If we consider the outcomes of these trials for asthmatics, the results of all trials were remarkable. The patients used 3-10 times less reliever medication, twice less steroids, had better quality of life parameters and less asthma symptoms, but unchanged respiratory lung function test results after 3-6 months of practicing Buteyko breathing exercises. Any concerns to worry? Yes, all these trials had one attitude-related error which is about understanding the essence of the Buteyko breathing method.
If we consider the outcomes of these trials for asthmatics,
the results of all trials were remarkable. The patients used 3-10 times less reliever medication, twice less steroids, had better quality of life parameters and less asthma symptoms, but unchanged respiratory lung function test results after 3-6 months of practicing Buteyko breathing exercises. Any concerns to worry? Yes, all these trials had one attitude-related error which is about understanding the essence of the Buteyko breathing method.
Dr. K. Buteyko suggested the following statements:
- Sick people, asthmatics including, breathe more air at rest than the miniature medical norm (chronic hyperventilation). Hyperventilation decreases body oxygen content and intensifies the desire to breathe even more.
- If they slow down their breath back to the norm, then they will not experience their symptoms and will not require medication.
- The Buteyko Table of Health Zones links respiratory numbers of sick people, with any chronic disease, with their current health state. His table describes parameters that reflect normal breathing (8 breaths/min for breathing frequency at rest, 6.5% for alveolar CO2 content, 60 s for stress-free breath holding time after usual exhalation, etc.). These parameters match to normal health and absence of asthma and many other diseases since normal breathing parameters improve body oxygen content.
- A person has acquired the Buteyko breathing technique, if their breathing parameters are normal.
Dr. Buteyko never claimed that a particular Buteyko practitioner may achieve a certain result in relation to asthma. We can apply these Buteyko’s findings to these randomised controlled trials and medical research studies.
First of all, thousands of medical studies have shown that hyperventilation REDUCES oxygen content in body tissues. Do asthmatics over-breathe? A usual respiratory minute ventilation for an average asthmatic is about 12-15 L/min at rest (five publications are available on my website), while the medical norm is only 6 L/min. Hence, patients with asthma breathe at rest about 2-2.5 times more air than the physiological norm.
Did asthmatics change their breathing during these randomised controlled trials of the Buteyko breathing therapy? During the most impressive study (Bowler et al, 1998), in 3 months, consumption of relievers was reduced by 96% (25 times less!) and inhaled steroids or preventers by 49%. Respiratory minute volume decreased from initial 14 L/min to 9.6 L/min, but the medical norm is only 6 L/min, while Dr. Buteyko’s tough standard is 4 L/min at rest for a 70-kg man. Hence, during their best shot, the participated asthmatics got only about a half way towards the standard. Thus, there were a very few asthmatics, if any, who normalized their breath during these trials.
The assumption of the medical doctors, who led these randomised controlled trials, was that a Buteyko teacher taught the Buteyko breathing method and a controlled group learned the therapy. This is easy to see from the titles, which usually say about a “trial of the Buteyko method”. How could they study the method, if no one learned it?
From a practical view, since I taught the Buteyko method to hundreds of people, the key difficulty during these randomised controlled trials were following. The asthmatics were mainly limited to practicing breathing exercises (e.g., 40-70 min per day). They could not use the powerful arsenal of lifestyle changing tools of the method. Breathing normalization process requires 24/7 control of breathing including:
- no sleeping on one’s back (we breathe almost 2 times more air, when we sleep on our backs at night)
- nose breathing all the time (hence, it is necessary then to seal one’s mouth with a surgical tape, if their mouth is usually dry in the morning; and one will never resolve their problems with asthma, if mouth breathing occurs during each night sleep
- daily physical exercise (no less than 2 hours with only nose breathing, in and out, otherwise exercise is almost ineffective for most, especially sick people)
- and many others.
It is this constant control of breathing and intention to make breathing more relaxed and easier that produces major improvements in health of patients. Hence, the trials did not utilize all positive lifestyle-related factors in order to restore normal automatic or basal breathing pattern and body oxygenation in the sick.
