SU, look at some of the religion here http://www.emptynosesyndrome.org/turbinate.html
Things like,
Hopefully someone can tell me whether CPAP mitigates some of the negatives from mouthbreathing described above.The job of supplying the lungs with warm, moist and filtered clean air, while maintaining laminar airflow patterns – steady in stream and forward pressure – is entirely up to the nose. One can breath through the mouth only or an opening in the trachea, but it is highly uncomfortable, hazardous in the long term for the lungs’ health, and very unsatisfying.
That’s why – only nasal breathing is satisfying, healthy and relaxing.
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It processes the air that you breath before it enters your lungs. Most of this activity takes place in and on the turbinates, located on the sides of the nasal passages. In an adult, 18,000 to 20,000 liters of air pass through the nose each day.
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Your Nose Protects Your Health By:
Filtering all that air and retaining particles as small as a pollen grain with 100% efficiency.
Humidifying the air that you breath, adding moisture to the air to prevent dryness of the lining of the lungs and bronchial tubes.
Warming cold air to body temperature before it arrives in your lungs.
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Mouth breathing causes dry mouth, which increases the risk of mouth and throat infections and reduces the sense of taste. Mouth breathing also pulls all pollution and germs directly into the lungs; dry cold air in the lungs makes the secretions thick, slows the cleaning cilia, and slows down the passage of oxygen into the blood stream.
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This heat and especially – humidity – are crucial for pulmonary health and function, and any reduction in it will cause breathing difficulties, fatigue, and long term nasal and perhaps even pulmonary complications (nasal – atrophic rhinitis, chronic sinusitis, pulmonary – asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – COPD, etc`).
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As the lungs rely totally on positive pressurized steady airflow and high dynamic air pressure values of sucked in inspired air to inflate them, the air must be very humid and warm – or the fine narrow tubes (the bronchioles and the alveoli) might not get inflated properly, or not get inflated at all at the most remote ends of the lungs. If proper lung inflation is denied chronically – this can result after some years into a life threatening lung disease called Emphysema. Humidification is also crucial for sustaining the integrity and survival of the cilia blanket’s hairy layer, which covers the entire respiratory tracts, including the nose. One-hundred and fifty to three hundred cilia are present in each cell, they are covered by a blanket of mucus that catches particles. The cilia beats in a rhythmic and uniform manner, moving the mucus gel layer to the back of the nose, into the nasopharynx. Cilia cells are durable; they are able to resist cold, heat, smoke, and even infection. However, they have one deadly enemy: dryness.
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And finally – highly humidified and warm air (heated to body temperature) is crucial for proper gas exchange to take place between the pulmonary capillaries in the alveoli and the surrounding blood net of arteries and veins, receiving oxygen through membranic diffusion and passing out the waste – the carbon dioxide in the same way. The membranic diffusion of the gasses is aided by being saturated in high humidity and body heat temperature conditions in the alveoli sucks, where the exchange occurs. If these conditions are not met, the alveoli cannot inflate properly and simply shut down, just like in a severe attack of asthma.
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Conclusion: The Nose is the air-conditioner and filter of the lungs, mainly thanks to the Turbinates that are made up of extremely rich and vascularised nasal mucosing tissue. Without the humidity supplied from the nose:
I – the lungs cannot inflate to their maximum capacity.
II – the gasses exchanged at the end of the breathing process (in the alveoli) will not exchange fast enough or to their fullest potential.
III – extensive damage is created to the respiratory epithelium of the respiratory system – primarily starting in the nose. The first layer to get damaged is the “Cilia”. Dryness means – death to the cilia!
Death to the cilia means a dramatic reduction in mucus secretions, and no mucociliary transport of the dried up mucus and debris.
IV – the turbinates with, their large volume of mucosing tissue, and with their role as the airflow regulators of the nose – are essentially the “heart” and “engine” of the nose, and supply the most critical mass of humidifying heat exchanging mucosa in the nose. This is a fact that any surgeon planning to cut out any portion of turbinate mucosa must take into account, and try and preserve as much as possible of it.
A lifetime of a dry nose can lead to further damage to the cilia down the trachea and even in the lungs, as they get overtaxed – with having to humidify and clean themselves. This can lead to many respiratory and lung infections and eventually to life threatening complications of Chronic Pulmonary Disorders. The nose is the Guardian of the Lungs.
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Through organizing the pattern of airflow by the turbinates, the nose manages to get all the inspired air to stream relatively slowly around and along the heavily ciliated turbinates, emitting heat and humidity into the inspired air streams, saturating the inspired air-born particles and micro-organisms, hence making them heavier and causing them to sink onto the mucosal layer, where they are processed by different immune systems cells, and enzymes, neutralized, and propelled by the beating of the cilia towards the naso-pharynx and the esophagus.
Nearly all particles greater than 5 µm and about 50 % of those from 2-4 µm in size are deposited on the ciliated mucosa, and are propelled towards the pharynx so that they can be swallowed or expectorated within 15 minutes.
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