 When you look at the lungs, you probably don't think acid-based balance immediately, but they play a very important role. The simplest way to look at this, I think we overthink this, the simplest way to look at this is carbon dioxide becomes an acid called carbonic acids. Let's go ahead and look at the actual homeostasis chart here. But that is basically the simplest way to look at it. Carbon dioxide can react with water to form carbonic acid and usually they're in equilibrium. So the more carbon dioxide you have, the more carbonic acid you will have. It's a weak acid, but it's still an acid. So when you think carbon dioxide, think acid. So if we have to get rid of acids, we should get rid of carbon dioxide. If we have to hold on to acids, we should hold on to carbon dioxide, and we'll come right back to that in just a moment. So your body primarily controls your respiratory rate. So the respiratory rate centers are in the ponds of the brainstem, the rhythmity centers are in the medullavel and gata, but there are chemo receptors that are in your aorta and your crotted arteries, and they're basically pH sensors in a sense, but they're primarily monitoring carbon dioxide levels. Your brain is much more interested in carbon dioxide levels than oxygen levels. We have enough oxygen. We have extra oxygen. That's why we can go to higher altitudes. We have to make sure we keep the right amount of carbon dioxide. If we get rid of too much or too little, we're in trouble. Okay, so let's go ahead and look at these here. Let's look at the most common. We'll cover the acid-base disturbances in a separate video, but respiratory acid doses would be the most common. So let's go down the left-hand side. The pH drops too low. In this case, it would be below 7.35. You don't have an acid-dose condition. The receptors in the ponds, like I just mentioned, and the aorta and the crotted arteries, they're going to be stimulated, and they're going to increase your respiratory rate. So if your pH is too low, you have too much acid in your blood. We're going to increase respiratory rate to get rid of carbonic acid. So as you start to breathe faster, your blood CO2 is going to go down because you're exhaling more of it, which means your blood carbonic acid is going to go down, and then your pH will climb, and you should be fine, unless it's too big of something to deal with. So if you double your respiratory rate for a minute, you can bring the pH up by 0.2 points. That's pretty good. So if you're exercising, you're going to be generating more carbon dioxide and generating more lactic acid if you're exercising really intensely, which is why you need to breathe faster when you exercise. The increased breathing from exercise is primarily about getting, it's at least as much more about getting rid of carbon dioxide than it is getting in more oxygen. So what kind of things could lead to too much carbon dioxide in your blood, which is hypercapnia, it's called, anything that's going to impact respiratory function. So I think pneumonia, COPD, emphysema, congestive heart failure, all of those things that are going to impair lung function so that your body might not do as good of a job of getting rid of carbon dioxide. Anything that causes hypoventilation, and it causes you to breathe too slowly to do the same thing. So drugs, central nervous system disorders, like I'm thinking about morphine, richwits, alcohol, all these things can cause you to breathe too slowly. One, alcohol poisoning, it actually will kill you by basically you're breathing slow so much or you stop breathing to the point where you will become acidotic and that can be fatal. Now let's go to the other side. What would happen if your pH were to climb too high? Now this is generally not going to be as common, hopefully understand why. I like to remember that your body is always teetering on the edge of acidosis because every second of every day your metabolism makes acids. So you'll see whether it's metabolic or respiratory disturbances. We are much more likely to become acidotic, have our pH climb too low than to rise too high. But if your pH of your blood goes above 7.45, you'll now have alkalosis. Same receptors are going to be triggered, but the opposite's going to happen. This person needs to breathe more slowly. If your pH is too high, you're getting rid of or you don't have enough acid. So if you slow down your respiratory rate, you will have more carbon dioxide in your blood, which means you'll have more carbonic acid and that should hopefully bring your pH back down to normal. So what can lead to too little carbon dioxide? It's called hypocapnia and the key here is hyperventilation. Anything that causes you to breathe too quickly. This is why, so the most common cause of respiratory alkalosis is hyperventilating. So maybe you probably all know this. If someone's hyperventilating, what do you do? You know, get them comfortable, get them sitting down or laying down or something so that if they do pass out, they, they don't hit their heads and if they pass out, it's probably not a terrible idea because their breathing will hopefully stabilize and they'll be fine, but you have them breathe into a bag. Everyone's heard that, but why? If you have somebody breathing into a bag when they're hyperventilating, every time they inhale, they're inhaling that dirty air that's full of the carbon dioxide they just exhaled. So having someone breathe in a bag will have them breathe in more carbon dioxide, get more CO2 in their blood and hopefully bring their pH back down. All right, so that's how your body uses your lungs, your respiratory system to help maintain pH. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.