It’s incredible how much difference a bit of oxygen can make. One tiny atom can mean life or death. Take the relationship between carbon and oxygen – carbon plus two oxygen atoms gives you carbon dioxide – completely essential for life. Take one oxygen away and you get the silent killer, carbon monoxide.

Deaths and serious physical and mental injury from carbon monoxide poisoning are surprising high worldwide and it is so easy to prevent with the help of a bit of science.

Haemoglobin is the stuff in blood that binds to oxygen. It is a really quite beautiful protein, with four petals arranged like a flower around a central “binding site” containing iron atoms. The binding site (as you might expect) is the place where certain molecules, like our friend oxygen can attach – a bit like those peg boards we used to play with as children where there were different shaped pegs and holes.

You have to find the right shaped peg – some fit loosely, others need to be hammered in and others don’t fit at all. The binding site of haemoglobin is a unique peg hole where the oxygen peg can slip loosely in, and be comfortably transported around your body feeding your organs, muscles and especially your brain.

Carbon monoxide, however, is a competitive molecule and can bind to haemoglobin 200 times stronger than oxygen.

Considering that carbon monoxide is invisible and has no smell or taste you can see why it is so dangerous. It doesn’t take much for your blood to become overrun with tightly bound carbon monoxide leaving your body starved of oxygen. Exposure to a slow, tiny leak as small as 20 or 30 parts per million (PPM) or 0.002 per cent can be harmful if you are exposed for several hours. Exposure at 2,000 PPM for less than one hour will cause unconsciousness and higher doses can kill in minutes.

A good friend of mine recently had a first hand brush with the silent killer that nearly claimed the life of her mum. Luckily she was saved in time. However she has been left with what appears to be permanent damage to her brain.

This family learned that you can pick up a travel carbon monoxide monitor for as little as £10 – surely a small price to pay to protect you and your family!

Carbon monoxide can build up in any enclosed space when fuels such as gas and wood are incompletely burned. This happens when all the oxygen in the space is used up – usually because there isn’t enough ventilation to replenish the oxygen.

Any heating system that isn’t working properly, may have old, warn or blocked pipes (that includes your chimney) is at risk of slowly but steading leaking this poisonous gas.

It is worth being wise to the potential risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, buying a detector and having your heating and cooking appliances checked regularly.

It is unlikely that you will be conscious at the point when you might otherwise realise there is a problem.