Dr. Jack Feldman

Now, why?

Well, we have to go back to the lung again.

The lung has these 500 million alveoli, and they're very tiny.

They're 200 microns across.

So they're really, really tiny.

And you can think of them as fluid-filled.

They're fluid-lined.

And the reason they're fluid-lined has to do with the esoterica of the mechanics of that.

It makes it a little easier to stretch them with this fluid line, which is called surfactant.

Your alveoli have a tendency to collapse.

There's 500 million of them.

They're not collapsing at a very high rate, but it's a slow rate that's not trivial.

And when alveolus collapses, it no longer can receive oxygen or take carbon dioxide out.

It's sort of taken out of the equation.

Now, if you have 500 million of them and you lose 10, no big deal.

But if they keep collapsing, you can lose a significant part of the surface area of your lung.

Now, a normal breath is not enough to pop them open.

But if you take a deep breath through nose or mouth, it doesn't matter.

Just increase that lung volume because you're just pulling on the lungs.

They'll pop open about every five minutes.