EXSS 276 Midterm Full Exam 2025
Oxygen carrying in blood - -blood leaves the lung, fully saturated and once the
hemoglobin is in the target tissue, it begins to desaturate, releasing oxygen
Hemoglobin when at the lung, picks up oxygen, but other areas releases lots of oxygen
Process of picking up and releasing only occurs
Blood must be in capillaries where the blood composition of the blood can be changed
to structure the vessels to pick up or release blood
Signals for hemoglobin to saturate or desaturate - -ration of oxygen to CO2
Ph
Temperature
Hemoglobin also carries a large amount of CO2 - -(almost 25% of waste product is
carried by it)
It will only carry CO2 when it is desaturated; when saturated, it won't (just start
desaturation)
Metabolism produces the CO2 and the hemoglobins desaturate in areas that are doing
lots of metabolism, but when the hemoglobin gets to the lungs, the capillaries are
different, so it releases CO2 at the lungs and picks oxygen back up (saturation)
Anemic people (due to poor levels of hemoglobin or rbcs): you can't pick up as much
oxygen or CO2 thus your metabolism doesn't work well to produce ATP, and when it is
producing the ATP, the CO2 can't be thrown out which inhibits energy production even
further - thus lethargy
Erythropoiesis or Hemopoiesis - -process by which rbcs are made
Reduced levels of oxygen in the blood stimulate kidney
Kidney stimulates by releasing erythropoietin which stimulates red bone marrow to
undergo enhanced erythropoiesis producing more rbcs which
Stem cell (hemocytoblast) —> committed cell (proerythroblast) —> phase 1: ribosome
synthesis —> phase 2: hemoglobin accumulation —> phase 3: ejection of nucleus —>
erythrocytes
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Reduced levels of oxygen in the blood stimulate kidney - -hypoxia: low levels of
oxygens which will usually occur because you have lower levels of rbcs and hemoglobin
(due to diet, anemia, or even environmental conditions)
Epo - -doping agent associated with endurance activities
Takes pharmaceutical basis of erythropoietin and injecting or swallowing it
Increases hematocrit and hemoglobin but the problem is when it moves to milkshake
level it makes the heart work harder
# of cases where triathletes and cyclists or distance runner die of heart attack during
activity
Blood isn't super viscous when you're resting, but when you're sweating a lot during
activity, you can never replenish the fluid as quickly as you lose it, plasma water is
getting smaller and formed elements are dissolved in this so the blood because more
viscous (already more viscous because of EPO)
Heart can't pump blood adequately
Note: most water in your sweat comes from plasma water
Most water in your sweat comes from - -plasma water
Globin - -alpha and beta protein chains
Recycling of amino acids for new rbcs
Blood doping - -injecting previously stored rbcs before an athletic event
(more cells available to deliver oxygen to tissues - hard to detect because you're using
your own blood other than looking for track marks)
Dangerous (increases blood viscosity and forces heart to work harder)
Banned by Olympic committee
Hypoxia (altitude) - -another form to raise hemoglobin level
Cause levels of blood to stimulate the kidney to produce erythropoietin, thus more rbcs
Training and being exposed to altitude, causes your hemoglobin to increase thus your
performance increases
Not banned - why a lot of teams go higher in altitude to train
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Problem: you have a window of time, as soon as you go to sea level, the body reduces
erythropoietin and RBC and hemoglobin production goes down so high values of
hemoglobin drop rapidly so you have 7-10 days until you're back to normal
Reason why athletes can do well at competition but at the Olympics they suck because
they have to go through 2 weeks of qualifying
Anemia - -either not enough rbcs (low hematocrit) or have rbcs but not enough
hemoglobin in them (both types have the same effect)
Anemia can be due to - -decreased erythropoiesis
Increased destruction of rbcs
Increased destruction of hemoglobin
Anemia can result in - -decreased capacity to carry gases (delivering O2 and getting rid
of CO2)
Decreased acid buffering capacity
(hemoglobin is able to accept hydrogen ions so it is a buffer - if you have a form of
anemia where you don't have as much hemoglobin, you lose the buffering capacity and
can't accept enough hydrogen ions so pyruvic acid stays as lactic acid and
disassociates and becomes acidic and you can't produce as much ATP through
metabolism)
Blood groups and types - -Type A
Type B
Type AB
Type O
Type A - -A antigen (glyco-proteins - protein structures with carb structures to them)
Anti-B antibody: made by the liver and ride on the plasma cells
Type B - -B antigen
Anti-A antibody
Type AB - -both A and B antigens
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Neither antibody
"universal recipients": can take A or B type
Type O - -O: Neither A nor B antigen
Both Anti-A and Anti-B antibodies
"universal donors": give blood to anyone due to lack of antigens
Heart myocardium is comporised of - -myocardial muscle cells and connective tissue
Cardiac muscle - -super slow muscle (super Type I - slow oxidative)
Lots of mitochondria, capacity for aerobic metabolism, ability to metabolize lipids as an
energy source
Inter-connected in an electrical synergy and if you send a signal to one myocardial
muscle cell, it will pass it on to the ones around it
The more myocardial muscle cells, the stronger the tissue
Bi-directional contraction - goes in multiple directions unlike skeletal muscle (atriums
push down and ventricles push down)
The vast majority of myocardial muscle tissue is in - -the ventricles of the heart
Vast majority of the ventricle is in the left vs. The right
Atriums have minimal myocardial muscle tissue - -not effective pumps, the ventricles
are
Have a heart attack in the atrium not the ventricles
Priming pumps
Low pressure pumping - -right atrium and ventricle (pump to lung)
Does not need powerful pump to go to the lungs which are nearby
High pressure pumping system - -left atrium and ventricle (pump to whole body)
High pressure pumping system: needs more because it's going to the whole body
Bi-directional contraction - -through intrinsic conductive system of the heart
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