as I was told from early education that the air we currently breathe in contains 21% oxygen and 77-ish% of nitrogen and the rest are other particles.
So I have a dumb question on what the body uses nitrogen we breathe in for?
In: 387
Under normal conditions it doesn’t really do anything. In anesthesia we use it because it will help keep the small air sacks (alveoli) open and prevent absorption atelectasis. This is a condition caused when you have 100% oxygen, all of that oxygen can quickly diffuse into the blood leaving nothing in the alveoli to help them stay open. By reducing the percentage of oxygen with normal nitrogen containing air, the nitrogen will remain behind and prevent the alveoli from collapsing as easily.
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