# Respiration

Category: Metabolism

Respiration refers to the absorption of oxygen by cells, which releases energy.

9 passages · 2 authors · 1997–2024 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/respiration

## Synthesis

**Respiration**, in Ray Peat's framework, is fundamentally the productive use of oxygen to generate energy, a process inseparable from the presence and retention of **carbon dioxide**. [Source 4, 7] Peat argued that carbon dioxide is not merely a waste product but is *biologically more fundamental than oxygen*, noting that no organism can live or reproduce in its absence. [Source 5, 7] Optimizing respiration therefore means increasing the energy-producing consumption of oxygen while minimizing destructive oxidative processes, a state supported by factors like thyroid hormone and opposed by the inefficient oxidation of fats. [Source 4, 5]

The shift toward fat oxidation represents a core pathology of impaired respiration. Peat described how resting muscle burns primarily glucose and oxygen, but under stress or maximum exertion, it shifts to burning fat, producing **lactic acid** instead of carbon dioxide. [Source 5] This substitution, formalized as the *Randle Cycle*, means that when fatty acids are oxidized, glucose is diverted into lactic acid production, a condition mirrored in the failing heart and in diabetes. [Source 5] Danny Roddy has elaborated on this, explaining that when oxygen is unavailable due to a lack of carbon dioxide, cells must find an alternative electron sink, leading to fat synthesis; thus, *laying down fat is a symptom of imperfect respiration*. [Source 2] This is reflected in a low **respiratory quotient**, which indicates oxygen is being consumed without a corresponding production of carbon dioxide, a state synonymous with obesity. [Source 2]

Peat distinguished between the ordinary act of breathing and the underlying state of tissue respiration, cautioning that a slow breathing rate is not inherently a sign of health. [Source 1, 6] He critiqued the Buteyko method's focus on reducing ventilation rate, stating that "the liters per minute don’t matter at all" without knowing the percentage of carbon dioxide and the person's thyroid status. [Source 9] A truly fit person with a high metabolic rate, supported by thyroid, will naturally produce abundant carbon dioxide, which prevents physiological hyperventilation—the loss of carbon dioxide from the body—even if their absolute breathing volume is higher. [Source 1, 9] Conversely, a hypothyroid person or an athlete with a slow pulse may be *physiologically hyperventilating*, displacing carbon dioxide with elevated lactate. [Source 9]

The regulation of respiration is centrally tied to the behavior of gases in the body. Peat's early interest was sparked by the puzzle of how the pleural space between the lungs and chest wall is kept free of nitrogen, leading him to consider the active metabolism of all gases, not just oxygen and carbon dioxide. [Source 3] He highlighted the role of **carbonic anhydrase** in managing carbon dioxide's solubility and its movement across membranes, which in turn governs the transport of ions like sodium. [Source 3] The interplay between oxygen and carbon dioxide is further mediated by the **Bohr Effect**, where carbon dioxide causes hemoglobin to release oxygen to tissues, and the **Haldane Effect**, where oxygenation of blood displaces carbon dioxide. [Source 8] These mechanisms underscore that adequate respiration depends on the interplay between oxygen, glucose, and carbon dioxide to maintain cellular energy production. [Source 8]

## People also ask

### How does carbon dioxide support oxygen use in tissues?

Peat argued that carbon dioxide is biologically fundamental, and through the Bohr Effect, it causes hemoglobin to release oxygen to tissues, making it essential for productive respiration.

### Why is fat oxidation considered a sign of impaired respiration?

The entry describes that when respiration is impaired, cells shift to fat oxidation, producing lactic acid instead of carbon dioxide and leading to fat synthesis, which Danny Roddy called a symptom of imperfect respiration.

### Why did Peat criticize using slow breathing as a health metric?

Peat cautioned that a slow breathing rate is not inherently healthy because a hypothyroid person can still be physiologically hyperventilating and losing carbon dioxide, while a fit person with a high metabolic rate naturally produces abundant carbon dioxide regardless of ventilation volume.

## Related concepts

- [Alkalosis](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/alkalosis/index.md)
- [Body temperature and pulse](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/body-temperature-and-pulse/index.md)
- [Carbon Dioxide (CO2)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/carbon-dioxide-co2/index.md)
- [Cellular respiration](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cellular-respiration/index.md)
- [Cholesterol](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cholesterol/index.md)
- [Cori Cycle](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cori-cycle/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — One Radio Network: Nothing is as it seems with COVID (July 20, 2020)

Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 20, 2020

> **Patrick Timpone:** So that's why, that's one of the root causes of edema is just over-breathing.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, and probably 20 or 30 percent of the population you could find good evidence of over-breathing. relative to their needs and metabolism.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** So the less breaths we take per minute, the better it is. Not necessarily.
>
> **Ray Peat:** A person with a very high fitness, the most intense metabolism, they need lots of fuel and oxygen. They can sit still and productively burn three, maybe 4,000 calories just because their body is running at high, perfect metabolism. So they need both lots of calories and lots of oxygen. So you have to look at the body temperature, heart rate, oxygen consumption, everything to know what the respiration rate means.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** So if we are exercising briskly and doing bursts and other things, rebounding and treadmills, and we get our pulse rate pretty high, I mean, maybe three times our normal resting rate or more, and if we can do that without breathing or over-breathing and retaining carbon dioxide, is that a sign of good health, to get the heart rate up without having to breathe a lot?

