This section is a simple explanation of the theory of overbreathing and the role of carbon dioxide in the body. There’s no medical jargon here, but the information may seem a little complex simply because it’s not everyday reading material. My advice is to read through this section slowly and return to it occassionally.
You don’t need to know this information off by heart, but it is important to at least have a basic understanding of the theory. In my experience, people who apply breathing exercises without having a good understanding of the concept of overbreathing and the role of carbon dioxide do not receive the full benefits.
 

Buteyko Breathing Method
 

Over four decades, Russian scientist Professor Konstantin Buteyko completed pioneering work on illnesses that develop as a result of breathing more air than the body needs. His life’s vocation provided humanity with what is arguably the greatest discovery to date in the field of medicine.
As a medical student, he discovered from his observations of hundreds of patients that their breathing was closely related to the extent of their illnesses. The greater the volume of air inhaled by a patient, the worse the sickness, he noted. This newly-discovered relationship between breathing and health was so precise that he was even able to predict accurately the exact time sick patients would pass away.
As a result of his research, Buteyko went on to devise a breathing programme for his patients, based on reducing the amount of air that passed through their lungs. When each patient applied reduced breathing, all physiological functions including pulse, volume of breathing per minute and blood pressure were monitored. As time went on, the results helped Buteyko to refine and improve his method.
His theory is based on breathing, the life force of any organisim. We humans can live without water and food for many days and weeks but we cannot live without air for more than a few minutes. One wonders then why something so vital to life receives so little attention.
It can often take many years before a medical discovery is acknowledged and incorporated into everyday practice. This was the case with Buteyko’s theory, but his experience is reflected through medical and world history. For example, Professor Lister discovered that many illnesses such as sepsis could be passed from doctor to patient by the contaminated hands of the doctor. Lister tested his hypothesis by disinfecting his hands prior to each operation and this resulted in a decrease in the death rate of his patients. It took many years for this discovery to be accepted by the medical community who only did so when patients’ relatives started demanding that doctors disinfect their hands before operating.
Although research conducted in Russia in 1962 proved unequivocally the soundness of Buteyko’s method, it was not until 1983 that the Committee on Inventions and Discoveries formally acknowledged his work. This recognition, which begs the question of how many more people would have benefited from the discovery if it was acknowledged earlier, was backdated to January 29th, 1962.
Buteyko’s discovery on October 7th, 1952 has improved the health and saved the lives of many thousands of people. Now that his discovery is becoming better known in the Western world, it will save the lives of many more.
 

Breathing Volume
 

Clinically, overbreathing is known as hyperventilation which means breathing more air than the body needs. If this is happening on a day-to-day basis, it is called chronic hyperventilation. ‘Hyper’ means over and ‘ventilation’ means breathing
The standard volume of normal breathing for a healthy person is three to five litres of air per minute. During an asthma or panic attack, this breathing level can increase to more than twenty litres per minute, a level which is detrimental to health and unsustainable for a lengthy period. Less obvious and more prevalent is habitually breathing a volume of between five and twenty litres per minute. Based on genetic factors, according to Professor Buteyko, this results in an individual developing illness.
Severe overbreathing can be fatal if it is sustained over a short period of time, so it is plausible to accept that there will be negative health effects caused by less severe but still excessive breathing over a long period of time. Long-term overbreathing leads to the build-up of organ damage, resulting in the development of illnesses specific to the hereditary traits of each person. Professor Buteyko’s method restores correct carbon dioxide levels and therefore leads to an overall improvement in general health.
In Russia, this therapy is practised by an estimated two hundred qualified medical doctors in the treatment of a hundred varied illnesses including hypertension, tinnitus, diabetes, and hypo/hyperthyroidism. The results of treating asthma with the Buteyko Method are swift, so it is used in the West mainly in the treatment of this condition.
 

Volume of breathing of a person with asthma
 

Scientific research conducted by Professor Buteyko over three decades and scientific trials at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane in 1995 demonstrated that people with asthma breathe a volume of ten to twenty litres per minute between attacks and over twenty litres during an attack. For example, the average volume of air measured during the Mater Hospital Buteyko Trials was 14.1 litres per minute, although other researchers showed a volume of 15 litres (Johnson et al 1995) and 12 litres (McFadden & Lyons 1968).
Often, overbreathing is not obvious or noticeable and therefore was called ‘hidden hyperventilation’ by Professor Buteyko. Other researchers, such as Robert Fried in his book Hyperventilation Syndrome, have agreed with this description. In addition, hidden ventilation has been observed at my own Asthma Care Clinic; many people show no outward signs of hyperventilating, yet their asthma as indicated by history and drug regime may be quite serious. These same people benefit significantly from exercises aimed at reversing hyperventilation.
 

