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Asked by moniique to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: General.
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Caspar Addyman answered on 21 Mar 2011:
Sarah can probably answer this one best. but as far as I remember carbon monoxide is a gas that can attach itself to your red blood cells in place of the oxygen that normally goes there.. And once it is there won’t let go so you can’t get any more oxygen into your body and you suffocate.
where as carbon on its own (e.g. graphite or charcoal) is a solid and is not poisonous so can’t do you any harm.
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Diana Drennan answered on 21 Mar 2011:
carbon monoxide (CO) is bad for you because it binds to your hemoglobin better than oxygen does, and your body can’t use carbon monoxide to make energy. Hemoglobin is a protein in your red blood cells that is responsible for carrying oxygen from your lungs to all the other cells in your body. Your cells need the oxygen to be able to make energy. No oxygen = No energy = the cell dies. So, if the hemoglobin is carrying around CO instead of oxygen, your body doesn’t get enough oxygen. Basically CO poisoning makes you suffocate. I had a VW bug once that had a hole between the exhaust pipe and the heater box (which warmed air in the car by taking the heat from the outside of the exhaust pipes). The hole let small amounts of CO into the car when I had the heat on. I wondered why I got a headache every time I drove it until one day I said something to a friend who worked on cars and he freaked out “DON”T DRIVE IT ANYMORE !!!”. Apparently I could have passed out and crashed and died…..
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Sarah Thomas answered on 21 Mar 2011:
The problem with carbon monoxide is that it looks a lot like oxygen O2. They both have 2 atoms in their molecule and they are both the same size.
When you breathe oxygen in, haemoglobin in your red blood cells absorb it. Did you ever hear that iron is good for you? That’s because right in the middle of haemoglobin inside all your red blood cells, there is an iron atom. People that don’t have enough iron in their diet develop a condition called anemia. This is when the person gets really tired all the time. If you don’t have enough iron, your blood can’t carry all the oxygen your body needs.
So if you breathe in carbon monoxide, the red blood cell thinks it is oxygen and absorbs it. This creates a huge problem because the iron isn’t practised at releasing carbon monoxide. So basically the carbon monoxide blocks all your red blood cells so they can’t carry any oxygen. Without oxygen, you can’t survive. The person falls asleep and then dies, it would be like being suffocated. If somebody starts to get carbon monoxide poisoning, all the doctors can do is make them breathe 100% oxygen gas to get rid of the carbon monoxide from their blood (normal air is only 20.8% oxygen).
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