YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT FOOD FOR 40 DAYS OR MORE.
YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT WATER 3 TO 5 DAYS.
HOLDING YOU BREATH YOU MIGHT SURVIVE 5 MINUTES. BUT, NO OXYGEN FOR 10 MINUTES OR MORE:
YOU WILL MOST LIKELY BE DEAD.
Oxygen and nutrients are required by each of your roughly 100 trillion cells that make up our physical body. Especially your brain cells.
For proper functioning and a correct metabolism, the cells obtain their oxygen through the lungs. It is here where the hemoglobin in your blood picks up the oxygen and delivers it through a massive network of arteries, arterioles and the micro-circulation to each cell.
This network consists of about 120 000km of blood vessels inside our bodies. Just think about that for a moment! That is 3x the circumference of the earth!
Of these, about 75% or 90 000km, constitutes the so-called micro-circulation where the final blood diffusion and delivery of oxygen and nutrients / the removal of waste products takes place. The starting diameter of the micro-circulation by arbitrary definition is about a fifth of a millimeter. This gradually decreases to 5 to 7 thousands of a millimeter, called microns.
If this network is blocked or impaired for any reason, the cells are starved of oxygen and nutrients. Furthermore the cells cannot get rid of their metabolic waste products either. The heart cannot possibly “push” blood through 120 000km of blood vessels. It needs other mechanisms, such as the vasomotion ie the dilation and contraction of the blood vessels to supply blood to every remote cell in the body. Makes sense, right?
If we have insufficient vasomotion or even blockages in these small blood vessels, we have a serious consequence: analogous to a serious traffic jam in a city, effective supply and removal fails and many functions are no longer carried out. Break down occurs.
Even if you were to sit in a hyperbaric chamber, your body may get a little more oxygen at the mouth and into the lungs, but a partially restricted blood vessel network may not be able to distribute it effectively. We want to get all the oxygen the lungs supply to the places in the body where it is needed.
The result of cellular oxygen starvation? A slow dying of cells will take place and many of them will simply dysfunction. If enough numbers of them in a particular area in your body are thus affected you will start to notice some early symptoms.
For example arthritis, rheumatism, diabetes, macular degeneration, tinnitus, kidney problems, erectile dysfunction and much more usually take a considerable time to develop. These symptoms will get worse if no attention is given to the disabling situation. Yet as I said, the blood micro-circulation is the key in each one of these ailments.
As we get older the cumulative effect of our life-styles will compound the situation.