Earlier in this book, we learned a simple way of measuring the extent of our overbreathing by performing a simple test developed by Professor Buteyko called the control pause. As overbreathing is related to the extent of our illness, we can determine the state of our asthma by our control pause. An improvement of the control pause coincides with improvement in our condition.
 

Carbon Dioxide
 

Ever since Lavoisier proved in the eighteenth century that oxygen was essential to life, carbon dioxide  which is an end product of our metabolism  became known as a waste gas. Lavoisier compared bodily functions to the process of fire; both fire and the human body absorb oxygen and produce carbon dioxide and heat.
The sustenance of life requires oxygen and carbon dioxide. Just as excess oxygen results in damage to the lungs when the toxicity level is higher than antioxidants can counteract, too little carbon dioxide impairs the correct functioning of all organs.
The key to Buteyko theory is that carbon dioxide is not just a waste gas; it is essential for all metabolic functions. Dr. Yandell Henderson put it well when he wrote: “carbon dioxide is the chief hormone of the entire body, it is the only one that is produced by every tissue and that probably acts on every organ,” in the Cyclopedia of Medicine published in 1940.
 

Evolution of the lungs and atmospheric changes of carbon dioxide
 

An estimated five hundred million years ago, when the first prototype of human lungs evolved, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was approximately twenty per cent. This high concentration was due to excessive volcanic activity which produced CO2 in abundance, and a scarcity of plant life meant that such a large quantity was not absorbed and recycled.
Over millions of years, the amount of plant life on earth increased and carbon dioxide levels continued to decline to the present day rate of just .035 per cent. Our lungs adapted to less carbon dioxide by creating air sacs to retain the higher amount of five to six-and-a-half per cent necessary for human life. The womb is a perfect environment for the survival of human life, and it contains a carbon dioxide concentration of between seven and eight per cent.
 

How does overbreathing affect carbon dioxide?
 

If you breathe in a large volume of air then you will breathe out a large volume. Humans don’t inhale air to store it in any form in the body, so therefore the volume exhaled has to be the same as the volume inhaled.
Exhaling a large volume of air results in too much carbon dioxide being carried from the alveoli within our lungs and into the atmosphere. To understand this, imagine a plastic straw. Place tiny droplets of water along the inside of the imaginary straw. You already know that if you breathe out very gently through the straw, you will not blow out these little droplets of water. However, if you breathe out very quickly, the quantity of air you exhale will carry the droplets of water out with it. This is similar to what happens in our lungs; the more air we inhale causes more air to be exhaled, and this greater quantity of exhaled air results in too much carbon dioxide being carried out of the body.
Medical science has long recognised that the required amount of carbon dioxide in the little air sacs of the lungs, the alveoli, for a healthy person is between five and six-and-a-half per cent. This is well illustrated in any university medical textbook. However, constant overbreathing leads to a loss of carbon dioxide and the concentration may drop as low as three-and-a-half per cent. Butekyo found that a level of below three per cent led to death.
 

Carbon dioxide fixed at incorrect level
 

Under normal conditions, the respiratory centre located in our brain  called central chemoreceptors  instructs us to breathe based not on the level of oxygen, but on the level of carbon dioxide. Oxygen only becomes the main stimulant driving respiration when its concentration becomes very low, as in the event of asphyxiation.
The way our respiratory centre works is easily explained by comparing it to a household heating thermostat. We set the thermostat at the desired temperature and when the temperature goes below this level, the heating system switches on. When the room warms up to the desired level, the thermostat sends an instruction to switch the heating off again.
Our respiratory centre is the regulator or thermostat for our carbon dioxide. When the level of carbon dioxide goes below the amount set by the respiratory centre, a message is sent to decrease breathing to restore the level of the gas in the body. Decreasing breathing results in an accumulation of carbon dioxide, thus restoring it to set levels. Likewise, when the level of carbon dioxide is higher than the amount set by the respiratory centre, a message is sent to increase breathing. This increased breathing blows off the additional carbon dioxide and brings it back to the level set by the regulator.
However, breathing more than your body needs over a period of hours, weeks, months, or years will result in the day-to-day levels of carbon dioxide remaining low. Our respiratory centre becomes accustomed to or fixed at this lower level of carbon dioxide and determines it to be ‘correct’. Our respiratory centre will therefore instruct us to overbreathe to maintain this low level of carbon dioxide, even though the rest of the body’s organs and tissues are suffering.
Reversing hyperventilation is achieved both by observing our breathing and by practising exercises to recondition the body to accept a higher but more correct level of carbon dioxide. Essentially hyperventilation is a bad habit which we aim to change.
If a patient can’t understand that their asthma is being caused by overbreathing, a hyperventilation provocation test can prove useful. The patient is instructed to take many big breaths, as if they had just finished a race. Generally within two minutes, the patient will start to feel the onset of symptoms such as chest tightness, blocked nose, wheezing and coughing. When the symptoms begin, the patient is instructed to reduce breathing and the symptoms reverse. In practice, about seventy per cent of patients will experience symptoms from deliberate hyperventilation within two minutes. Naturally, this technique is used only as a last resort to prove to the patient that symptoms are a direct result of overbreathing; the patient is always instructed to stop hyperventilating well in advance of an attack. It is not advisable to practise this test without medical supervision.
 

