Lecture 1 - Peak Performance
Life on Earth began 4 billion years ago, but humans appeared only 130,000 years ago. With such a long period in ‘research and development’, it isn’t surprising that the ‘human machine’ is so amazingly complex - far more complex than any state-of-the-art racing car.
But just like a petrol engine, humans use oxygen to burn fuels and release the energy which powers every function in every cell. So how do we get the oxygen from the air to the cell? This first programme will find out how this happens, even at the top of the world.
We shall look at the airways that carry the oxygen, and the rib-and-muscle bellows which drive air through them.
We shall look at the lung, how it passes the oxygen on to the blood, and the cells there which snatch and hold that oxygen. We shall find out how the heart pumps them around the body, and examine the blood vessels that carry them.
Finally, we shall hear from mountaineers who have climbed Mt Everest, where there is three-times less oxygen than at sea level, and see what happens to their bodies when they struggle to stand at the very top of the world.