The Respiratory System

-or-

“Oxygen…What a Gas!”

Why the Respiratory System?

Can’t…breathe…

Air….must…have…air

Hmmm..I wonder how much

money he is carrying…

Answer:

• Those cells in his nose need oxygen too. Remember respiration???? Oxygen just doesn’t go through his skin into the cells. That oxygen has to take a trip through his body first.

Stop 1: Nose/Mouth

Regardless of where the air enters it will end up in the same place – in the windpipe, or trachea.

It’s best to have the air enter the nose. Here are three reasons why:

1. Nose hairs – filters out large particles as the air enters the nose.

Riiiight there

2. Mucus – filters out small particles as the air enters the nose.

Step right up and get your Nasal Aspirator for the low low price of $15. Safely and effectively remove excessive mucus from your little one without having to stick your fingers up their nose.

(Just don’t suck too hard…….)

OK, That made me

puke!

Now, before we go any further we have to define a couple of terms:

Mucus - a slippery secretion made by the mucous membranes in the body.

Booger – Boogers are dried-up and dirty mucus. They can be small, slimy lumps or big, dry, brown clumps. Either way, boogers are filled with the junk that’s in the air you breathe. Dust, pollen, germs, sand, fungi, smoke, small particles from outer space! The good thing about your mucus is that it helps trap all this junk and keep it from getting close into your lungs.

3. Warms and moistens the air. Especially important when the air temperature is real cold. Real cold air can damage your lungs.

LOOK

A SNOTSICKLE!!

OK, once air gets in it’s next stop is the windpipe or trachea.

Stop 2: Trachea

The trachea is very thin – so thin that it has to have rings of cartilage surrounding it to keep it open. You can feel these rings of cartilage if you stick your finger in that little pit in your throat.

Right there

This part of the trachea has been magnified 400 times to show the little cilia (hairs) that line the inside of your trachea.

Every night as you sleep the cilia sweep upwards carrying any small particles up and out of the lungs. When you swallow, while sleeping, the particles go down your esophagus and eventually out of your body.

The trachea then branches off into the bronchi.

The bronchi then branch off into the bronchial tubes.

The bronchial tubes branch off into the bronchioles which then dump the air into the alveoli (air sac).

Once that air has stopped in the air sac how do you think it gets into the blood???

Here’s a hint

The oxygen leaves the air sac and enters the capillaries that surround it

But just how does it leave??? (Hint: high to low)

If you guessed by diffusion…you guessed correctly.

There is a higher concentration of oxygen in the air sac and a lower concentration in the capillaries that surround it. As a result, the oxygen diffuses into the bloodstream.

Once in the bloodstream the oxygen can be transported to any cell in the body.

But why is that important???

See…here’s the oxygen going into the mitochondria.

remember

The process of respiration occurs and carbon dioxide is given off.

Now, guess where the carbon dioxide goes???

It is carried by the blood back to those capillaries that surround the air sacs and again by diffusion it will enter the air sac.

When you exhale this carbon dioxide then leaves your body.

As you’ve seen the respiratory system is very delicate. It would not be a good idea to destroy any part of it.

But many people make the choice to destroy their lungs, bit by bit, oftentimes on an hourly basis.

You know what we’re talking about…….

Don’t you?

Smoking

Normal

Smoker

Over time, smoke destroys the alveoli’s ability to expand. This condition is called emphysema.

Remember the cilia in the trachea?? When you smoke you destroy them.

Many smokers wake up each morning and have to manually clear their throat since the cilia could not do it for them as they slept.

“Cigarettes are nothing more than a delivery system for toxic chemicals and carcinogens. Cigarettes offer people only a multitude of smoking-related diseases and ultimately death.”

599 ingredients are known to be in cigarettes. While these ingredients are approved as additives for foods, they were not tested by burning them, and it is the burning of many of these substances which changes their properties, often for the worse. Right at 4700 chemical compounds are created by burning a cigarette, and about 60 are carcinogenic (cancer causing).

Cigarette companies exist only to make money.

Their question: ”How can I get as many people as possible to buy our product that has been found to be dangerous?”

Their answer: Advertisting

You can sell people ANYTHING with the proper advertising.

hmmm…how can I get his

money?

The Marlboro man was a big hook to get people to begin smoking.

(By the way…he died of lung cancer.)

Now, tobacco companies are changing with the times.

Who do you think the target audience is for these cigarettes?

Hmmm, why don’t these people look that cool???

Bryan Lee Curtis, then 33, holds son Bryan Jr., 2, in this March 29 photo. Curtis would die about two months later. [Photo: Curtis Family]

Bryan Curtis started smoking at 13, never thinking that 20 years later it would kill him and leave a wife and children alone.

He knew, only a few days after he went to the hospital on April 2 with severe abdominal pain, how wrong he had been. He had oat cell lung cancer that had spread to his liver. He probably had not had it long. Also called small cell lung cancer, it's an aggressive killer that usually claims the lives of its victims within a few months.

Died nine weeks after being diagnosed.