Life-Giving Oxygen – Invisible Staff of Life
You can perform a simple demonstration by lighting two candles and placing them side by side, a few inches apart. Now partially cover one candle with a glass . . . watch how small and pale this flame becomes. If you cover the candle completely with the glass, the flame will go out in a few seconds. That is what happens in your body when you deprive it of life-giving oxygen.
Oxygen Powers the Human Machine
The human body is a marvelous and intricate mechanism for the production of mental and physical energy. Oxygen is this mechanism’s power source. Your body begins to function with your first breath and continues until your last. How well it functions depends on how well you supply it with powerful oxygen.
As in any heat or combustion engine, oxygen is essential to the production of energy in your body. Every flame consists of the union of oxygen with other elements. The gasoline that fuels your car, the natural gas or coal in a heater or furnace and the wood in a fireplace or stove all contain latent energy. This energy cannot be released to produce heat or power until its elements are broken down and united with oxygen.
This human body process is called metabolism. The food you eat contains latent energy, but it’s of absolutely no use to you without oxygen. To determine the general health of our bodies, we can test the rate of our basal metabolism. This rate is determined in a laboratory by measuring the oxygen we use while our body is resting.
As long as you live, the body mechanism operates continuously. Even while asleep, your lungs and heart, kidneys, liver and other major organs, as well as circulatory and nervous systems, must continue to function. The amount of energy you need depends, of course, upon your mental, as well as physical activities. The release of the energy you need depends upon your intake of oxygen and your general well-being.
Oxygen is Carried by the Bloodstream
Every one of the over 300 trillion cells in your body demands a continuous flow of life-giving oxygen in order to stay alive, do its job and remain healthy. This oxygen supply is carried in your bloodstream by the red blood cells. There are millions of these red cells in every drop of your blood (each body averages about 35 trillion).
