8 Interesting Facts About Your Lungs

Breathing is the most important thing your body does. Without breathing, you simply cannot live. It’s something you do without even thinking—unless you suffer from a lung condition that makes breathing a difficult task. There are many facts about the respiratory system and the lungs that most people are unaware of.

Here are some facts about the lungs from the Lung Institute that are definitely worth knowing.

1. A person usually breathes an average of 13 pints of air every minute.

COPD symptoms may be relieved by taking short walks throughout the day. Find out more.

2. Lungs aren’t the same size. To accommodate the heart, the right lung is larger than the left lung (in human beings). 

COPD linked to structural changes in brain regions regulating fear and breathlessness. Find out more.

3. Lungs float on water! It’s not something most people are aware of, but it’s true. The lungs are the only organs in the human body that are capable of floating on water.

Gold treatment recommendations now include endobronchial valves to manage COPD.

4. What do lungs and a tennis court have in common? Their size! It seems pretty impossible, but if the lungs were opened flat, they would be so big that they would cover the size of a tennis court.

COPD diagnosis with lung function test linked to decreased mortality and fewer hospital admissions.

5. Oxygen only plays a small part in breathing.  The air we breathe contains 21 percent oxygen, but our bodies only use 5 percent—the rest is exhaled.

Understand more about what happens to the lungs in COPD patients with this animated film.

6. Seventy percent of waste is eliminated through your lungs just by breathing.

Millions awarded to Australian university to develop new COPD treatments. Find out more.

7. Children and women are faster breathers than men because their breathing rate is higher.

Positive phase 3 clinical trial data of COPD therapy Revefenacin reported by Theravance and Mylan.

8. Humans exhale up to 17.5 milliliters of water per hour.

COPD diagnosis with lung function test linked to decreased mortality and fewer hospital admissions.

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