The importance of Carbon dioxide
When speaking of breathing, the first thing most people think about is the oxygen. But carbon dioxide is actually just as important, which not many people know about. Every cell in our body needs a certain concentration of dioxide emissions – around 6.5 percent – in order to maintain a normal life. When human life first began on the planet the atmosphere had a different composition than today, there were over 20 percent carbon dioxide in the air. Carbon dioxide concentration has fallen sharply, and now there is only three hundredths of a percent in the air. The human body has had to compensate for this gradual decline, and it has done so by creating an internal air environment in the small vesicles, the alveoli, inside the lungs.
Carbon dioxide and healthy breathing
During normal, healthy breathing, these alveoli contain around 6.5 percent carbon dioxide. When we inhale and exhale normally, there is 6.5 percent carbon dioxide in the lungs in balance with the oxygen that we need to live. An important factor that greatly affects the levels of carbon dioxide in the lungs is “over breathing”, or hyperventilation. If we breathe in an air volume that is too large for the body’s needs, we breathe out carbon dioxide too soon, and the lungs are not capable of maintaining the correct level in the alveolis. When it gets too small amount of carbon dioxide in the lungs as a result of this the breathing, this causes a chemical reaction that makes it difficult for oxygen to be released from the bloodstream to the tissues of the body. The tissues suffer when the hypoxia in spite of the blood itself is rich in oxygen. Oxygen-poor tissues cannot be healthy: they are easily irritated, and smooth (non-brain control) muscle reacts by spastic contract. Smooth muscle is around airways and blood vessels; arteries and veins, as well as forming part of the intestinal wall. When vital organs (like brain) deprived of oxygen, is a stimulus to the brain’s respiratory center and thereby induces a respiratory stimulus. This increases the breath further and causes a sensation of breathlessness of an already deep breath. This makes breathing even deeper, providing rise to a vicious circle as more and more carbon dioxide leaves the body with the breath.
Concept by Drs. Butejko
In the 50s, were coated for the first time scientifically by Drs. Butejko that carbon dioxide is very important to the organism, and especially the vascular system, to work well. Hundreds Scientific studies have shown that an impaired flow in the capillary in the first place is because the amount of carbon dioxide in blood has decreased, causing narrower capillaries. Too low carbon dioxide levels in the blood also make the blood more viscous. Dr. Butejko also showed that lack of carbon dioxide lowers the cells’ uptake of oxygen – A fact that Professors Bohr and Verigo proven already 1902. Bohr and Verigo held that aerythrocyte transfer oxygen to the cells and give off oxygen in an amount equal to the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood. The less carbon dioxide in the blood, the less oxygen we find in the cells. Therefore, carbon dioxide is so crucial to human health, it helps your body to release oxygen to the cells, it dilates capillary, it is thinning the blood and restoring the blood circulation.