Why is carbon dioxide so important?
 

Carbon dioxide is essential to human life. Loss of it due to overbreathing is, according to Professor Buteyko, the primary cause of asthma. For people who are predisposed to developing asthma, maintaining the correct level of carbon dioxide is very important for the following reasons:
 

· Transportation of oxygen
Oxygen is relatively insoluble in blood, so ninety-eight per cent of the gas is carried by haemoglobin molecule. The release of oxygen from haemoglobin is dependent on the quantity of carbon dioxide in our alveoli/arterial blood. If the level of carbon dioxide is not at the required level of five to six-and-a-half per cent, oxygen has a stronger “bond” to haemoglobin and so is not released to tissues and organs.
      What this means is that oxygen is being carried with the blood on a round trip around your body, without reaching its proper destinations such as the cells, tissues and organs. A vicious circle ensues because low oxygen levels will stimulate the respiratory centre, leading to a further increase in breathing and loss of carbon dioxide… such as during an asthma attack.
      This bond was named after the two physicians who discovered it and is now known as the Bohr Werigo Effect. It is important to know that blood is ninety-eight per cent saturated with oxygen at a breathing volume of three to five litres of air per minute.
 

· Dilation of blood vessels
Carbon dioxide dilates the smooth muscle around airways, arteries and capillaries. Reduced carbon dioxide causes smooth muscle to constrict, so people genetically predisposed to develop asthma have greater narrowing of the airways. Reduced carbon dioxide also results in arteries and capillaries constricting. When arteries and capillaries narrow, the heart must work harder to distribute blood throughout the body, resulting in increased heart beat and for some people higher blood pressure. Following an increase in carbon dioxide, there is greater oxygenation of body cells and tissues due to the dilation of blood vessels. Instant feedback comes in the form of reduced symptoms and increased body warmth due to improved blood circulation.
 

 

· Maintaining PH balance
It is very important that the human body stays within normal acid/alkali (PH) balance. Acid PH is measured from one to seven, with one being much more acidic. Alkaline PH is measured from seven to fourteen, with the most alkaline being fourteen. Neutral PH is seven.
      The human body requires a slightly alkaline PH of 7.365 on this scale of one to fourteen, and even small shifts in the body’s PH balance can be catastrophic. According to the eighth edition of Guyton’s Medical Physiology textbook: “The lower limit at which a person can live more than a few hours is about 6.8 and the upper limit approximately 8.0”.
      When carbon dioxide leaves the lungs, the body becomes more alkaline resulting in reduced metabolic functioning and poorer immunity. Professor Buteyko believes that inflammation and allergic hyper-responsiveness is caused by an immune system which does not function correctly due to low carbon dioxide.
      Pollen, dust mites, allergens, stress, and other asthma triggers are not the cause of asthma. They trigger an attack when the immune system is already hypersensitive. People with a poor immune system are also more susceptible to developing colds and ‘flu. When the immune system is strengthened, triggers no longer cause an attack and there is a significant reduction in the incidences of colds and ‘flu.
 

· Maintaining nature’s steroid
Cortisol is the body’s natural steroid. Hyperventilation causes an inadequate production of cortisol. When the body is not producing enough to meet its own needs, then it must be supplemented with synthetic drugs such as Becotide or Flixotide. When hyperventilation is reversed, adrenal functioning improves and leads to less need for steroidal medication. This has been proven in the Mater Hospital trials held in Brisbane in 1995, which concluded that there was 50 per cent less need for steroid medication when hyperventilation was reduced. Furthermore, those who reduced their breathing volume the most were able to reduce their steroid intake the most.
 

