Respiratory · Pulmones
Lungs
Unfold the inner surface and it would cover most of a tennis court.
- Breaths per day
- ~20,000
- Alveoli
- ~300 million
- Exchange surface
- ~70 m²
- Barrier thickness
- ~0.5 micron
What it does
Bring oxygen in, send carbon dioxide out, and do it around 20,000 times a day without you deciding to. They also help regulate blood pH by controlling how much CO2 you exhale.
The marvel
Around 300 million alveoli give you a gas-exchange surface of roughly 70 square metres, folded into a space you can cover with two hands. The barrier between your blood and the outside air is about half a micron thick, which is thinner than a soap bubble.
How to serve it well
Do not smoke or vape
The single largest controllable factor in respiratory health. Lung function decline accelerates with smoking and partially recovers after stopping.
Mind the air you cannot see
Radon is a leading cause of lung cancer in people who never smoked, and it is detectable with a cheap home test. Indoor particulates from wood smoke and unvented cooking matter too.
Vaccination is lung care
Influenza, COVID, and pneumococcal vaccines measurably reduce serious lower respiratory infection, especially past 50 or with existing lung disease.
Train the pump
Aerobic fitness does not enlarge your lungs, but it lowers the ventilation needed at any given workload, which is why fit people feel less breathless doing the same thing.
Book an appointment
- A cough lasting more than three weeks
- Breathlessness that is new or getting worse
- Wheeze, or chest tightness that comes and goes
- Repeated chest infections
Emergency, go now
- Struggling to speak a full sentence because of breathlessness
- Blue or grey lips or fingertips
- Coughing up blood
- Sudden sharp chest pain with breathlessness
What you may have been told
“"Lung cleanse" teas and detox regimens clear out tar.”
Your airways already have a clearance system: a mucus layer moved constantly by cilia. No drink reaches lung tissue to scrub it. Stopping the exposure is what lets that system recover.
Where this comes from
- World Health Organization · Tobacco and air quality
- American Lung Association · Radon and lung health
- NHS · Breathlessness
LUMEN is education, not medical advice, and it cannot know anything about you. It does not diagnose. If something here matches what you are experiencing, take it to a clinician who can examine you.