The system that enables you to breath to supply your body with oxygen and to get rid of carbon dioxide, a waste product of energy production, is called as respiratory system. It consists of respiratory tract which is a channel that carries air in and out of your lungs. It includes nose, throat, and trachea (wind pipe). Deep in the chest, trachea divides into two main tubes, which are called as bronchi. Each one goes into one lung, where it divides into progressively smaller air passages called bronchioles. At the tip of each bronchial are clusters of balloon-like structures called alveoli, resembling a bunch of grapes. There are about 300million alveoli in each lung. The center of respiratory system is the lungs and vital exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide occurs through minute blood vessels in the walls of alveoli.
Several muscles help to suck air into your lungs. The diaphragm, a dome shaped muscle sheet attached to lower ribs, divides chest cavity from abdomen. When diaphragm contracts, along with other muscles between ribs, a mild vacuum is created around your lungs. This causes them to expand and suck air into respiratory tract. Stronger the muscle action, more air enters your lungs. When the muscles relax, the lungs contract, forcing air back out.
Nose is the main entrance to your nose. Air you breathe in through nose is warmed by small blood vessels very close to surface to nasal cavity and moistened before it passes into lungs. In addition, tiny hairs that line nose provide a filtering system to clear air by keeping foreign bodies such as dust particles from getting into your lungs.
The air you breathe out still contains some oxygen as evident in a process called cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in which person performing CPR breathes oxygen into victim through exhaled air and tries to restore breathing. Rate of breathing in and out is determined mainly by amount of carbon dioxide that must be expelled from your blood stream. If this mechanism works well, you hardly notice that you are breathing. However, number of things can go wrong with lungs and other parts of respiratory tract. Viruses and bacteria that cause disorders like pneumonia, irritants such as tobacco smoke which can cause lung cancer, and in some people, airborne allergens causing asthma/farmer’s lung can all interfere with lung function.
Commonest types of diseases affecting general population all over world are diseases affecting respiratory system. In a developing country like India, it is more evident on looking at percentage of patients receiving treatment at OPD/IPD level. They are more evident during winter and rainy season. Diseases like cold, allergic rhinitis, sinusitis etc affect nasal cavity and sinuses. Problems like laryngitis, pharyngitis, tonsillitis etc are common disorders of throat affecting your larynx (voice box). Common diseases of trachea, lungs and breathing mechanism include acute/chronic bronchitis, asthma, COPD, pneumonia, pleurisy and plural effusion and many more.
Amongst many causes of these diseases, one of the causes is spread of infection from person to person through air either by air breathes out or by sneezing, coughing openly in air or through sputum of infected person when he spits in open air. Another important cause is changing environment and pollution.
Industrialization and urbanization is causing irreversible damage to environment. Toxic fumes of gases, variety of chemicals, fuel smoke of vehicle, improper management of organic waste etc is severely polluting the environment making it toxic. Loss of greenery due to large scale cutting of trees is only worsening the situation. All these factors affect the general health of people lowering the immunity power and making them sensitive to host of factors acting as trigger for respiratory diseases.
Dust particles, smoke, chemical fumes, virus, bacteria gain an easy access to respiratory system through inhaled air and in a immuno-compromised sensitive host act as trigger and produce disease like asthma, tuberculosis, cough, bronchitis etc. With increase in polluting environment, allergic diseases of respiratory system as diseases due to occupational hazards are increasing manifold.
Therefore certain precautionary measures followed along with proper diet to increase immunity will minimize the effect of polluting environment on body and will also certainly help in treating as well as preventing respiratory diseases like asthma, tuberculosis etc.
Back to top