New Breath Technique for Asthma
Humans on the west know very little about health discoveries in Russia. Nevertheless there are some inventions in management of asthma and asthma exacerbations there. Apart from the Buteyko breathing method (a more known Soviet innovation with six western randomized controlled medical trials), there is another supplementary medical technique that is employed recently for prevention and management of asthma and exacerbations of asthma. It is called the Frolov breath device therapy with around 2,000,000(!) Frolov breathing devices have been bought in Russia.
How could respiration retraining improve symptoms of adults with asthma? First, all available scientific publications indicate that asthmatics over-breathe at rest. When in stable conditions (no symptoms of asthma), they breathe about 2.5 times more air than the medical norm). During acute asthma exacerbations, they breathe even more. How can chronic overbreathing lead to symptoms of asthma? There exist three traditional signs or criteria of asthma. All these signs are related to breathing.
- Constriction of airways takes place due to carbon dioxide deficiency in the lungs since CO2, according to numerous medical papers, is a potent bronchodilator.
- Modern Individuals suppose that big or heavy breathing (hyperventilation) can boost oxygen index in the body. However, several hundreds of physiological publications have positively confirmed that over-breathing DIMINISHES cells oxygen content due to hypocapnic (deficiency of CO2) vasoconstriction of blood vessels and the lowered Bohr effect. Body hypoxia, through hypoxia-inducible factor alpha-1, promotes inflammation that is a next known and essential parameter in asthma.
- Tissues hypoxia creates free radicals that suppress the immune system that, in its turn, causes excessive sputum production.
Consequently, the slower and easier we breathe, the more oxygen our organs and tissues get. (Note that we consider here involuntary or basal breath patterns.) As a result, there is a reliable and easy breathing exercise “Stop Acute Asthma Exacerbation” to diminish or eradicate chief signs of asthma in around two-three minutes. The exercise includes simple breath holds and restricted breathing.
How to make breath pattern slower and get more carbon dioxide in the body? The perfect choice is to slowly breathe through a device that traps exhaled carbon dioxide for the next inhalation. Then later, after the respiration exercise, our automatic respiratory pattern must be slow. That is precisely what the Frolov breathing training device does.
In recent Russian medical trials doctors noticed that, after about 1.5 months of respiratory training exercises (in average, 20 min twice per day):
– EVC (expiratory vital capacity) was enhanced from 87% to 100%
– RV (residual volume), a sign of lungs hyperinflation, was reduced from 151% to 117%
– FEV1 (forced expiratory volume in 1 second) was increased from 67% to 88%,
– FEF25% (forced expiratory flow, 25%) was enhanced from 39% to 64%;
– FEF50% from 41% to 65%;
– FEF75% from 51% to 75%;
– DLCO (diffusion lung capacity for carbon monoxide) was boosted from 64% to 77%.
In the main group, all these changes were statistically significant, while there were no significant advances in the experimental group. These are possibly the most amazing results in history of present medical science for management and treatment of asthma and acute asthma exacerbations.
There were actually several additional tests of the Frolov breathing reconditioning device method in relation to bronchitis, stroke, hypertension, children asthma, asthma, diabetes, and many other health conditions, all with good results. This (asthma) and some other clinical trials found out less wheezing, reduced coughing, easier removal of mucus, diminished shortness of breath, reduced inflammation in airways and normalization of the heart rate, cardiointervalography results, electrocardiogram, renovasography measurements, body antioxidant defense, blood pressure and other crucial physiological functions.
This makes sense since chronic over-breathing and hypoxia (or low cells oxygenation) are observed in almost all chronic diseases (see results of many tens research articles with certain values on my site).
