Physiological Significance of Minute Volume
Blood carbon dioxide (PaCO2) levels generally vary inversely with minute volume. For example, a person with increased minute volume (e.g. due to hyperventilation) should demonstrate a lower blood carbon dioxide level. The healthy human body will alter minute volume in an attempt to maintain physiologic homeostasis. A normal minute volume while resting is about 5–8 liters per minute in humans. Minute volume generally decreases when at rest, and increases with exercise. For example, during light activities minute volume may be around 12 litres. Driving a bicycle increases minute ventilation by a factor of 2 to 4 depending on the level of exercise involved. Minute ventilation during moderate exercise may be between 40 and 60 litres per minute.
Hyperventilation is the term for having a minute ventilation higher than physiologically appropriate. Hypoventilation describes a minute volume less than physiologically appropriate.
Read more about this topic: Respiratory Minute Volume
Famous quotes containing the words significance, minute and/or volume:
“It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Only the minute and the future are interesting in fashion—it exists to be destroyed. If everybody did everything with respect, you’d go nowhere.”
—Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)
“The other 1000 are principally the ‘old Yankee stock,’ who have lost the town, politically, to the Portuguese; who deplore the influx of the ‘off-Cape furriners’; and to whom a volume of genealogy is a piece of escape literature.”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)