What is vascular disease?
Your vascular system is a vast network of blood vessels that includes arteries and veins and the small blood vessels that connect them, called capillaries. It stretches throughout your body ensuring a steady supply of blood gets to your tissues and organs. Vascular diseases can interrupt or halt this supply.
A variety of conditions can affect your vascular system. Treatment options, ranging from healthy lifestyle changes and medications to minimally invasive procedures and open vascular surgeries, are available to help your blood continue getting where it needs to go—and protect your heart, brain and other organs, as well as extremities like your arms and legs.
Understanding your vascular system
Your vascular system is a closed loop where the heart, after receiving oxygenated blood from the lungs, sends the blood to organs and tissues through arteries and capillaries. Deoxygenated blood returns to the heart, where it’s routed back to the lungs to pick up oxygen and start the process over again.
When blood leaves the heart, it enters smaller and smaller arteries until it reaches the capillaries. After delivering its important contents and picking up the cells’ waste, blood follows the opposite pattern—it enters progressively larger veins on its trip back to the heart.
Throughout your vascular system, blood flows in only one direction, which helps keep the system functioning smoothly and efficiently.
The vascular system has three main parts:
- Arteries carry blood containing oxygen, nutrients, hormones, and other important ingredients to cells in your organs and tissues.
- Capillaries deliver oxygen and other contents through their walls into the body’s cells. The cells send carbon dioxide and other waste products into the capillaries, which transfer these materials to the veins.
- Veins take blood—now without oxygen but carrying waste materials—back to the heart. The heart sends blood through the pulmonary artery to the lungs to restock with oxygen.
Types of vascular disease
Some vascular diseases affect your arteries, while others impact your veins. These diseases can also happen in certain parts of your body.
What causes vascular disease?
You can’t control certain vascular disease risk factors, such as getting older or having a family history of these diseases. You can, however, change or manage many other factors that increase your risk, including:
- Diabetes
- Excess body weight
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Lack of physical activity
- Smoking
Vascular disease treatment
Many effective treatments are available for vascular diseases, and a skilled heart and vascular team can help determine the most appropriate one for you. In some cases, time is of the essence. If you have a stroke or a “mini stroke” (TIA), you need emergency treatment. With other vascular diseases, such as varicose veins or peripheral artery disease, you may have more time to plan treatment with your physician.
If you’re diagnosed with a form of vascular disease, don’t delay seeking treatment. Acting quickly can protect your health, mobility, independence and ability to enjoy your favorite activities. With the right experts providing guidance and support, you can manage vascular disease for a healthier future.
Treatments for vascular diseases include:
- Lifestyle changes: Following a healthy eating plan, getting more exercise, quitting smoking and maintaining a healthy weight
- Medications: For preventing blood clots or managing high blood pressure and other vascular disease risk factors
- Vascular surgery: Minimally invasive procedures, such as angioplasty, or open surgeries, can restore blood flow in blocked blood vessels or repair or bypass damaged blood vessels
Find a location near you
You can access care for vascular diseases at our many locations in North and Central Texas. If you need a procedure or vascular surgery, we can coordinate your care at the location best suited to your needs.
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