Posted by Kendall Raine on October 30, 2000 at 09:01:31:
In Reply to: RE (from Eins): Ken, are you sure you know what you're saying? posted by Ken Kurtis on October 28, 2000 at 21:33:06:
Sorry, Ken. Your argument misses an important point. Nitrogen is a lousy gas to have in your diving mix. Forget the narcosis arguments for a minute-oxygen has twice the lipid solubility of nitrogen and should therefore be more narcotic than nitrogen. The real issue with nitrogen is the RBC stiffening effect it creates at elevated partial pressures. There is a large body of research on this-I'd be happy to give you citations. As a result, it off gasses inefficiently and is suspected of being the prime culprit in all sorts of micro-blood vessel related problems-like isobaric osteonecrosis.
By lowering the PN2, provided the heightened PO2 is properly managed, you're lowering the body's exposure to the harmful affects of nitrogen.
BTW, you know as well as I that PADI statistical arguments are generally assinine since they really have no good way of computing the population of regular divers, regardless of the gasses they're using.