Explain how oxygen and carbon dioxide are transported by the blood - Assignment Example

Transportation of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood The circulatory system and the respiratory system are some of the major characteristics of larger sized animals, whose mass to surface area ratios are small and therefore require specialized organs and systems to meet cellular needs. Oxygen is one of the fundamentals of cellular mechanisms and requires sufficient transportation to body cells while carbon dioxide, a metabolic waste product, needs elimination from cells’ environments. The two processes occur in the gaseous exchange process that I explain in this paper, the process by which transportation of oxygen and carbon dioxide occur in the blood.

The process of oxygen transportation by the blood involves transfer of oxygen from the lungs to the cells that need the oxygen for physiological and biological processes. The major factor in the oxygen transfer is the concentration gradient between blood and the two cites. The respiratory system inhales blood that is reach in oxygen and induces oxygen concentration gradient between the lung and the blood system. Oxygen then diffuses into the blood system for transportation through the system’s network that reaches all body cells.

Many non-physical factors however facilitate the process that would otherwise be too slow to meet the need for oxygen. Physical transfer in which oxygen dissolves in the blood’s plasma only transport a limited amount of oxygen in the body, while the major transportation is aided by haemoglobin. Further, the level of oxygen that is transported through the chemical is a factor of “concentration of haemoglobin in the blood,” proportion of haemoglobin that is bound to oxygen and the chemical’s affinity to oxygen.

The level of diffused oxygen into the blood is further a non-linear factor of oxygen concentration with a reducing gradient as oxygen concentration increases up to an optimal level at which the diffusion rate stabilizes. Oxygenated blood is then transported through the circulatory system whose extensive network connects to all body cells and organs. The cells have low oxygen concentration and this facilitates the transfer of oxygen into cells across cell membranes. Dissociation of oxygen from blood’s haemoglobin is however also influenced by factors such as presence of carbon monoxide, concentration of hydrogen ions, and temperature among other biological conditions such as anaemia (Porth 2010; Tortora and Derrickson 2009).

The blood also transports carbon dioxide from cells to the lungs. The transfer occurs in three forms in which carbon dioxide diffuses from cells into the blood system to dissolve into blood plasma, integrate with haemoglobin, or form bicarbonate. The transfer process into the blood system is continuous and varies with the gas’ concentration in cells and its solubility potential. Dissolved carbon dioxide in blood plasma also ionizes in the presence of water to form bicarbonate ions that are then transported and released into the lungs.

Transportation through haemoglobin is however facilitated by availability of oxygen whose affinity to haemoglobin is higher than that of carbon dioxide. Reduced oxygen concentrations around the cells therefore facilitate infusion of carbon dioxide into haemoglobin while high oxygen concentration in the lungs facilitates dissociation of carbon dioxide from haemoglobin into the lungs (Porth 2010; Tortora and Derrickson 2009). Transportation of oxygen and carbon dioxide therefore occurs through blood, as a medium, and is facilitated by factors such as the gases’ concentration gradients in the lungs and in cells, haemoglobin affinity to the two gasses among other conditions around the cells.

Works citedPorth, C 2010, Essentials of pathophysiology: Concepts of altered health states, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia.Tortora, G and Derrickson, B 2009, Principles of anatomy and physiology, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.