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Carbon Monoxide Levels - How Much is too Much?
By: Alexandria Haber
What is carbon monoxide?
Carbon monoxide or CO is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas. Due to this fact, it is very hard to detect the presence of CO in your environment. It is, however, imperative that the CO levels in your home are carefully monitored. Even at relatively low levels, CO is poisonous because it rapidly accumulates in the blood thereby depleting its ability to carry oxygen. Extreme cases of CO poisoning result in death.
Where does carbon monoxide come from?
CO is a common by product of the combustion of fossil fuels. When properly installed and maintained, most fuel burning equipment (natural gas, propane or oil) will produce insignificant amounts of CO.
At what level does carbon monoxide become toxic?
For healthy adults, CO becomes toxic when it reaches a level higher than 50 ppm (parts per million) with continuous exposure over an eight hour period.. When the level of CO becomes higher than that, a person will suffer from symptoms of exposure. Mild exposure over a few hours (a CO level between 70 ppm and 100 ppm) include flu-like symptoms such as headaches, sore eyes and a runny nose. Medium exposure (a CO level between 150 ppm to 300 ppm) will produce dizziness, drowsiness and vomiting. Extreme exposure (a CO level of 400 ppm and higher) will result in unconsciousness, brain damage and death.
How to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning
- have a qualified technician install and regularly inspect all fuel burning appliances
- regularly inspect fireplaces and chimneys to insure proper ventilation
- never use a gas or charcoal barbeque indoors
- never start a car or gas run lawnmower or snow blower in a closed garage.
- install a carbon monoxide detector in your home.
This article was posted on December 30, 2004
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How to Benefit from the Mind-Body Connection
(excerpt)
You are about to gain insight into the
mind-body connection. The number of
people who truly understand these principles on our
planet are relatively few.
There is an undeniable connection between our minds and
bodies, you can learn
to use this fact to your benefit.
Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of "Love, Medicine and
Miracles" was once a
distraught cancer surgeon until he
began to understand the greater principles
of the mind-
body connection. He felt dragged down by the artificial
barriers
that existed between patient and doctor, and the
helplessness he often felt as
a result of his inability
to effectively serve those patients. Eventually, those
barriers
were disintegrated by Dr. Siegel's recognition
and growing understanding of the
mind-body connection and
how it could serve his patients and himself.
Dr. Siegel, or Bernie as he began to have his patients
refer to him, had some
startling realizations as a cancer surgeon. He found that
there were actually
quite a few people in the world that successfully beat
the statistics on cancer
survival. He began to recognize that a patient's ability
to defeat something as
serious as cancer had to do with the patient's mind and
attitude about their
disease.
If you would like to see the rest of
this article, please go here:
http://www.tobeinformed.com/repository/mind-body.html
copyright 2004 - David Snape
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