Breathing and asthma. Introduction.




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Introduction

Picture 1. Your lungs are in your chest, protected by your ribcage.

If you are sitting quietly, you do it about 10 times a minute.
If you need to, you can easily double this rate.
During your lifetime, you never stop and will do it over 350 million times.

Why do we need to breathe?

We need to breathe to keep our bodies supplied with oxygen from the air we inhale. It also allows us to get rid of waste carbon dioxide when we breathe out. This swapping of gases is called gas exchange.

Oxygen is vital for the process of cellular respiration which happens in every cell of the body. Respiration is essential to life as it provides energy to allow cells to grow, reproduce, repair themselves and move.

Aerobic respiration

Aerobic respiration needs a constant supply of oxygen.

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Roll over the equation to see what happens to each of the parts.

Contents
	There are 8 pages in this electronic resource (e-source): Gas exchange The respiratory system Breathing Asthma Treating asthma Artifical lung Quiz
Using this e-source
	There are a number of interactive features in this e-source: A glossary of terms: any word with a glossary entry is highlighted like that. Clicking on the word will open a new window with a definition of that word. Quick questions: at the end of e-source, there is a set of quick questions to test your understanding of the scientific ideas. Roll over diagrams: many of the diagrams have highlights or sequences. You can see these by rolling your cursor over part of the picture or part of the text. The text has a roll over highlight like that. Last updated March 2004.