If you have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, known as COPD, breathing may be difficult at rest and more difficult during exercise. Work ramps up your need for oxygen and makes extra carbon dioxide. Difficult breathing during exercise can...
Your body is able to maintain the correct pH of the blood via a buffering system, exhalation of carbon dioxide or elimination of hydrogen through the kidneys. The objective to eating natural alkaline foods is to reduce the stress on the internal...
Proper breathing helps your heart, keeps your lungs clear, empowers your brain and all organs with oxygen and expels your most common waste product, carbon dioxide. This helps regulate your body's acid/base balance. Breathing properly means...
Many alternative practitioners believe that following an alkaline diet, which consists mostly of fruits and vegetables, prevents health problems such as cancer. Proponents of the alkaline diet claim that a diet high in meat increases the acidity...
Regardless of whether you're asleep or awake, running a marathon or watching television on your couch, your lungs are constantly at work. The constant rhythm of inhaling and exhaling plays an integral role in your body regarding oxygen supply. In...
The cardiovascular system, made up primarily of the heart, blood vessels, and blood, is responsible for distributing oxygenated blood to body cells, and removing metabolic waste from the cells. By necessity, function of the cardiovascular system...
Losing weight is a goal for many people and watching the pounds of fat coming off is a real reward for your hard efforts. But where does that fat go? The biochemical aspects of fat metabolism explain the mystery of where the fat goes during weight...
To adapt to the intensity of exercise, your body has to constantly make energy, release waste products and maintain homeostasis, or balance, all at the same time. One area of homeostasis that is taxed while exercising is your body temperature....
With a nation out of control regarding portion sizes and sugar laden processed foods, it is no surprise that obesity has become an epidemic. Obesity is defined as having a body mass index of 30 or greater. The Centers for Disease Control and...
Metabolism is a series of chemical reactions that extract energy trapped in food to fuel bodily functions. Wilbur Olin Atwater and Francis Gano Benedict, pioneers in the area of human nutrition and metabolism, built an apparatus that measured heat...
Running is a cardiovascular exercise because it conditions the heart and blood vessels. The more intense the running, the more oxygen the muscles need. Breathing rate increases to bring more oxygen into the body, and the working muscles generate...
Your breathing increases in direct proportion to the intensity of your workout. That happens because the oxygen you inhale has the simple job of carrying away the chemical fragments your body makes when you burn sugar for energy. Those fragments...
Your respiratory system's primary functions are to nourish your cells with fresh oxygen and eliminate the carbon dioxide waste produced by your cells. All cells in your body need oxygen to stay alive and perform activities that support your...
Sodium bicarbonate is the chemical name for baking soda, a common household salt that is also an important part of your blood chemistry, because it occurs naturally in the blood. In general, sodium bicarbonate has the effect of acting as a buffer,...
Exercise should play an important role in everyone's life. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that American adults get at least 150 minutes of exercise each week. Vigilance in sticking to this guideline can lead to visible...
Running can play an important part of reaching the 150 minutes of aerobic exercise that's recommended each week by organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, you may notice that running causes a marked increase in...
CO2, or carbon dioxide, is a colorless, odorless gas formed from atoms of carbon and oxygen. When you exercise, it forms as a waste product inside your active muscles. Your body can only remove this waste CO2 through your bloodstream. For this...
Good circulation, the flow of blood throughout the body, is essential to maintain optimal health. Blood carries life-giving oxygen and nutrients to all of the body's vital organs and tissues while also carrying away toxins and carbon dioxide to be...
The Calorie is a standardized measure of energy set by nutrition scientists and used to describe the energy content of foods in a straightforward and conventional calculation. In athletic studies, the amount of energy available from calories for...
Digestion and absorption of nutrients is an extremely complex process that uses various enzymes, hormones and transport systems. In the body, many vitamins and minerals interact with each other and may increase or decrease each other's ability to...
Trace minerals are inorganic compounds given their name because you only require small amounts of them in your body. Because your body can function optimally with only small amounts of trace minerals, it is only necessary that you consume small...
Potassium is a mineral ion that, along with sodium, is involved in the control and regulation of many bodily processes. Having too much potassium in the blood is known as hyperkalemia, a serious and potentially fatal condition that requires...
Children breathe faster than adults. Body size, weight and activity level influence normal breathing rates. But age is the factor most commonly used to determine normal values. Normal breathing rate ranges from as high as 30 to 60 breaths per...
Navy SEALs are elite members of the United States Navy Sea, Air and Land special operations force. While trained to operate above and below water, the unit is best known for its underwater capabilities. Specialized dive equipment enables the SEALs...
Aerobic and anaerobic exercises are the two main categories for physical fitness activities. In aerobic exercise, your body uses increased levels of oxygen to supply energy to your body. In anaerobic exercise, your body uses an internal energy...
The kidneys function as the primary site for maintaining chemical balance in the body. The maintenance of a normal acid-base balance occurs within minute kidney structures termed the renal tubules. Renal tubule malfunction that leads to excessive...
Anaerobic and aerobic respiration are two metabolic pathways of cellular respiration. The human body will use a combination of both anaerobic and aerobic respiratory functions depending on the specific energy requirement and the activity being...
Plunging into a pool or a lake for a quick underwater swim might seem like pure torture for some people. But for others, it provides a sense of peace and tranquility as they maneuver through the near-weightless environment. Whether you are a...
Kids might know that salt is a crystal and that chips, french fries and certain foods taste better because of it, but why humans need salt might be a mystery to them. A child's natural curiosity and open-mindedness makes teaching something like...
