Elastic fibers: these consist of fibrillary scleroproteins and always form a network. They age over time, gradually losing elasticity. They are also subject to hysteresis, which means that, after being stretched, there is a delay before they return to their original length. After a certain age, or after longer-term extension, they can no longer return to their original state.
Elastic fiber networks can be found in the skin, vessels, lungs, elastic cartilage and in the capsules of various organs. Pregnancy stretch marks are a result of overextension and tearing of elastic and collagen fiber networks. [7]
1.2.3 Ground Substance
The ground substance is also formed from fibroblasts. It is the transmigration area of the individual nutritive substances from capillary to cell. Besides water, it contains electrolytes, amino acids, peptides, hormones, vitamins and various albuminous substances. Proteins are present in a saline state. The ground substance behaves thixotropically, i.e. it reacts to temperature and mechanical shear by liquefying. This thixotropy gives the system a degree of inertia which needs to be taken into account in Manual Lymph Drainage. The macromolecules of this substance are linked together into network structures, which can then be dissolved by heat and motion. Rapid application of pressure with inadequate warm-up can tear these substances (muscle tears caused by athletic exertion without prior warm-up).
But the proteins can also bind to other substances such as mucopolysaccharides and hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid acts as a mortar material, which also binds the filaments on the basement membrane of the lymph capillaries. Hyaluronidase, an enzyme also found in connective tissue, breaks down hyaluronic acid, thus liquefying the ground substance. Normally, there is a balanced relationship between continuous breakdown and re-synthesis of this substance.
Like proteins, mucopolysaccharides also have a great affinity for water; they are present in the ground substance in a gel state.
In addition, axons of the autonomic nervous system run through the ground substance, thus establishing a connection with all other regions of the human body.
Manual Lymph Drainage is a form of massage adapted to this kind of tissue, normalizing the function and composition of connective tissue. Fluids and dissolved substances can be shifted about extravascularly in any direction in the connective tissue.
The ground substance is the connective tissue's space-filling, semi-gelatinous, semi-fluid mortar mass.
Materials transport, which carries nutritive substances from the blood capillaries to the cells and waste and decomposition products back from the cells to the capillaries, takes place via the connective tissue. The connective tissue cells contain all the necessary enzymes for the production of collagen, elastin and polysaccharide proteins. They thus need to be properly nourished, a process in which the ground substance is involved. The ground substance is also the environment of the parenchymal cells. [8]
1.2.4 Adipose Tissue
Adipose tissue is simply another form of connective tissue. Fat is present in liquid form in the fat cells. The fat cells are fixed in place by elastic and collagen fibers.
A functional distinction is made between buffer fat and storage fat. Buffer fat has a static function and is not at first broken down for nutrient purposes during times of reduced food intake. Storage fat is found in subcutaneous tissue, the greater momentum and the peritoneum of the large intestine. It also protects the organism from hypothermia. This depot stores excess calories and makes them available to the organism in times of low nutritional intake.
Connective tissue regulates energetic processes, as well as physio-chemical and electrical sequences of events. Unconscious and undifferentiated vital functions such as water, mineral and energy balance take place in the connective tissue. As a storage depot, it takes up salts, vitamins, fats, water and hormones. The human body's general nonspecific defensive measures are based in connective tissue.
It is the physical nutrient depot for fats in the fat cells and for carbohydrates in the polysaccharides. This storage function of the polysaccharides is significantly greater than that of glycogen in the liver.
Water is present in the blood and lymph systems and is hydrodynami-cally active in the connective tissue. But it is also stored inactively and bound by the fibrils of mucopolysaccharide molecules.
Connective tissue has tremendous regenerative capacity. When organ tissue dies, fibroblasts multiply and function as stopgaps. Vitamins and minerals are also stored in connective tissue. Connective tissue is distributed throughout the entire organism and can thus fulfill its double role as transport medium and storage depot for all the body's cells. Thus, the necessary nutrients are available to all cells at all times. If metabolic waste products accumulate, the tissue's function is impaired. In the early stages, this leads to cosmetic defects; in more advanced cases, it causes pathological health disorders.
1.3 Dynamic Tissue: Blood, Lymph
The human body is two-thirds fluid. Water content is 60 % of body weight, plus or minus a few percentage points depending on age and gender. The fluids are distributed throughout various regions of the body.
Blood, for its part, has a liquid and a cellular component, and makes up about 6 % of body weight.
The extracellular fluid volume consists of the transcellular region (composed of cerebrospinal fluid, joint fluid and glandular secretions, comprising about 20 % of body weight) and an additional 20 % interstitial component.
The intracellular fluid volume, found in the individual cells, makes up about 50 % of human body weight.
These figures are all approximate, since it is very difficult to measure the individual components accurately, due to the continual exchange taking place among them.
Nutrients can only be transported in a fluid environment. To a certain extent, the state of the transport system is a mirror of our health. All substances transported by the blood must traverse the connective tissue to get to the cells; contrariwise, the cell's waste products are sent for elimination to the blood or lymph via the connective tissue. Manual Lymph Drainage works directly with and on this transport mechanism.
1.3.1 The Cardiovascular System
Starting in the left chamber of the heart, blood is pumped through the aorta, then via arteries and arterioles to the precapillaries and finally the capillaries in the periphery. The capillary system is the transition region between the arterial and the venous system. From the venous capillaries, the blood goes to the venoles and then the veins and finally, via many intermediate destinations, to the heart's right chamber.
This is now where the “small” circulatory cycle begins, as the right chamber of the heart pumps the blood into the lungs. As in the capillaries, oxygen exchange takes place in the pulmonary alveoles, as C02 is released and fresh oxygen is taken up. More precisely, oxygen reacts with hemoglobin to form oxyhemoglobin, which is transported to the capillaries. There, the oxygen is released and diffuses into the tissues. C02, on the other hand, is taken into the watery portion of the blood as a dissolved gas. Thus, the arteries are the inflow to the tissues, while the veins are the outflow of this transport system.
But the veins carry off more than just oxygen-poor blood from the connective tissue, such as low-molecular-weight substances, salts, gases and minerals.
We also possess another drainage system, namely the lymphatic system, in which the lymph-obligatory load is carried away. These are large-molecule substances such as proteins and large-molecular fats, as well as immobile cells, cellular detritus, waste products, bacteria, viruses, excess water and inorganic materials.