### Source 2 — Bioenergetic Basics #8: Vitamin Toxicity Fads? What About Weight Gain? Avoid All Stress?

Danny Roddy · Video Transcript · Mar 6, 2024 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDJbjk6qk_4

> But just to get into the weeds a little bit more, there is a fantastic quote that I will not read the entire thing, but this is lactate versus CO2 and wound sickness, et cetera, in Ray's 2009 article. And this quote is talking about how cells get their energy from reducing protein, carbohydrate, and fat down into electrons, passing them through the cell, donating them to oxygen. Oxygen's availability is dependent on carbon dioxide, which you need good thyroid function to stimulate the production of carbon dioxide. And the NAD to NADH ratio is reflective of how many electrons are being passed to oxygen. And you will have a higher NAD to NADH ratio if you are effectively passing electrons to oxygen, having very few free electrons in cells to damage lipids. And so if that oxygen is not available due to a lack of carbon dioxide, the cell will have to find an alternative electron sink. And it can do this by donating electrons from NADH to NADP+, which is produced in the pentose phosphate pathway. And then this can produce NADPH, and that is the rate limiting factor for fat synthesis. So you can see how laying down lots of fat is another symptom of imperfect respiration. Therefore, the focus should be on the metabolism and not restricting calories or doing something crazy like lowering the carbohydrate or whatever. So this is the reason I think it's really important to have metabolic goggles on when thinking about stress and energy and weight gain. So another thing that's adjacent to the NAD to NADH ratio is the respiratory quotient. The respiratory quotient is reflective of how much oxygen is being consumed and carbon dioxide is being produced. And as a person gets more dependent on the fatty acid metabolism and produces less carbon dioxide, their respiratory quotient will fall, which is synonymous with obesity. And here we see a respiratory quotient of 0.70 can only mean that oxygen is being used without the production of a corresponding amount of carbon dioxide. And here we can see the respiratory quotient in obese persons receiving a diet of 2,000 to 2,500 calories is 0.755, which is significantly below the normal average. The very low respiratory quotients encountered in diabetes, starvation, and after the administration of a ketogenic diet are undoubtedly due in part at least to ketosis.

### Source 3 — Carbon Dioxide, Redox Balance, and The Ketone Body Ratio with Ray Peat  [Generative Energy #26]

Ray Peat · Interview · Apr 21, 2016

> ## Carbon Dioxide and Respiration
>
> **Ray Peat:** I think people asking me about Buteyko. I had read some of Buteyko's articles in 1969 or so, but I didn't really think very much of it except it seemed valid. I was interested at that time in several gases—the way nitrogen fixation by chickens and mammals and people from the atmosphere was what got me interested in Buteyko. The Russians were using nitrogen in their space vehicles with oxygen, where the Americans were using helium. There were some publications arguing that you should always breathe some helium along with your oxygen because of the fact that it can be fixed. Hemoglobin is apparently a nitrogen-fixing molecule in birds and mammals as well as bacteria. Thinking about how the gases are metabolized—for example, how does a fish keep its swim bladder inflated? The idea of pumping gases in or out. And the negative space between the lungs and the pleural membrane; there's in effect a vacuum there. The membranes are tightly in contact, but if you get a leak, your lungs collapse. If you punch a hole in the lung, the air goes out into that space and the lung shrivels up. So something is pumping absolutely all of the gas out of that space between your chest and the lungs. Most of the air volume is nitrogen, so it's easy to see that you can subtract the oxygen from that space, but that would leave nitrogen bubbles around your lungs. So something apparently is pulling the nitrogen out of that space constantly, and none of my professors would even talk about that issue. That left me thinking about the metabolism of all of the gases. I was worried about the turtles that have salt glands on their nose or eyes to excrete excess sodium. The membrane pump people were saying, "See, that proves that there are these marvelous little pumps that throw the ions out of the cells." On investigating that, I saw that there's carbonic anhydrase in there. Just by changing the association of carbon dioxide with water, you affect its solubility.

