The series begins by looking at diseases affecting the circulatory system, a major cause of death in the UK. Von Hagens and Lee explain that rather than life hanging by a thread, it hangs by a tube. In particular they demonstrate the complex network of blood vessels that deliver oxygen to our vital organs. If some of these narrow, harden, become blocked or burst, they can damage the heart and end in what we understand as a heart attack.
The series begins by looking at diseases affecting the circulatory system, a major cause of death in the UK. Von Hagens and Lee explain that rather than life hanging by a thread, it hangs by a tube. In particular they demonstrate the complex network of blood vessels that deliver oxygen to our vital organs. If some of these narrow, harden, become blocked or burst, they can damage the heart and end in what we understand as a heart attack.
In the second programme of the series von Hagens and Lee take a look at cancer. They illuminate the difficulties of diagnosing and treating a disease that is a result of the body's own cells multiplying uncontrollably. Von Hagens dissects a woman who died of bowel cancer to reveal the site of the primary tumour and the other parts of her body that it affected. He also reveals the silent spread of tumours in the frozen body of a woman who died from breast cancer.