How The Respiratory System Works And Its Connection With Asthma Treatment?

Most of us never think about breathing until something goes wrong or we are out of breath from too much exercise.

In the process of respiration, the body takes in oxygen, essential for life’s vital functions, from the air.

Carbon dioxide is produced as a waste product, and this is expelled as we breathe out. When we breathe, air is drawn in through the mouth and nose. It passes through the larynx, or voice box, down the windpipe, or trachea, and into the lungs.

The airways are lined with tiny, hair like cilia. If any particles of dust or dirt enter the system, they are trapped in the mucus lining and the cilia expel them with a waving, escalator like motion.

When the trachea reaches the lungs, it divides into two branches, or bronchi, one for each lung. Each bronchus divides into thousands of fine bronchioles, like delicate twigs, each of which ends in a small air sac, called alveolus.

There are 300 million alveoli in the lungs, each one is surrounded by a mesh of tiny blood vessels. Oxygen passes into the blood through the alveoli, and the oxygenated blood is then sent to the heart, which pumps it around the body.

The waste product of respiration is carbon dioxide, which the body returns to the heart, which in turn pumps it to the lungs. The lungs, having no use for it, expel it. Every day, a total of around 10,000 litres or 2,000 gal of air moves in and out of the lungs.

The lungs are delicate and encased by the ribs. Each one is further protected by a two layer membrane, the pleura, which allows the lungs to move easily in and out. Between each rib is thick muscle, intercostals muscle, which expands and contracts with each breath you take.

Underneath the lungs is a dome shaped sheet of muscle, the diaphragm, which rises and falls as you breathe.