 

 

· Controlling mucus production
Mucus forms an important part of the body’s defence system by trapping foreign particles and invaders, and deactivating them before they reach the lungs. Mucus is constantly brushed up to the throat by tiny hair-like structures called cilia, thus removing potential threats. When carbon dioxide is low, the body produces more mucus. While mucus plays an essential role in the airways, excessive mucus narrows the airways and results in greater breathing difficulty.
 

A combination of all these factors leads to the classical asthma symptoms of chest tightness, coughing, excess mucus production, wheezing, shortness of breath, nasal problems, sleep problems and lethargy. Buteyko cites asthma as the body’s defence to stop and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being lost. When carbon dioxide increases to normal, the defence mechanism is no longer needed, and the result is no asthma symptoms.
 

Therefore correct carbon dioxide levels result in:
· Greater oxygenation of tissues and organs due to Bohr Werigo effect.
· More open airways thus allowing unrestricted breathing.
· Better immune system functioning. For example, the immune system is strong enough to withstand colds and infections but not hypersensitive enough to perceive harmless particles such as dust mites, pollens and other triggers as threats.
· More adequate production of cortisol, the natural steroid necessary to control inflammation.
· Less mucus production resulting in less restricted airways
 

 

Why do I have asthma?
 

Professor Buteyko believes that genetic predisposition determines which illnesses people develop from overbreathing. The response of each individual to hyperventilation depends on inherited factors.
Various estimates exist regarding the extent of overbreathing among the general population, ranging from thirty per cent, according to Claude Lum, to Sasha Stalmatski’s ninety per cent. In Russia, the Buteyko Method is used in the treatment of up to one hundred diseases including hypertension, asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, diabetes and Raynaud’s Syndrome.
Carbon dioxide is so important for normal bodily functioning that it is logical to assume the body must have some way to prevent losing it. Narrowing of the airways is a natural defence mechanism present in people with asthma to help maintain carbon dioxide, and it’s activated when the level of the gas falls too low. Inflammation, by constriction of smooth muscle and by increased mucus secretion, causes narrowing of the airways.
This might seem a peculiar statement, but people with asthma are better off than the rest of the overbreathers because they are equipped with an instant mechanism to prevent the loss of carbon dioxide. People who do not have this mechanism suffer from many of the incurable diseases of civilisation.
At this point, it is worth noting that before the 1900s people who had asthma often lived longer than the rest of the population, and that death from asthma was unknown. As Professor Buteyko put it: “Having asthma generally meant having a long life free from many diseases, but nobody could explain why asthma prevented other diseases or why asthmatics lived longer than other people.” At the end of nineteenth century, Professor of Medicine at Oxford University Sir William Osler, in his textbook The Principles and Practice of Medicine noted: “We have no knowledge of the morbid anatomy of true asthma. Death during the attack is unknown.”
Overbreathing resulting from modern living is the cause of breathing-related diseases. Hyperventilation is not a result of asthma; it is the cause of asthma. Reducing hyperventilation leads to a corresponding reversal of asthma. This was confirmed during Professor Buteyko’s forty years of research and during independent trials at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane, Australia.
Buteyko believes that people genetically predisposed to asthma will develop asthma only if they are overbreathing. Years ago, people ate less processed food and more vegetation; they physically worked and played more; they were under less stress, and less chemicals and pesticides were used in food production. As a result, people produced more carbon dioxide from physical activity and retained it due to a more correct volume of breathing.
 

Symptoms of overbreathing or hyperventilation
 

Hyperventilation contributes to many conditions, but because it receives very little attention in the diagnoses of illnesses, many patients suffering from various physical symptoms sometimes spend years going from doctor to doctor looking for the cause. This group of patients are often labelled as ‘psychosomatic’ and there is a belief that the condition is ‘all in the head’.
 

Physician Claude Lum noted that hyperventilation “presents a collection of bizarre and often apparently unrelated symptoms, which may affect any part of the body, any organ and any system”.
 

Some of the symptoms of hyperventilation affect:
 

· The respiratory system in the form of wheezing, breathlessness, coughing, chest tightness, frequent yawning and snoring.
 

