If our body needs oxygen in the air to live. then what the 77% of nitrogen do to our body?

Question

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

Answer 1

Nothing. It just breathes it out. It’s too hard to break apart to use. Other stuff can use atmospheric nitrogen and turn it into useful chemicals, but we can’t. So we don’t.

It’s like asking “what does a deer do with a dead moose it found”, nothing. It’s too hard to eat, so it just doesn’t. Other things can do stuff to it, and turn it into things the deer can use. But by itself, the deer doesn’t do anything to it.