What is hemoglobin and how does it affect your health

Hemoglobin in essence is what transports oxygen from the lungs to the other cells in the entire body. Oxygen is the most basic element of human life and its need in the body is very important. There are many health conditions that in particular have to pay very close attention to measuring the amount of oxygen that is actually in their hemoglobin. Such conditions as asthma, COPD, and other respiratory conditions require that there be a constant monitoring of the oxygen levels in order to ensure that the body is getting enough. In the medical field the measure of the amount of O2 in the blood is referred to as SpO2 or also known as blood oxygen saturation. It is this blood oxygen saturation that those that have various kinds of respiratory conditions need to keep an eye on and to closely monitor. The primary medical device that is used to measure the SpO2 is a pulse oximeter. The way that hemoglobin can affect your health directly is when not enough of O2 is being transported to the cells in your body and as a result you will begin to have various detrimental health affects that are not so easily fixed. If for example you have asthma then one of the biggest concerns is always the fact that you need to keep a very close eye on your oxygen levels in order to make sure that you prevent an asthma attack. When there is not enough of it in your system then you run the risk of an attack which can be very dangerous to your health. One way to measure this and to prevent an attack is to closely monitor it with the use of a pulse oximeter. What the device does in fact is that it uses special infrared technology to measure the percentage in the bloodstream.