What is a disease when the alveoli lose their ability to contract and expand?

Answer 1

Emphysema, but not because the aveoli cannot hold enough air. It's because they collapse and therefore have a smaller surface area for exchange of O2 and CO2.

In normal lungs, aveoli look like bunches of big plump grapes on a stem (many bunches on many stems throughout the lungs). When hemoglobin on Red Blood Cells pass by, they have all the space around the surface of each plump "grape" to make the exchange of CO2 and O2.

But if you squash a grape, it will lie flat on one side against other squashed grapes-- therefore, 2 "sides" of each grape are not exposed because they are up against each other. With grapes in such tight bunches, this means flat sides lie against flat sides, only leaving a small bit of surface area exposed.

So in lung diseases, especially emphysema, the aveoli look like partly deflated balloons or partly squashed grapes. When hemoglobin in nearby small blood vessels pass by, there is is very little surface area exposed on the aveoli for the Hgb to offload the CO2 and pick up O2 from the lungs.

In healthy people, the brain triggers us to breathe when the body's tissues sense RISING CO2. We breathe, expel the rising CO2 and take in O2. In normal healthy people who might need O2, such as after surgery, they will need oxygen at 6-8 Liters per minute.

But, eventually in emphysema, the person's brain switches to an opposite system. If you try to give an emphysema patient 8 liters per minute of oxygen, you can actually cause them to stop breathing because the brain in emphysema relies on a much higher blood-tissue CO2 level. You can cause them to die because their body relies on a higher C02 than normal (even though the body receives little of the O2 they breathe in). So an emphysema patient can only handle around TWO liters per minute of O2 instead of 6-8L for a person with healthy lungs.

So by "hold enough" oxygen, it doesn't mean hold it inside the aveoli, like you can imagine inside a balloon. Instead, it means the surface area has reduced so the Hgb cannot exchange C02 for incoming 02. The RBC which carry the Hgb then continue back to the tissues carrying almost all of the old C02 but much less O2 than it should carry. The Hgb drops off the small bits of O2 at cells, but it's much less O2 than cells need. And because Hgb already is carrying old C02, there's less room to pick up new CO2 from the tissues. When it gets back to the lungs, the same problem exists-- it cannot drop off all the CO2. It cannot pick up all the new O2. The problem continues in a viscous cycle that cannot be fixed, except if the patient is young enough, healthy enough, and is a good candidate for a bilateral lung transplant.

Answer 2

Emphysema affects the alveoli to the point they cannot hold enough air and normal breathing becomes a struggle.

Answer 3

Emphysema is the disease of which you seek.

Answer 4

emphysema