Lungs

If the lungs cannot function, the body can't get any oxygen. Oxygen is necessary for cellular respiration, the process that breaks down sugars to create energy for the cell. If cells cannot get get the energy they need to carry out vital functions, the cells will die, along with the organism they make up. In short: if the lungs don't function, the cells of the body get no oxygen, and the organism dies.

The lung volume that increases with exercise is vital capacity. When you exercise regularly, your body is more efficient at transporting and using oxygen, making vital capacity marginally bigger and exercise less difficult than someone who is out of shape.

major bronchi

The operating principle is a process called diffusion, which causes a substance to move from a region of high concentration to a region of lower concentration. Think of a squirt of perfume diffusing from a corner in a room until you can smell it everywhere in the room. Blood returning from the body to the lungs has a higher percentage of carbon dioxide (CO2) than the air inhaled into the lungs does. Conversely the concentration of oxygen (O2) in the inhaled air is greater than the concentration of O2 in the returning blood. Haemoglobin, which can (loosely) bond to both O2 and CO2, facilitates the exchange of gasses from respective regions of high concentration to the regions of lower concentration. Specifically, CO2 moves from the returning blood (higher concentration) to the air in the lungs (lower concentration) and oxygen moves in the other direction, thus oxygenating the blood.

Blood leaving the liver can reach the lungs only via the right heart. It travels for the liver through the hepatic [liver] vein to the vena cava [the main vein carrying blood leaving the body], into the right heart [first the right atrium, then the right ventricle], and then through the pulmonary [lung] artery to the lungs .

Actually, air is not cleaned before reaching the lungs. That is why severe lung damage is caused by living in highly polluted areas and smoking. In fact, air is breathed into the lungs, and transported through your circulatory system by way of red blood cells. It is finally cleaned when blood is pumped through the kidneys

it goes into the left atrium in your heart.

The lungs help you breathe and live so you can be healthy and do things. I'm a 6th grader and we have a project in science and my partners and I got picked to do repiratory system and this is what I know about lungs.

love u brandon mcoy

McGill University Health Centre's Montreal General Hospital (MGH)

Residual volume allows gas exchange to go on continuously

Pulmonary veins receives blood from the lungs and brings it back to the heart to be circulated to the rest of your body. It is the only vein that carries blood to the heart (that's usually an artery's job).

Bird lungs have the same basic features as human lungs, such as a trachea, bronchi, lungs and capillaries etc, however birds' lungs operate in a cycling of air manner rather than a mixing action as in humans. Human lungs move air into alveoli at the extremities of the lungs and because it would require immense force to reopen a completely deflated alveoli and therefore they are never fully emptied and maintain "dead space". This means that when fresh air is moved in, there is mixing of fresh and dead space air. Birds on the other hand have a linear cycling of air meaning that the maximum amount of oxygen can reach the capillaries and pass into the blood stream. Hence bird respiration is more effective than human's, but in a way it needs to be due to the decreased size and intense need for efficiency during flight etc.

Cancer treatment can take many different forms, and it is always tailored to the individual patient. The decision on which type of treatment is the most appropriate depends on the type and location of cancer, the extent to which it.

Breathing is the simple answer.

Respiration is also an answer but respiration includes oxygen going into the bloff and throughout the body and Carbon Dioxide going back to the lungs and being exhaled.

The biggest is Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Of course, if a person were sick, they would also expel mucous etc, but exhaled air is rich in CO2 which is a waste product of cellular respiration during the production of ATP (glycolysis/Krebs).

Blood flows from the right ventricle of the heart into the lungs through the pulmonary arteries that carry deoxygenated blood. From the lungs, oxygenated blood flows through the pulmonary veins to the left atrium of the heart.

