Definition of the Cardiovascular System – Introduction to the Cardiovascular System

00:01 Hello I am Joseph Alpert, and I am here to lecture in the series vascular medicine. We are going to start with some basics and then we will move on to more advanced. Let's start with an overview of a cardiovascular system. Here are our learning objectives.

00:17 1. What is the cardiovascular system? 2. What does it consist of? 3. How does it work? Let's start with an overview of the cardiovascular system, with some definition and also some functions. So let's start with definition. What is the cardiovascular system? It's the organ system that permits blood to circulate throughout the body and it transports nutrients, gases, hormones, and blood cells to and from every cell in the body. In other words, it's essential for the well being of the cells in our body. In terms of function, the cardiovascular system provides nourishment, it carries various nourishing substances to the cells. It helps in fighting disease in that it transports molecules that fight bacteria and viruses and also cells that do the same thing. It's stabilizes the temperature and the pH within the body so that you have the same temperature and pH on the tips of your fingers as on the tips of your toes and it helps to maintain homeostasis, that is stability of the internal environment.