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Is It Possible To Have Glucose In Your Airways?

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    I do not understand your question.  Are you asking if it is possible to have glucose in the  main-stem bronchus, the alveoli and other ?  If you somehow managed to inhale sugar (glucose), then yes, you would have glucose in your lungs in the space that is normally reserved for air.  Another way for you to have glucose in your airways is if you have blood in your airways.  Various diseases cause the breakdown of the lung tissue such that blood that should be prohibited from entering the airspace ends up in the airspace (think of diseases that cause patients to cough up blood).  Blood can contain varying amounts of glucose therefore whatever glucose is in the blood would also be in the airspace . . . Though if the airspace is filled with blood, it wouldn't be functioning as an airspace very well now, would it?

    Another way to have glucose in your airways would be to have a malfunction in the formation of your mucus.  "Mucus is [supposed to be] a complex mixture of water, proteins and glycoproteins, lipids and salts."  www.erj.ersjournals.com  [Note:  Glycoproteins are proteins that have sugar groups on them for reasons of signaling, etc; they are NOT simply protein + glucose.]  How this mess-up would occur is beyond my knowledge, but I speculate that a person with uncontrolled diabetes might have glucose-containing mucus.

    If this doesn't answer your question, then please rephrase it.  You might find these links helpful simply for their detailed discussion of the structure of the "airways":  www.hse.gov.uk  and   http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/articles/706.html
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    answered 7 months ago

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