Low Levels of Carbon Monoxide Help Heart Attack and Stroke Victims

Carbon monoxide is known to all as a killer gas. However ironically, in some cases, carbon monoxide proves to be a lifesaver. This has been proven through research conducted in mice where very low levels of carbon monoxide helped the mice, who have been suffering from lack of blood and oxygen, in staving off death.

This research and results have lead to the thought of the possibility of administering carbon monoxide, in the right concentrations to heart attack and stroke victims. According to researchers, carbon monoxide in very low levels in the body makes the blood vessels change some properties so that blood clots can be dissolved easily.

In cases of emergencies like a heart attack, stroke and severe infections like sepsis, clots tend to form rapidly in small vessels and thus obstruct the flow of blood. In such conditions, the administration of small doses of carbon monoxide to the blood stream can turn off proteins that tend to obstruct clot dissolution. With this, areas where clots dissolve with difficulty tend to dissolve quickly.

Basically, carbon monoxide, a colorless and odorless gas is usually toxic. It is a by-product from incomplete combustion of fuels where it enters the bloodstream on inhalation and acts like oxygen without its benefits. When it passes through the body, it starves the body's organs of oxygen whereby the body's need for oxygen and heart rate increases. This in turn induces poisoning at a much more rapid pace in the body. With this poisoning, the victim suffers from breathing difficulties, brain damage, and coma and heart damage. And without fresh air, there is a chance of the victim dying.

Carbon dioxide is similar to nitric oxide in its properties and nitric oxide has important biological functions in the blood vessels. It helps in keeping blood flowing, prevents accumulation of white cells and blood vessels from dilating. Both carbon monoxide and nitric oxide bind to iron molecules called heme proteins to activate an enzyme that signals the turning on and off of many cell functions.

So since carbon monoxide and nitric oxide do similar things, in the absence of nitric oxide, carbon monoxide will perform these functions. According to researchers, with cautionary notes and further testing, heart attacks, strokes, sepsis or organ transplants may benefit with the right amounts of carbon monoxide.

When you hear of carbon monoxide, the first thing that comes to mind is air pollution, cigarette smoke and suicides by inhalation of the car exhaust fumes from closed garages. As nitric oxide has recently been declared to an internal second messenger of great physiological importance, there is also a chance of carbon monoxide paradoxically helping in rescuing the lung from cardiovascular blockage injury.

So this infers that the carbon monoxide that you inhale while smoking, which was declared harmful to your health may in fact prove to be beneficial to you when suffering from strokes and heart attacks.

However as this concept is in the preliminary stage, and as carbon monoxide is still declared a killer gas, negligence should not be exercised in the presence of carbon monoxide leaks and with too much exposure to carbon monoxide.

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