I noticed an interesting fashion for weather hypoxia. Well, that is, everyone knows that in the highlands there is low atmospheric pressure, and there people are suffocating from a lack of oxygen.
And many more know that when the weather changes, atmospheric pressure can also decrease. Some have even published an interesting idea that in bad weather the oxygen content in the atmosphere will drop below 19%. Usually there is 21% of it, and in case of bad weather, such as oxygen, it will already be 19% or less, and this will cause shortness of breath in some people. Have you heard about this? This is sheer nonsense.
Let's start with oxygen
The oxygen content in the atmosphere is always the same. There is always 21% of it. Only the pressure with which oxygen and other gases press on our lungs changes.
Ever used a creamer or siphon to soda water? There, gas under pressure saturates some kind of liquid. So atmospheric pressure saturates our blood with oxygen. The higher the oxygen pressure, the easier it is for it to enter our bloodstream.
If you put a person in a pressure chamber with an oxygen pressure of three atmospheres, then oxygen will simply dissolve in the liquid part of the blood, even without any hemoglobin. Oxygen will simply float there like gas in a bottle of mineral water.
At high altitudes, atmospheric pressure is low, and all gases from the atmosphere exert little pressure on our lungs. Including oxygen. It is more difficult for oxygen to enter the bloodstream. If there is little oxygen in the blood, then there is also little oxygen in different organs and tissues. This is what is called hypoxia.
Weather
When the weather changes, atmospheric pressure does decrease, but for a drop in atmospheric pressure to cause you to breathless, you must be thrown to an altitude of more than 2500 meters above sea level.
In fact, if you find fault and constantly measure the saturation of people with a pulse oximeter and all sorts of other parameters, then already at an altitude of about 1000 meters you can notice something in the blood with oxygen. But no matter what they notice, it usually does not affect the state of health and does not cause shortness of breath.
Scientists from Norway have done an interesting study. They measured the oxygen saturation of several thousand healthy people and people with lung diseases with a pulse oximeter on different days with different weather and different atmospheric pressure.
It turned out that saturation does change in different weather conditions.
Remember how people excitedly discussed pulse oximeters? Saturation is normal there somewhere between 98 and 99%, and if it drops to 92%, then people call an ambulance and go to the hospital. So the Norwegians found out that in order for the saturation to decrease by at least 1%, it is necessary to lower the atmospheric pressure by 124 millimeters of mercury.
Remember what the weather forecasts say about atmospheric pressure? It is usually somewhere around 760 millimeters of mercury, and when it rains, it falls by several tens of millimeters of mercury.
And then you need to lower it by 124 millimeters. I have not seen this.
Well, when they interviewed healthy and sick, it turned out that changes in atmospheric pressure at home do not affect shortness of breath even in patients. Which, in fact, was immediately clear.
Briefly speaking
If you sigh sadly during the rain, then this is not shortness of breath, but simply a bad mood.
Does that happen to you?