Oxygen is inhaled into the body through the nose or the mouth. It travels through the trachea, to the bronchi, then through the bronchial tubes, and finally settles in the alveoli, which are tiny sacs in the lungs. As the blood is pumped into the lungs through the pulmonary artery of the right ventricle of the heart, the oxygen-depleted blood goes to the capillaries which wraps the alveoli. In the capillaries, oxygen is given from the alveoli to the blood, and blood would drop of carbone dioxide into the alveoli. Once this process is complete, the blood would return to the heart, and the carbone dioxide would be expelled from the body as we exhale.

Oxygen travels through the respiratory system. First, it enters through the mouth or the nasal cavity. Then, it goes down the trachea, or the windpipe, and into the lungs, where it is brought into the blood by the alveoli. Carbon dioxide is also exiting out of the body through the same way, but backwards.

Vital capacity is a term which refers to the maximum volume someone can breathe in his lungs [ the max volume of air inhaled after a max exhalation]. It depends on many factors. How fit someone is, smoking, obesity, height, sex, body size and the posture of the body [when someone lies his vital capacity is less than standing].

Also when playing a flute instrument you'll increase your vital capacity,

The left lung, although smaller than the right lung, does exactly the same thing: takes oxygen from the air and adds it to hemoglobin in the blood, so that all of the cells in the body can have oxygen to use in metabolism.

It really depends on the type of inhalant. Things like prescribed inhalers for things like asthma or bronchitis generally are steroid based and help strengthen the lungs and bronchi so that they can take and hold more oxygen. More harmful things such as cigarettes actually cause the bronchial tubes and bronchi to swell and become inflamed, making it significantly harder to breathe, as the person is physically incapable of taking in as much oxygen. Other things such as paint fumes, certain drugs, glue fumes, and gasoline can cause residue to build up in the lungs, making it significantly more difficult to breathe as there is a buildup of material in the bronchi and they cannot expand or deflate to absorb oxygen. This residue is also particularly dangerous, as it can be absorbed into the blood stream slowly over time and get transported to the heart, where it can do major damage to the muscle tissue and cause a weakening in the heart that can lead to aneurysms and other complications. On top of that, inhalants cause mass damage to the brain, as instead of 100% oxygen, your blood can transport the inhaled chemicals to the brain where they do massive damage to the tissue, nerves, and receptors, which causes brain damage over time. The only inhalant one should ever take is an inhaler if prescribed by a licensed doctor, or normal air.

The substance in the cigarettes that creates the black color is tar. The tar coagulates in the lungs and turns them black............................The Black Lung Lie.........................

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Frank Davis

A discussion of 'smokers' black lungs' started in the comments today. It's the widespread belief that smokers' lungs turn black. Rose pointed out that it all started with James I about four centuries ago. She also dug up some refutations:

"Dr. Duane Carr - Professor of Surgery at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, said this: "Smoking does not discolor the lung."

Dr. Victor Buhler, Pathologist at St. Joseph Hospital in Kansas City: "I have examined thousands of lungs both grossly and microscopically. I cannot tell you from exmining a lung whether or not its former host had smoked."

Dr. Sheldon Sommers, Pathologist and Director of Laboratories at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York: "…it is not possible grossly or microscopically, or in any other way known to me, to distinguish between the lung of a smoker or a nonsmoker. Blackening of lungs is from carbon particles, and smoking tobacco does not introduce carbon particles into the lung."

And Brigitte even found a Youtube video:

There is even this (in German) in which a forensic medic states that these "tar" lungs do not exist.

Rich White's Smoke Screens reports the same:

This was confirmed by Dr Jan Zeldenrust, a Dutch pathologist for the Government of Holland from 1951 - 1984. In a television interview in the 1980's he stated that, translated from Dutch, "I could never see on a pair of lungs if they belonged to a smoker or non-smoker. I can see clearly the difference between sick and healthy lungs. The only black lungs I've seen are from peat-workers and coal miners, never from smokers".

Abnormal fluid collection in the lungs can be caused by lung infections or heart problems. The biggest problem with it is that it causes shortness of breath that can lead to respiratory arrest.