Can breathing in excess AIR cause BRAIN DAMAGE??

Question

Can breathing in too much oxygen cause brain damage?
You know when you breathe in too much air, and afterwards you experience dizziness, etc...

Is this the equivalent of getting high or doing drugs ?? Does it lead to brain damage?

...or is hyperoxia completely benign from the
BRAIN DAMAGE persepctive only

I know it can damage other cells ex. by increasing free radicals in the blood, etc...

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hyperventilating, that is, breathing hard in room air, results in blowing off carbon dioxide, respiratory alkalosis and can cause dizzyness. Eventually though you would get tired and slow down and there would be no lasting effects. Breathing high concentrations of oxygen can lead permanent damage, particularly in babies.

Answer 2

High oxygen levels, over the course of a few days, can cause damage to tissues. That's why we try to limit the percentage of oxygen we give to very sick patients. Of course, some patients need even 100% oxygen to maintain decent oxygen levels. But, we try to avoid giving more than 60% oxygen over 48 hours, and we wean it aggressively as the patient tolerates.

Actually, hyperventilation will do absolutely NOTHING to increase your oxygen levels. Your lungs are a pretty good oxygen sponge, and you could maintain oxygen breathing a lot slower than you do. The main thing driving you to breathe is that you need to get rid of carbon dioxide. That is a much more powerful stimulus to breathe.

I've tried it before, placing an oxygen sensor on my hand, holding my breath and seeing if I could drive the oxygen levels in my blood down before having to breathe again. I couldn't. Most people can't. You have a pretty decent reserve of oxygen.

The reason why you feel weird, as other people have stated, is because of the low carbon dioxide levels in your blood. Patients breathing 100% oxygen complain of no symptoms.

Answer 3

Too much air may make you temporarily feel dizzy etc. too much straight O2 can cause convulsions, brain damage and possibly death. Several workers in missle silos, trapped by leaking liquid O2 did die from it in the 50's before missles went to solid fuel.

Answer 4

This is an interesting question. I have been in a Hypobaric chamber that can modulate the pressure of the air that you breathe as part of training to teach myself and others the effects of Hypoxia for flight training. Although I am not a medical student, this much I can lend to you.

The human body uses less oxygen than you would actually think. That is the reason by which we can artifically inflate an unresponsive person's lungs and actually be able to keep them alive long enough to provide for emergency care.

In fact each person is different in their tollerance of lowered o2 levels. In training, we had people go 5-10 minutes at 35,000 feet altitude with little perceptible change in mental ability. I would also expect the same with heightened o2 levels. On a personal note, I felt the effects of hypoxia immediately after 14k feet altitude.

Often the cause of the lightheadedness and dizzyness that one can feel from hyperventilating (or breathing "too much") is actually from the forcing of our blood to our head from "power breathing" for too long. Since smoking and taking inhallant drugs reduce your body's abilities to absorb oxygen then the person gets "high" by actually being hypoxic. So a couple thoughts:

Hyperoxia - too much o2.
Hypoxia - too little o2.

Either way, the body has a fine tolerance level and tries its best to maintain it the best it can. I haven't heard of a case yet of brain damage from having to breathe higher concentrations of o2. That said however, there are people with a medical condition that prevents them from regulating the amount of o2 that comes in the body, so they have to maintain themselves on air regulators. Their problem is, the higher the concentration of o2 given, the less the body actually takes in (outside air is hyperoxic, while the body itself is hypoxic) to provide for its input. In an extreme case, too much o2 in the air would then cause unintentional brain damage as the body is fighting the intake. This is outside your question but warrants further looking into.

To question your thought of free radicals, oxygen by its nature is required to produce energy in the body. The extra o2 in the body that is not burned up or removed has a "chance" of injuring the DNA strands of the nucleous of the cell by changing the DNA codes. However, the body has the ability to repair the damage by various means (Vitamin C is used to remove o2 along with other vitamins as "Anti Oxidants"; The codes duplicate themselves in various areas on the strand for code; and the nucleous has the ability to locate and repair the damage itself.) But this fuction is not foolproof. The main factor itself seems to be time. The longer a person is around the "extra" o2 then that ups there "chance" of irrepairable damage but that in no way mean that they will take damage. If a person takes care of themself, they will live a healthy life, not matter what the situation. The key to this is to provide the body with everything it needs to combat the situation. Something that hasn't been happening for most of us.

I hope my rambling helps somewhat.

-- ShadowGate

Answer 5

Chlorine gas is extreamly toxic IE WWI is was called Mustard Gas; however, fumes from liquid Chlorine used as a disinfectant are not concentrated enough to cause harm to humans period.

Answer 6

to much or to little of anything can be bad for you. if you start to feel dizzy, your prob getting low on carbon dioxide. grab a paper bag and breath in and out in it, to get your blood gases back in balance.

Answer 7

hyperventilation