With every breath you take, oxygen from the air rushes into your lungs, is absorbed into the hemoglobin in your blood and pumped by your heart throughout the trillions of cells in your body. If you doubt the importance of this, you can perform the simple experiment of holding your breath for a minute; as you turn blue, you will entirely convince yourself that oxygen is vitally needed by the cells in your body.

What do your cells do with all these oxygen molecules? Oxygen molecules are used by the cells to capture electrons from other molecules. Oxygen molecules have two unpaired electrons (called free radicals) that are hungry for companions.These oxygen free radicals capture available electrons from other molecules; when electrons are captured this is called “reduction”; oxygen is said to be “reduced” when it captures electrons. These electrons are stolen from other molecules; when electrons are ripped off of these molecules, this is called “oxidation”, these other molecules are said to be “oxidized”. Thus oxygen “oxidizes” other molecules by stealing their electrons and becomes “reduced” at the same time, by capturing such electrons. The special name REDOX (REDuction/OXidation) is given to this process.

Why is this REDOX process so important to cells? The metabolism of sugars, fats and keytones takes place within hundreds of power-generating mitochondria (my-toe-con-dree-ah) inside the cells. These mitochondria produce the energy needed to power our cells. Oxygen is needed as part of the final step of metabolism inside the mitochondria to capture the electrons that participate in the electron transport chain (ETC) (electrons are quickly transported to “charge the batteries” of the mitochondria). If oxygen were not there to capture these electrons, they would quickly leak back in, discharge the mitochondrial batteries, and in turn would cause our cells to run out of fuel and energy. Thus oxygen is vital to stop the electrons from leaking back, to keep these cell batteries charged, and to keep the cell’s machinery working. More than 80% of the oxygen we breathe is used in the mitochondria for this purpose.

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