What does carbon monoxide do to you?

Answer 1

Carbon monoxide can kill you. Carbon monoxide can cause:

• tiredness
• drowsiness
• headaches
• giddiness
• nausea
• vomiting
• pains in the chest
• breathlessness
• stomach pains
• erratic behavior
• visual problems
• reddening of skin.

Answer 2

The problem with carbon monoxide is that, given the choice, the haemoglobin in the red blood cells would prefer it over oxygen. In fact, the haemoglobin's affinity for CO is nearly 250 times greater than that for O2. This means that if you were to inhale a lot of carbon monoxide, oxygen would be prevented from reaching your cells, and you would end up succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Answer 3

It bonds with the haemoglobin in your blood so that it is not available to bond with oxygen. Therefore the oxygen supply in your blood stream is depleted and you die.

Symptoms are tiredness and a ruddy complexion.

Answer 4

The human body depends on oxygen for the burning of fuel (food) to provide the energy that allows cells to live and function. Oxygen makes up approximately 21% of the atmosphere, and enters the lungs during breathing. In the lungs it combines with a blood component called hemoglobin.

When saturated with oxygen, it is called oxyhemoglobin.

After being carried by the bloodstream to the cells of the body, oxyhemoglobin releases oxygen to the body tissues. Carbon monoxide is dangerous because it bonds much more tightly to the hemoglobin than does oxygen. Once hemoglobin combines with carbon monoxide to form carboxyhemoglobin, its ability to combine with oxygen is competely lost.

As more carboxyhemoglobin is formed, the amount of oxygen carried to the cells and organs in the body decreases. Carbon monoxide starves the blood of oxygen, literally causing the body to suffocate from the inside out. When the carboxyhemoglobin concentration reaches a certain level, people get nauseous, become unconscious, and ultimately die. How quickly symptoms appear depends upon the concentration, or parts per million (ppm) of carbon monoxide in the air and the duration of exposure. A person's size, age and general health are also factors in how quickly effects of the gas will become evident.

Since oxygen and carbon monoxide are approximately the same density, they mix equally well in air. Therefore most alarms measuring carbon monoxide can be placed anywhere in a room.

Answer 5

The blood contains red blood cells, which contain a protein called haemoglobin. The haemoglobin is what carries the oxygen in the blood. Carbon monoxide however binds with the haemoglobin more readily than oxygen. Because of this, breathing carbon monoxide can stop your body taking in the oxygen. The reason that you don't feel like you're suffocating is that that feeling is caused by a build-up of carbon dioxide, from respiration, not a lack of oxygen. Having explained how carbon monoxide causes suffocation, you only need to appreciate that not having oxygen to respire, cells will carry out anaerobic respiration, or respiration without oxygen. This releases lactic acid, a damaging toxin. This can cause damage to body tissue, particularly the brain.

Answer 6

Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin; the molecule our blood uses to transport oxygen, rendering unable to fulfill this purpose. This means that the various parts of the body, most importantly the brain, unable to receive the oxygen they need to function.