· The nervous system in the form of a light-headed feeling, poor concentration, numbness, sweating, dizziness, vertigo, tingling of hands and feet, faintness, trembling and headache,
 

· The heart, typically a racing heartbeat, pain in the chest region, and a skipping or irregular heartbeat.
 

· The mind, including some degrees of anxiety, tension, depression, apprehension and stress.
 

· Other general symptoms include mouth dryness, fatigue, bad dreams, nightmares, dry itchy skin, sweaty palms, increased urination such as bed wetting or regular visits to the bathroom during the night, diarrhoea, constipation, general weakness and chronic exhaustion.
 

 

Why do we overbreathe?
 

Earlier on I explained that when we overbreathe on a permanent basis, the respiratory centre in our brain is trained to accept a lower level of carbon dioxide. This level is determined to be correct even though it is less than the body requires for good health. The respiratory centre is like a loyal servant who adapts to changing circumstances and situations for its master.
There are many reasons why we overbreathe but not all of them may apply to each individual. The following eight factors are more prevalent in countries of increasing modernisation and affluence, and this helps explain why asthma and other diseases of civilisation are so prevalent in the same countries.
 

1. Breathing exercises during pregnancy
Women during pregnancy are taught deep breathing exercises throughout countries in the Western world. This excessive breathing reduces the woman’s level of carbon dioxide. As the embryo receives all its nutrients from the mother, her embryo will also obtain less carbon dioxide. Professor Buteyko claimed that the reason many babies suffer from various conditions such as asthma and eczema is because of their mothers’ hyperventilation during pregnancy. After birth, the baby may be over-clothed and raised on formula foods. These factors also contribute to sustaining the loss of carbon dioxide that began during pregnancy.
 

2. Diet
Over-eating increases breathing because the body requires more energy to digest and process food. Instead of listening to the body and eating when hungry, as we have done for thousands of years, society now dictates at what time we should eat. In addition, we condition ourselves to eat more food than is necessary. How many times have you continued to eat all the food on your plate, or all the courses on offer, even though you didn’t feel hungry?
We have lost the art of listening to the body about what it needs. People in ancient times only ate when they were hungry. The primary reason for this was that hunting and gathering food required effort, and that more energy had to be spent to gather a larger quantity of food. Our ancestors didn’t have the luxury of accessible modern-day convenience stores, supermarkets and fast-food outlets to obtain something to eat whenever they desired, so they ate less and better food.
Often, we eat too quickly due to a hectic lifestyle. As a result, we do not recognise when we have over-eaten because it takes time for the body to send us the signals to stop.
Protein, especially animal protein, and processed foods contribute to overbreathing. Professor Buteyko believes that food is the single biggest contributor to overbreathing. A supplementary factor is the use of chemicals and pesticides in growing all foodstuffs. The body has to work harder to remove the increased amount of toxins in food. This increases breathing.
 

3. Misconception of deep breathing
The traditional view in the Western world is that deep breathing is conducive to fitness and maintaining good health. A ‘deep breath’ is misinterpreted as a ‘big breath’. This fixed belief prevails among sports coaches, schools, hospitals, asthma clinics, radio, TV, magazines and even Western yoga. The most common instruction to those taking exercise or experiencing stress is to “take a deep breath”. By exercising in the gym or taking a walk along the beach, you can see how many people believe in the benefits of big breathing. At my clinic, I ask each person if he feels that deep breathing is good for him. About seventy per cent of people feel it is and the remainder don’t know because they are unconscious of their breathing.
In the Eastern world, reduced breathing and breath control is very much enshrined in culture and philosophy. Its therapeutic value has been recognised for centuries.
 

4. Stress
Interpreting outside events, often those over which we can have no control, results in stress. Stress can be positive in the form of laughter, for example, or negative in the form of anxiety. Stress activates the sympathetic nervous response known as ‘fight or flight’. Throughout evolution, people were often faced with life-threatening situations so human physiology changed in response to these situations in order to ensure survival of the species. During stress, blood is diverted from internal organs to skeletal muscles and respiration increases to prepare the body for increased physical activity. Evolutionary people were therefore ready to fight or take flight, depending on the dangers facing them.
However, our evolution has not kept pace with changes in modern life and our bodies often perform poorly to stress arising from marital problems, financial pressure or everyday situations such as traffic jams or late buses. Breathing is increased by stress, and in turn breathing leads to excitability of many brain areas, resulting in states of anxiety, panic and many psychological problems. At this point, one factor will feed off the other thus maintaining a constant state of arousal.
 

