Circulatory System & Oxygen

(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)

 

In order for the oxygen to be delivered to the cell, it must go through a myriad of systems before it gets there. Oxygen travels through the lungs and the circulatory system before it reaches the cell. The oxygen enters the trachea (throat), splits off into two tubes supplying each lung, and then branches off into even smaller branches until these branches become microscopic in size. After many branching levels they end up in tiny bronchioles which bring the oxygen into little air sacs called alveoli. These air sacs are so tiny that the lung tissue in this area looks solid to the naked eye. Here is where the gas exchange takes place. It happens in these cell-sized bubbles.

Blood vessels surround the alveoli and the blood cells bend to fit into these bubbles. The blood grabs the oxygen molecules and carries them off into the blood stream. The blood is not, however, distributed evenly around these alveoli, which deliver the oxygen. When one is standing, the blood is thickest around the bottom of the lungs. However, gas exchange is greater in the upper portions of the lung. The degree of efficiency of oxygen transfer can be changed by compensating reflexes in the lungs, and the way a person habitually breathes.

Smoking is about the worst thing anyone can do to his or her breathing apparatus. Emphysema is the result of cigarette smoking and every smoker has it to some extent or another, even if the more serious symptoms of emphysema are not prevalent. Smoking breaks down the lining in the alveoli and this happens slowly over a period of years until a full-blown case of emphysema is evident. If the alveoli were flattened and spread out, they would cover the space of an entire floor of a house or apartment. This is why it takes so long for emphysema to show up. Pre-emphysema symptoms would be “shortness of breath” for not as many alveoli are being utilized as should be.

Hemoglobin molecules within red blood cells transport oxygen in the bloodstream or it is directly dissolved in the blood. Most of the oxygen is carried in the hemoglobin molecules. These molecules are made up of four protein chains attached to an atom of iron. Iron is what the oxygen is attracted to, and this bonding causes the blood to be bright red. When hemoglobin transports the waste material from the cells after the conversion of the fuel and oxygen, it carries CO2, causing the blood to be bluish. Arterial blood, the vessels that deliver the oxygen, tend to be in the inner parts of the body and these are red. Venus blood carries the waste products away and tends to be on the outer parts of the body. Venus blood is blue.

O2 and CO2 should be the only molecules that bind to hemoglobin, but sometimes there are other gases present in the air that can enter the bloodstream via the lungs. These gases can crowd out the O2 and cause a crisis. One of these is Carbon Monoxide, found in cigarette smoke and automobile exhaust. Carbon monoxide is 240 times more likely to attach to hemoglobin, and this results in a decreased amount of hemoglobin available to carry O2, creating a type of anemia. A person who smokes has somewhere between 5-15 % of his or her hemoglobin tied up in transporting carbon monoxide, a toxic substance, rather than carrying oxygen. Carbon Monoxide causes damage. It also hardens the arteries, leading to heart attacks and strokes.

If this is not knowledge that will cause you to stop smoking if you are a smoker, then nothing will. Even though this knowledge is quite prevalent, and every one knows that smoking causes these problems, still the epidemics of emphysema, heart attacks and strokes goes on. (To be fair, heart attacks and strokes can be caused by other factors as well.) This leads one to conclude that people who smoke may secretly harbor a death wish, even unbeknownst to themselves.

Once hemoglobin carries an oxygen molecule, it travels throughout the body and finds cells that need the oxygen. The driving force is the heart. The right side of the heart takes CO2 rich blood from the body and pumps it into the capillaries surround the alveoli in the lungs and gas exchange occurs. This blood then becomes oxygenated and the CO2 is expelled through the exhaled breath. This oxygenated blood is redistributed throughout the body by the left side of the heart.

The oxygenated blood moves into increasingly smaller blood vessels until it reaches some that are as small as the alveoli. A gas exchange similar to that in the lungs occurs between the cell and the hemoglobin. The cell takes the oxygen molecule and gives the hemoglobin the CO2. The blood again turns blue. The hemoglobin then travels into increasingly larger vessels until it goes through the right side of the heart and ends up in the lungs again.

The human circulatory system is a vital part of our health and well being. Circulatory system disease such as smoking emphysema is caused by carbon monoxide smoke. Hemogoblin which transports oxygen in the blood circulatory system contributes to the gas exchange in the lung. When smoking, the circulatory system anatomy deteriorates and hemogoblin transfer decreases. Through pranayama breathing, or yoga breathing, a controlled breathing technique is practiced in order to initiate a breathing meditation where yogic breathing increases the flow of prana shakti. Yoga pranayama, or prana yoga, increases breathing prana through the ujjayi pranayama technique and can heal the facility of the lung.