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Pastimes : My House
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To: Original Mad Dog who wrote (2843)10/18/2002 10:01:40 AM
From: Shoot1st  Read Replies (2) of 7689
 
The Lancet (London)

The Journal of the American Medical Association

ScienceNow

Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Explaining Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center have discovered a novel biochemical mechanism for carbon monoxide poisoning that may someday lead to new clinical approaches for treating carbon monoxide poisoning.

The classic explanation for CO's poisonous action is that it binds to hemoglobin molecules in the blood, impairing oxygen delivery to the body's cells. Eventually cells essentially suffocate and die. "This traditional view explains the mechanism of carbon-monoxide toxicity in only a small fraction of all people exposed to it," said Stephen R. Thom, MD, PhD, associate professor of emergency medicine and chief of hyperbaric medicine at Penn's Institute for Environmental Medicine. "The vast number of patients we see clearly don't fit this traditional explanation. Science falls down in terms of what we see in day-to-day practice."

Thom and his colleagues have identified a mechanism that provides an alternative explanation for CO toxicity. "We found that carbon monoxide binds to the same sites on heme proteins as nitric oxide," Thom said. Nitric oxide is a naturally occurring vasodilator and gaseous signaling molecule. An excess of NO, however, is deleterious to brain cells and other tissues.

"We have identified how CO can damage cells at levels that are relevant to real-world situations," said Thom in The Lancet. Thom said he hoped that the study's findings will convince physicians who tenaciously hold onto the classic explanation for carbon monoxide toxicity that there is more than one way to explain CO poisoning.
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