5. Temperature
Living in a hot and stuffy environment causes overbreathing. While body temperature is primarily controlled by skin pores and sweat glands, wearing too much clothing causes us to revert to primitive mouth panting as a way of regulating temperature.
A child’s metabolism is two to three times faster than an adult’s and therefore generates more energy. Children have a natural instinct to wear less clothing than adults, and this results in greater freedom and liveliness. We adults, however, dress children according to the temperature we feel ourselves and fail to take into account how warm the children feel, so an individual child who is wearing too many clothes will overbreathe.
Thanks to central heating and PVC windows and doors, our homes are better insulated and are becoming progressively warmer. Years ago houses were less well insulated and cooler, and a draught often brought fresh air through gaps under doors or between window frames. Research has demonstrated that mild or cool environments assist reduced breathing.
 

6. Lack of physical exercise
Exercise enables the body to accumulate large amounts of carbon dioxide produced by metabolic activity; lack of physical motion means less activity and less carbon dioxide.
For most people now, work means more mental effort and less physical activity. Even most of our forms of entertainment take place indoors, such as cinemas, theatres, computer games and satellite television. Out of an average twenty-four hour day, eight are spent sleeping, fourteen sitting and just two hours standing or walking. Compare this to the average day of our ancestors who spent all their waking hours completing tasks that demanded physical activity.
 

7. Over-sleeping
Professor Buteyko’s research shows that lying down horizontally for a long period of time causes severe overbreathing. Most asthma attacks occur between the hours of 3.00 and 5.00 a.m. when the body’s level of carbon dioxide passes below its lower threshold due to excessive breathing during sleep. Professor Buteyko emphasised that the position which causes the most overbreathing is sleeping while lying on one’s back. Incidentally, this can be observed among many people who stop snoring when they are turned over onto their side.
 

8. Pollution
When air is either insufficient or polluted, our bodies sense we are not getting enough air so we breathe more to compensate. Many people with asthma can testify to increased symptoms following time spent in a stuffy or smoky atmosphere.
Pollution itself is not to blame for the rising tide of asthma in developed countries, despite numerous studies and claims to that effect. If this was so, then why would the rate of asthma continue to be so much less in heavily polluted Asian cities such as Bangkok? Another example is the former East Germany where pollution levels were higher but the asthma rate lower than in West Germany. An additional pointer is that some countries have very low pollution levels but high asthma rates; the relatively unpolluted New Zealand has the third highest incidence of asthma in the world.
 

9. Bronchodilators
Professor Buteyko’s belief is that using bronchodilator drugs to relieve asthma symptoms causes hyperventilation. Bronchodilators relax smooth muscle and force open the airways, increasing the volume of air that can be inhaled with each breath. Steroids are preferable as a treatment because Professor Buteyko discovered that they reduce breathing. It is worth noting that increasing use of bronchodilating drugs during the 1980s corresponded with a significant increase in the asthma death rate.
 

10. Asthma Symptoms
The breathing rate and volume during an asthma attack is invariably greater than under normal conditions when no symptoms are present. When an attack occurs over a prolonged period (24 hours), the respiratory centre adjusts to a greater breathing volume and this is manitained even when the attack has passed. A viscious circle ensues as asthma symptoms encourage a greater breathing volume, and this greater breathing volume results in more asthma symptoms.
 

Professor Buteyko encapsulates his beliefs as follows: “One needs to eat less, breathe less, sleep less and physically work harder to the sweat of one’s brow because this is good. This is a fundamental change, this is true restructuring. This is what we need to do these days.”
 

 

 

Future treatment of asthma?
 

It is quite obvious that our current management of asthma is not working. More and more children are developing asthma and no-one in the medical community seems to know why. More than ever in our history, children are dependent on powerful drugs which they may have to take for the rest of their lives. Professor Buteyko’s hyperventilation theory explains exactly what is happening and why the incidence of asthma is greater in developed countries. Scientific research weighs in behind the effects of hyperventilation.
Our genes have not changed in one hundred years. Our lifestyle unfortunately has, and this has increased our breathing to the detriment of our general health.
A step in the right direction would be government funding of research into non-drug methods of treating asthma, such as the Buteyko Breathing Method. Only then will people with asthma be offered a suitable and sustainable non-medication lifeline. To date, most research has been funded by multinational drug empires who have a vested interest, resulting in the neglect of safe, natural non-drug methods. This is a sad state of affairs for all people with asthma.

Copyright (c) Patrick McKeown 2003. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication is permitted without written permission. buteyko books