When can breathing oxygen become toxic?
Only when there is too little or too much, these levels will vary dramatically depending upon your physiology (lung size, amount of red core puscles/haemoglobin, activity etc.). When there is too little oxygen the body cannot oxidate glucose efficiently enough, therefore it will produce less and less energy. With less energy the less your body can function at acceptable levels, basically the cells will start to die off. Eventually, lack of oxygen leads to lack of energy, lack of energy leads to lack of efficiency in cells, lack of efficiency in cells leads to death of cells, death of cells leads to the entire body dying. We ‘can’ operate without oxygen, anaerobic respiration, but not for long periods of time. Without oxygen the glucose gets converted to pyruvic acid and then lactic acid. Lactic acid builds up quicker than it can be removed. Intramuscular lactate lowers the level of pH (makes the surrounding tissue more acidic) aswell as PCO2 (a normal blood gas), combining these will c
