When a person exercises, muscle contractions produce lactic acid. Moderate increases in lactic acid can be handled by the blood buffers without decreasing the pH of blood. However, excessive amounts of lactic acid can overload the blood buffer system, resulting in a lowering of the blood pH. A condition called acidosis is diagnosed if the blood pH falls to 7.35 or lower. Assume the primary blood buffer system is the carbonate buffer system described in Exercise 42. Calculate what happens to the [H2CO3]/[HCO3-] ratio in blood when the pH decreases from 7.40 to 7.35.
H2CO3(aq) ⇌ HCO3-(aq) + H+(aq) Ka = 4.3 × 10-7