Functional Anatomy Archives

How do our lungs function after breathing dirty air?--for Dr. Stoll and others

It seems air pollution involves both harmful gas and harmful solid--particulates. The gas, mixed with air, goes into our lungs and then comes out with each respiration, and some toxin get absorbed into the bloodstream. This part I understand.

What I don't know for sure is what happenes to the solids. I know some of the bigger particles can be filtered out by our nose hair etc, but SOME other particles do go into the lungs and attach on the lung's surface, right? But I've never noticed anything coming out of my lungs, at least not in the same way as buggers and mucus coming out of the nose and upper breathing tract. So my question is,

1.What happens to the tiny particles once they are attached to the interior of the lungs? Do they just stay there and accumulate passively, or do they actively cause health problems to a healthy adult? (I know they cause problems for the young, the old, and anyone with breathing problems.) Can they cause lung cancer?

2.Is there any way to get rid of these particles from the deep of the lungs?

3. Tiny particles can also result from dust in nature, in our homes when vacuming, and even when we fold just-dried laungry. Are they equally harmful as the smog-particles?

I'm concerned especially about the particles in air pollution. With toxic gas, the worst is the toxins end up in the blood, which can be cleansed by the kidneys,the liver, and other organs/glands etc. But with particles, I don't know if the lungs can clean themselves.

From several days ago to next Monday, the east half of Texas is shrouded with a thick smog originated from as far as the Ohio valley. There are warnings in the paper, but as long as we are alive, we have to breath, right? I wish I knew some kong-fu that help me live without breathing; wouldn't that be great :)

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