Question

What are the health effects of carbon monoxide?

Answer 1

• When we breathe air containing carbon monoxide ($\mathrm{CO}$), it is absorbed through the bloodstream where it displaces oxygen and binds with the hemoglobin in our blood.
• Carbon monoxide has a greater affinity to hemoglobin than oxygen,
• Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin about 250 times better than oxygen.
• Without oxygen, vital organs such as the heart and brain become deprived and will begin to deteriorate.
• To compensate, heart rate increases, breathing may become difficult and in the most serious circumstances cardiac trauma, brain damage, coma, etc. occur.