### Source 4 — Optimizing respiration (Townsend Letter — Unknown 1997)

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 1997

> # Optimizing respiration
>
> In a given situation, people who eat more are healthier and live longer than those who eat less—their bodies burn calories vigorously. In one study, fat people were found to be able to maintain their weight on only 700 calories per day, about a third of a normal calorie intake. In animal studies, too, the fast-metabolizers live longer than the animals that don't burn calories so fast. When animals are fed a calorie-restricted diet, and live longer than their ad lib fed relatives, people like to say that their "metabolic rate is depressed," but that isn't true: the under-fed animals are smaller than the ad lib eaters, but each gram of their tissue burns energy at a higher rate.
>
> Respiration in the ordinary sense is breathing, the exchange of gases between the animal and its environment.
>
> Tissue respiration refers to the absorption of oxygen from the blood by cells, or, more exactly, to the exchange of gases between cells and their environment. Plants and other organisms respire in ways that are biochemically very similar to our tissue respiration.
>
> Not all the oxygen we consume is put to good use, and we sometimes produce exhalations of gases other than carbon dioxide and water vapor.
>
> Under stressful conditions, people may exhale measurable amounts of pentane, ethane, isoprene, carbon monoxide, and other substances with potential toxicity. In hyperventilation, so much carbon dioxide is lost in the breath that our tissue respiration is impaired, creating a partial "tissue suffocation." If cells consume oxygen without producing carbon dioxide generously, a situation analogous to hyperventilation/tissue suffocation exists. Oxygen deprivation is one of the signals that stimulates the production of new red blood cells, and this involves the production of porphyrin, heme, and hemoglobin. The elimination of heme by oxidation produces carbon monoxide, which can block the respiratory production of energy.
>
> The biological value of the antioxidants is that they allow oxygen to be used productively, rather than destructively. When something interferes with the normal, productive use of oxygen, there is a great increase in the destructive forms of oxidation, such as lipid peroxidation, and the antioxidative reserves become crucial. That is, decreased respiration of the productive sort tends to increase the destructive use of oxygen.

### Source 5 — EastWest Healing: Energy and Metabolism

Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 17, 2013 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaF26fTAkWw

> ## Energy Metabolism and the Randall Cycle
>
> **Josh Rubin:** Let's move on to the show. Today we're going to be talking about energy metabolism. A lot of people talk about macronutrients; some say high protein is good, or high fat, or high carb. I think we all agree that all macronutrients are important, though we have different views on the ratios. Can you talk about the cells and metabolism and why it's so important when we talk about energy?
>
> **Ray Peat:** One of the themes I've been interested in for a long time is the function of carbon dioxide in cells. In some observations, people have seen that the most improbable organism is unable to live without carbon dioxide, even though they can live without oxygen. Ordinarily, we think of oxygen turning into carbon dioxide as a waste product, but it really seems to be even more essential for life than oxygen. Carbohydrates are a very good source of carbon dioxide. They oxidize and produce a lot of carbon dioxide. If carbon dioxide is that essential to life, then obviously the best food to produce it is going to be carbohydrates. In recent newsletters, I've been pointing out some of the things that are becoming fairly common knowledge now regarding the failing heart. If you look at what happens when you exercise: when you're sitting at rest, the quiet muscle burns almost pure sugar and oxygen—pure glucose and oxygen. But as soon as it starts exercising, it shifts over to fat oxidation. At maximum exercise, it's burning mostly fat and very little oxygen. It produces quite a bit of lactic acid because it's wasting sugar. It's burning the fat pretty thoroughly, but it's wasting the sugar and turning it into lactic acid. The failing heart does the same thing. It's exerting its maximum, and in doing that, it's burning fatty acids primarily rather than sugar. This process of substituting fat burning for sugar burning was called a cycle by P.J. Randle. It isn't really a cycle, but now it's called the Randall Cycle. This means that if you burn fatty acids, that stops you from oxidizing glucose; instead, you'll turn it into lactic acid. Diabetes consists of living on fatty acids and not being able to oxidize glucose, but still turning glucose into lactic acid, so that lactic acidemia becomes a problem in diabetes. Obviously, to make lactic acid out of glucose, it has to get into the cells.

### Source 6 — Reader Comment Q&A — The Peat Whisperer Whispers Paleo

Danny Roddy · Forum Q&A · Dec 15, 2012 · https://180degreehealth.com/the-peat-whisperer-whispers-paleo/

> **Zach:** (2012-12-15) That paleo list was exactly what i saw when visiting the MDA forums for a week. A post on doing a 100+ hour fast and people congratulating him. A post on making “bulletproof” tea (stick of butter added to tea). Fear mongering and mob mentalities on any thread about carbs. So Danny, have you been branching out at all or is your diet still a strict Peat inspired diet? What do you think about Matt’s ideas that too much fluid can slow metabolism? I know that a Peat diet is very heavy on fluids although its also heavy on sugar and salt.
>
> **Danny Roddy:** (2012-12-15) I think there is a pretty large value in having solid foods in the diet. Anecdotally, if I eat a breakfast with solids (maybe a piece of meat, coke, coffee and milk) I tend to get a lot warmer than If I didn’t include the meat.
>
> **Rob:** (2012-12-15) So what’s your take on respiration rate? Is Buteyko breathing about fewer breaths and thus more time for CO2 to do its thing? Is that a desirable practice? Is it related to meditative practices which slow the breath? How does this relate to kids having real fast respiration rates typically, commensurate with their higher metabolism?

