4 ms·
> Most of the water from metabolism is released in your breath And the reason for that is that air is bad for heat exchange and transport, water is much better
by lloeki 3y ago
> Most of the water from metabolism is released in your breath
And the reason for that is that air is bad for heat exchange and transport, water is much better, and evaporates! While the body passively cools in air (either directly when air is colder or via sweat evaporation when air is too hot) most of the heat exchange happens actively via breathing, which is nice because it's easy and quick to adjust, just by breathing faster or slower, so as to maintain 37ish C-100ish F while the body is continuously burning molecules. Without breathing we'd not only lack comburant (oxygen), we'd overheat pretty quickly!
- JshWright 3y agoThe primary driver for your respiratory rate is the pH of your blood. For instance, metabolic disorders that result in a drop in blood pH will result in an increase in respiratory rate/depth (e.g. Kussmaul breathing). As far as I know (with a fairly deep anatomy and physiology background) there is no mechanism by which body temperature can directly influence respiratory rate. If your respiratory rate increased just to get rid of heat, you’d also be blowing off more carbon dioxide and would end up in a state of respiratory alkalosis. As you mentioned, sweat is also evaporating water, and that is a much more effective way of dumping heat.