Chapter 18, Problem 29RQ

Adolph Fick, the nineteenth-century physiologist who derived Fick’s law of diffusion, also developed the Fick equation that relates oxygen consumption, cardiac output, and blood oxygen content:

O₂ consumption = cardiac output × (arterial oxygen content − venous oxygen content)

A person has a cardiac output of 4.5 L/min, an arterial oxygen content of 105 mL O₂/L blood, and a vena cava oxygen content of 150 mL O₂/L blood. What is this person’s oxygen consumption?