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Lymphsystem (Video)

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Dr. Ann Shippy

Board Certified Internal Medicine and Functional Medicine Physician. Austin, Texas.

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All About the Lymphatic System

What’s the one system in the body connected to everything else and essential for cardiovascular health, immunity, and detoxification?

Hint: We don’t talk about it much, and we need to talk about it more. 

It’s the lymphatic system!

Maybe you’ve heard about lymphatic massage or jumping on a trampoline to move lymph.

Still, most of the time, we don’t dive into lymph in medical conversations, even though dysfunction in the lymphatic system contributes to a host of symptoms and chronic disease.

And promoting lymph flow and restoring lymphatic health may be key pieces to healing.

Today’s article will cover the lymph system in detail.

You’ll learn more about the answers to these questions:

  • What is the lymphatic system?
  • What’s the difference between lymph, lymph nodes, and lymphatic drainage? 
  • What does the lymphatic system do?
  • What goes wrong with the lymphatic system?
  • How can you improve and support the lymphatic system? 

What Is the Lymphatic System?

The lymphatic system, or lymphatic drainage system, is a network of vessels, nodes, and organs that move a water-based fluid called lymph.

The flow of lymph through the lymphatic system is analogous to blood flow through veins.

However, unlike the cardiovascular system, where the heart pumps blood, lymph moves based on a pressure gradient and by body movements and muscle contractions. 

The lymphatic system is composed of:

  • Lymph vessels – tubes that transport lymph
  • Lymph – the colorless, watery liquid that transports nutrients and waste from cells back to the bloodstream
  • Lymph nodes – lymphatic tissue that houses immune cells and filters lymph. There are around 600 lymph nodes in the body. 
  • Lymphatic organs – organs containing lymphatic tissue include the spleen, thymus, tonsils, Peyer’s patches in the small intestine, and the appendix
  • Lymphocyte – a type of white blood cell that includes B cells and T cells and is part of the immune system. Lymphocytes are concentrated in the lymphatic system and found in the blood and other tissues.
  • Lymphatic muscles – composed of muscle cells specific to the lymph system that contract to move lymph

You’ll find the lymphatic system throughout the body, including the brain, where it plays a critical role in how the body functions. 

What Does the Lymphatic System Do? 

A primary role of the lymphatic system is to remove toxins and waste from cells.

It’s a critical part of the body’s clean-up crew! 

Because the lymph system connects to all other systems in the body, it plays many essential roles, including: 

  • Maintains fluid balance and homeostasis 
  • Protects the body from pathogens 
  • Transports fats and fat-soluble vitamins from the digestive system into circulation 
  • Restores protein and fluid fro
  • Maintains fluid balance and homeostasis 
  • Protects the body from pathogens 
  • Transports fats and fat-soluble vitamins from the digestive system into circulation 
  • Restores protein and fluid from spaces between cells back into circulation
  • Detoxification

A relatively new discovery about the lymphatic system is that it exists in the brain and nervous system – called the glymphatic system, where it clears waste and may be necessary for preventing dementia.

A Blog from the Past – Another Friend Gone

 auntyuta  Diary, Life in Australia, Memories  January 16, 2013 1 Minute

This is about an elderly couple, both born in 1933, just a few months older than Peter is and I am. We’ve known them for ages. When we moved, we lost touch for a while. Then we found out they had moved too. It turned out they lived not far away from where we lived. Indeed, what a surprise this was! They had moved into a very beautiful new home in a village for the elderly. From then on we started seeing each other about once a month for coffee and cake and a few games of Rummy. They always enjoyed playing this game with us. We had some good times together. Both of them suffered some ill-health; we thought the husband more so than the wife. We couldn’t see them for quite some time because the husband apparently was in a bad way, so the wife said on the phone not to come and visit. Should we have made an effort to see them anyway? Instead, I always waited for them to tell us when we could see them again. I wrote them a Christmas card. They knew that we had gone overseas for a while and that one of our daughters had died shortly before we left. So I wrote in the card a bit about our overseas trip and that we were now back home again. When we didn’t hear from them, I should have made a phone-call finding out how they were. But I didn’t ring. Why do I tend to put off phone-calls like this?

