heart is said to be a pump, but actually gets its pressure from the lungs.
VASCULAR SYSTEM
Although arteries, capillaries and veins are not organs or glands, they are a link to every cell in your body, including those that form organs and glands. Their job is to carry vital fuels and building materials to all the cells. Your vascular system carries your physical life force, the blood. Blood is used to transport nutrition, hormones, enzymes, oxygen, antioxidants, etc. It works with your lymphatic system in helping remove cellular and metabolic wastes, and can dramatically affect your body temperatures. The health of your cells depends upon the health and strength of your vascular system and the blood that flows through it.
Vessels: Arteries, Capillaries, Veins
ARTERIES — These carry fresh oxygenated blood (which is also “nutrient-rich”) from your lungs via the pulmonary arteries, to the heart; then throughout your body to all the cells, tissues, organs and glands.
CAPILLARIES—Capillaries are tiny (minute) vessels that connect the smallest arteries (called arterioles) to the beginnings of the smallest veins (called venules). Oxygen and other elements are now exchanged for carbon dioxide, other gases and metabolic wastes. These are carried through the venous system back to your lungs, kidneys and colon for elimination. Blood capillary walls consist of only one single layer of squamous cells (endothelium).
VEINS — As previously stated, your venous system carries carbon dioxide, cellular wastes and other toxins from the cells and interstitial areas back to the lungs and other eliminative organs to be eliminated. This is a constant cycle that runs night and day, 365 days a year, until death. An acidic diet, excessive “glue-like” foods (like refined starches), chemicals, heavy metals, minerals, and a lack of calcium utilization (from an underactive thyroid gland), all cause damage to this vital system. Your vascular walls are sensitive to inflammation from acids that are ingested or that are a by-product of metabolism. If this inflammation goes unchecked by steroids (from the adrenal glands), it can cause cholesterol plaquing. This leads to occlusions (blockages) that can cause heart attacks, strokes, tissue death and systemic death.
BLOOD
Blood and chlorophyll are the liquid nectars of life; the life force condensed into nutrients, fuels, building and repair materials, and the like. Without them, plant, animal and human life would come to an end. All creatures in nature have some sort of “blood” or “life force” that sustains their physical body.
Your blood consists of formed elements and plasma. The formed elements include red blood cells (erythrocytes), white blood cells (leukocytes) and platelets (thrombocytes). The plasma consists of 92 percent water and 8 percent of various substances including nutrients, proteins, ions, gases, metabolic by-products, etc. The chart on the following page will give you an overview of what’s in your blood serum.
The blood contains two basic types of cells: erythrocytes and leukocytes.
Erythrocytes
Erythrocytes are red blood cells (RBCs). They are red because of their hemoglobin content. The heme part of the hemoglobin carries one iron atom, which binds to one oxygen molecule, giving it the red color. The globin (a protein) bonds to carbon dioxide. Erythrocytes transport oxygen and carbon dioxide. Combined with its hemoglobin, these cells transport 97 percent of your systemic oxygen and 92 percent systemic carbon dioxide. An enzyme called carbonic anhydrase, found in erythrocytes, catalyzes (changes) carbon dioxide into hydrogen and bicarbonate ions. This is for transportation purposes, as carbon dioxide lowers the body’s pH, making it more acidic. The lungs convert hydrogen and bicarbonic ions back into carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide now can be exhaled without creating excessive acidosis in the body.

Leukocytes
Leukocytes are white blood cells (WBCs). These are immune cells and are covered under the Immune System section of this chapter. The four types of leukocytes are: neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes (macrophages), eosinophils and mast cells.
Erythrocytes (RBCs) and leukocytes (WBCs) are derived from what are called stem cells. Your blood carries many substances that are vital to the health of your body via its cells. It also carries metabolic and cellular wastes and by-products.
Your body is always seeking to maintain an alkaline/acid balance. Alkalinity dominates all fluids and tissues, except in the stomach. Your blood plays a vital role in this balancing process, from breaking down carbon dioxide to supplying electrolytes, steroids (lipids), etc. One of the best examples of this balancing process is the way the red blood cells, through carbonic anhydrase, first convert cellular and systemic carbon dioxide (acidic) into bicarbonate ions (alkaline), and then convert these back to carbon dioxide when these ions reach the lungs.

As stated earlier, humans belong to the frugivore species, which is an alkaline species. The chart on the previous page points out where alkaline fluids predominate in the human body, and the damaging effects of acidosis in these various areas.
When your diet is predominantly acid forming, your hormones become out of balance, your food then ferments and putrefies instead of properly digesting, and excessive mucus and inflammation is produced. Your blood becomes toxic and your lymphatic system becomes clogged. This is called disease by many.
Always keep your body alkaline, toxic free, and clean—internally, as well as externally. This creates true health and vitality.