Smoking and carbon monoxide saturation

[Francebunkerer]

I've got a question which has been bugging me for quite a while now. From a halfway trustworthy source I have heard that after a few cigarettes, 2 IIRC, carbon monoxide concentration reaches between 10 and 15%. Ok, now for the weirder part: After this point, i.e. with more smoking, the saturation supposedly increases less.
The answer I received was that it was perhaps buffered with the pH.

I looked it up on google but I only found really basic stuff (e.g. carbon monoxide is not really healthy) and in a window that I accidentally managed to close and chose to forget the terms entered in google (wheee, anecdotal!) I found something on stability of CO with cytochrome (which might be of interest concerning the heme).
Now, would anyone of you know more?

If my question happens to be entirely nonsensical, I'll probably rephrase it tomorrow.

[GrnEyedDvl]

I've got a question which has been bugging me for quite a while now. From a halfway trustworthy source I have heard that after a few cigarettes, 2 IIRC, carbon monoxide concentration reaches between 10 and 15%. Ok, now for the weirder part: After this point, i.e. with more smoking, the saturation supposedly increases less.

A 10% level would be fatal according to labsafety.com, that would be 100,000 ppm (parts per million) and they consider 1200 ppm to be an "immediate danger" to health or life.

Maybe what you read says that a person can absorb 10-15% of the carbon monixide the cigarette produces?

[Francebunkerer]

A 10% level would be fatal according to labsafety.com, that would be 100,000 ppm (parts per million) and they consider 1200 ppm to be an "immediate danger" to health or life.

Maybe what you read says that a person can absorb 10-15% of the carbon monixide the cigarette produces?

I meant the saturation of CO in the blood, i.e. coordinated with Hemoglobin.

[Claudius Gothicus]

I meant the saturation of CO in the blood, i.e. coordinated with Hemoglobin.

CO accelerates our hemoglobin rate by 250 or something like that, anyways 18 milligrams per metre3 during 15 minutes or more is deadly.

[Francebunkerer]

CO accelerates our hemoglobin rate by 250 or something like that

It just a has a significantly higher affinity than both O2 and CO2.

Upon using Google again, I found a lower number.

http://www.eboncall.org/CATs/2083.htm

I mainly interested in why the concentration of carboxy hemoglobin supposedly doesn't increase proportionally to the CO concentration.

[Serious Spamurai]

Cigarettes have around 10mg of carbon monoxide, at least that's what the packet says, if that helps at all.