Then, yesterday, we got a phone-call from one of their sons. “Mum died last Friday,” he said. I thought I hadn’t heard right. “Did you say your Mum died?” I asked. He confirmed it and explained the funeral service would be on Friday at 11 o’clock at the Catholic Church in Dapto with the funeral procession going to the Memorial Park in Dapto after the service. And he said all the details were in the Illawarra Mercury if we wanted to have a look. “How’s your Dad?” I asked. His response was that he’s very shocked. But the family is with him. They are of Dutch origin and have a large family in Australia and overseas.

8 likes

15 thoughts on “Another Friend gone”

auntyuta EditYour sister, Peter, is a very courageous woman!

backonmyownEditI’m so sorry for the loss of your friend, Uta.Reply

auntyuta EditThanks, Pat.Reply

catterelEditThat is very sad news – and must have been a shock. But you mustn’t blame yourself for not being in touch. My sympathy, Uta.Reply

auntyuta EditThanks very much, Cat, for your comforting words. Our thoughts are very much with their sons and families who are spread all over Australia, and especially with the husband who’s left behind and who’s very sick himself.Reply

Three Well BeingsEditI was thinking this week about the number of people I know who are in various stages of grief right now. When we know so many who have lost dear friends and family it is very hard. My best to you.Reply

auntyuta EditThanks, dear Debra, for your kind words. At my age there aren’t many people still alive who are older than I am. When we came on the boat to Australia Peter and I were just about the youngest couple on board with children. Now, where-ever we go we’re nearly always the oldest! I can’t believe that next year I’m going to turn 80. But this is how it is!Reply

berlioz1935EditI agree with everything you have to say in your blog, “Another Friend gone”. But don’t worry AuntyUta, they wanted their privacy and did not feel like entertaining or discussing the state of their health.What we have now is the good memory of being together with them often. Her passing reminded me of the German movie “Cherry Blossoms” where the husband was the one in bad health, but still his wife passed away before him.Life is like that, that it throws up new problems suddenly and all we really can do is hoping that we can cope. For me the prospected of being separated from each other after our long marriage is a horrible one.Reply

auntyuta EditThanks, Peter. 🙂Reply

Zen and Genki EditI’m so sorry to hear of your loss, Aunty.Reply

auntyuta EditThank you, Anne. This death notice was a bit of a shock for us.Reply

WordsFallFromMyEyes EditDeath. Shock. It’s always a shock: there/not there. And you had written and not heard from her. She was alive when you wrote, now not. It truly is such a shock.I hope you are coping okay. I did not realise one of your daughters had died just before you went overseas. I am sorry for that too, Aunty Uta. I have only had one death in my life that mattered – none of the others did. So I haven’t really experienced it much. It really would just – yes, simply, shock.Reply

auntyutaEditThanks, Noeleen, for commenting. We went to the funeral on Friday. This was the very hot day, 45 Degrees in the early afternoon! Still, a lot of people had come to the funeral. A lady, who used to be their neighbours and who’s well into her eighties now, had come too. She used to be a good friend of ours too. But we hadn’t seen her in more than twenty years! She talked to us after she had talked to the grieving husband. It was as though we had only seen her yesterday. Than we talked to the husband for a bit too. One of their sons who is our son’s age, came over to us for a little bit. He explained that his mum had been left for the past three years with one rather sick lung. There’s a big name for this sickness which I can’t remember. This was before the church service,which was a Catholic Mass. One section of the church was packed full.
In the afternoon of that Friday Peter and I went to Wollongong for a scheduled Body.Cooperative meeting. Nearly all the home owner residents turned up for the meeting despite the heat. Since Saturday the temperature is back in the twenties.
Peter and I had a very quiet weekend. From next Thursday on we’re going to be very busy again. Peter’s older sister, who lives in Austria, is back in hospital again. It looks like she’s not going to make it much longer. I think the family is prepared for this.Reply

berlioz1935EditIt looks we had a bad trot with funerals lately. But at our age we have to expect that. The previous generation is gone and now it is us, our friends and so on.My sister is in a bad shape, but she is still smiling and she thinks the medical profession is crazy to want to prolong her life. In fact they have with great skill since the mid-seventies. But now, she has enough.Reply