### Source 7 — Buteyko Breathing - Bud Weiss, 2008-09-15

Ray Peat · Interview · Sep 15, 2008

> **Bud Weiss:** Ray, could you just introduce yourself a bit, please?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Okay. I had been a student of several other subjects such as linguistics when I began studying biology in 1968, and I had begun in brain biology at the University of Oregon because of my years of interest in psychology and linguistics, but as I ran into dogmatism, I decided to shift to biology of reproduction and aging because it happened that at the University of Oregon these people were less dogmatic than the ones in nerve biology. And some of the most interesting work at the university was being done in biochemistry, and so most of my course work was in biochemistry and endocrinology. And the biology of progesterone, estrogen and tissue respiration was the center of my pieces, and that led to interest in organismic respiration as controlled by thyroid and its interactions with progesterone and estrogen. And by chance, before I begun studying at the university in 1968, I had visited Russia to talk to a biologist there who was studying the interactions of magnetic fields and the nervous system and the endocrine system. Because of my contact with Russian literature I ran into Buteyko's work right around that same time. I respected what he was doing because he was one of the few people in the world that really took the physiology of carbon dioxide seriously; as so many American biologists and physicians in particular think of it as a waste material rather than as a crucial biochemical. In the early 1940th someone demonstrated that many organisms can live and reproduce even without oxygen, but they could find no cell or organism that could live and reproduce in the absence of carbon dioxide. So biologically it's in a way much more fundamental than oxygen. I didn't study much of Buteyko after that. I was just aware that he was one of the few people who had worked out the complex biochemical effects of carbon dioxide, but I would periodically check what the Russians were doing in relation to carbon dioxide physiology.

### Source 8 — Another View of Evolutionary Nutrition?

Danny Roddy · Article · Mar 18, 2013

> No wonder Dr. Peat called Szent-Györgyi one of his "science heroes" in a recent interview.
>
> Another View of Evolutionary Nutrition?
>
> A dozen or so years ago, a religious friend told me that "If I stood for nothing, I would fall for anything." Nothing could be more fitting concerning the community surrounding evolutionary nutrition. The concept is so broad and open for interpretation that straight up crazy people like Jack Kruse gain minor celebrity.
>
> Adequate respiration depends on adequate structures and adequate structures require adequate respiration. Optimizing respiration by focusing on energy-producing factors (i.e., the interplay between oxygen, glucose, and carbon dioxide) is evolutionary nutrition.
>
> This, in my opinion, is the only reliable evolutionary template.
>
> Back to writing the new version of Hair Like a Fox. Leave your thoughts in the comments.
>
> [references]

### Source 9 — Reader Comment Q&A — The Peat Whisperer Whispers Paleo

Danny Roddy · Forum Q&A · Dec 15, 2012 · https://180degreehealth.com/the-peat-whisperer-whispers-paleo/

> **Danny Roddy:** (2012-12-15) This was actually just discussed by someone way smarter than me on my facebook: Steven Scott posted: Awesome!! It is mentioned the the blog about hyperventilation in diseases but Ray Peat has told me that the low respiratory rate is a mistake by the Buteyko people, similar to those who think that a slow pulse is good. Here is what he said “The last air out of the lungs should approach 6% CO2, but with a continuous recorder you can calibrate it to make a correspondence between normal breathing and the forced expiration. The liters per minute don’t matter at all, except for estimating your metabolic rate, if you know the percentage of CO2. Some of the Buteyko people have mistakenly focused on the ventilation rate, forgetting that it’s meaningful only when you know the thyroid status…..Yes, when thyroid supports a higher metabolic rate, the increased CO2 is preventing physiological hyperventilation, in the sense of breathing so much that the amount of CO2 in the body is decreased. Slow breathing hypothyroid people, and many athletes with a slow heart rate, are really hyperventilating in the physiological sense, and are likely to have elevated lactate in the blood, displacing CO2.” “I think that Peat is saying that someone with optimal thyroid would have a higher breathing rate. However I don’t know if he would recommend forced slow breathing or not…but at least would probably recommend nasal breathing. High ventilation and low thyroid is probably what will lead to declining health. Buteyko often talked about the super endurance of the yogi.

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