Studies on breathing and asthma/seizure

[panacea]

Ok I found a non-commercial website which explains more thoroughly than I can what I was trying to get across, I left the rest of this post intact just incase someone finds it interesting. Here is the link..

http://members.westnet.com.au/pkolb/buteyko.htm

Breathing has become a very interesting topic for me as of late, and here's some studies with the important parts for readers in a hurry underneath the links. These studies suggest that breathing habits (hyperventilation) effecting a reduction in our CO2 levels have important roles in asthma attacks and seizure triggers.

CO2 and Acute Asthma

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20685222

... Similarly, hypocapnia and associated hyperpnia are linked to bronchoconstriction, symptom exacerbation, and lower quality of life in patients with asthma. Raising CO2 levels by means of therapeutic capnometry has proven beneficial effects in both disorders, and the reversing of hyperventilation has emerged as a potent mediator for reductions in panic symptom severity and treatment success.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20170334

Acute asthmatic attack is an important emergency medical condition. The author hereby reports a case in the emergency department of an acute exacerbation of asthma, complicated by hyperventilation. In this case, the patient had underlying needle phobia, which suddenly occurred during the salbutamol injection. Nevertheless, both physical and psychological approaches led to the successful control of the condition. This report addresses a situation, which, although rare, should not be overlooked.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11083886

...We have consistently argued that mild asthma is an important underlying aetiological factor in patients with severe symptomatic hyperventilation. While hyperventilation has been demonstrated in acute asthma, there have been few studies in mild chronic asthma, and mechanisms are uncertain...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18517073

...CONCLUSION: Differences in perceived asthma triggers are substantially associated with hyperventilation symptoms, and patients with more frequent psychological triggers also tend to report that they experience more hyperventilation symptoms during their asthma symptom episodes


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18347909

BACKGROUND: Hyperventilation symptoms are among the sensations asthma patients tend to report during exacerbations of their disease. However, little is known about their importance for the patients' perceived well-being... CONCLUSION: It is possible that hypocapnia creates symptoms that asthma patients cannot control by using their antiasthmatic medication, thus compromising their perceived control over the management of their asthma, and consequently their perceived health. Behavioral interventions should address the problem of hyperventilation in asthma.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3151279

Ambulant, transcutaneous PCO2 monitoring has been used to show that hyperventilation precedes exacerbation of asthma in a patient. Brief treatment was shown to give him greater control of his breathing and enable him to avoid attacks of asthma.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6151437

Ventilation (liters of air per minute) increases during an acute attack of asthma. Hypocapnia is the rule, although eucapnia may occur. This suggests both that respiratory center output is increased and that acidemia is not the major stimulus to augmented respiration...

Overbreathing and Irregular breathing triggering seizures

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8617175

In 67% of subjects, absence seizures were reliably provoked by hypocapnia.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20562456

The findings confirm that hyperventilation is efficient to activate epileptic seizures in epileptic patients

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20378290

Results: Totally 37 children met the 1989 ILAE criteria of CAE. The onset age of absence seizures ranged from 3 to 11years. All patients had frequent absence seizures (5-60 times per day). Two patients (5.4%) had generalized tonic-clonic seizures. Hyperventilation induced absences in all patients...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20079001

The manifestations of MA included an impairment of consciousness of variable intensity, rhythmic myoclonic jerks with evident tonic contraction mainly involving the upper extremities, a deviation of head and body to one side or asymmetrical jerks observed in some cases, a duration ranging from 2 to 30 s, an abrupt onset and termination, a high frequency of attacks, at least several times to over 30 times per day, and easily provoked by hyperventilation...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19666886

The descriptive symptoms of attacks by witnesses were head shaking or turning repeatedly instead of absences. The seizures were induced by hyperventilation in all 3 cases...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19151614

Hyperventilation (HV) is most effective in activation of generalized absence seizures during routine EEG studies...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18772703

The moderate hyperventilation group showed a significant increase in EEG seizure duration in the first treatment compared with the normal ventilation group (P < 0.05)...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11442159

The most frequent NES clinical features were tonic-clonic mimicking movements and fear/ anxiety/ hyperventilation...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11393330

Typical absences are easily precipitated by hyperventilation in about 90% of untreated patients...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10771260

... Hyperventilation (HPV) represents a well established EEG activation procedure aimed at enhancing epileptiform discharges...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8420691

On the contrary, hyperventilation induced a marked activation of the epileptic focus.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6422704

Hypocapnia induced by hyperventilation to an alveolar CO2-concentration of 2% (2 kPa) resulted in a highly significant increase in seizure duration compared to a normal CO2 of 5%, when the alveolar O2-concentration was constant at 92%. Oxygen ventilation to an alveolar O2-concentration of 92% gave no significant increase in seizure duration compared to 15%, obtained by ventilation with air, when the CO2-concentration was kept constant at 5%. Seizure duration seems to augment progressively with decreasing alveolar CO2-concentration.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6804881

In the light of these results the authors conclude that moderate exercise inhibits rather seizure activity in EEG contrary to hyperventilation which increases these changes.

[Oscar]

Interesting. I'm wondering though, whether hyperventilating isn't a consequence of asthma instead of the other way around? Needless to say I haven't read through all linked articles.

[RRM]

Interesting, but not easy to read for somebody who doesnt know much about the subject.
Could you please write a cohesive summary of all the above, using these studies to support the facts?
You may write it from the perspective that the reader doesnt know anything about the mentioned terms.

[panacea]

Interesting. I'm wondering though, whether hyperventilating isn't a consequence of asthma instead of the other way around? Needless to say I haven't read through all linked articles.

The studies suggest that just asking patients to hyperventilate, or hypo-ventilate, controls the symptoms (hyper aggravates or triggers). I don't think breathing addresses the root cause, however, the root cause may have been something that caused the patients to breathe more frequently or more irregularly in the first place, such as being to hot or cold for too long, excessive talking causing them to breathe through their mouth predominantly, or even just eating foods which accelerating their breathing, or whatever.

As far as I can tell, correcting the breathing corrects the symptoms in the majority of patients (as these studies find). Which is great, since breathing is something we don't have to pay for a refill of our subscription or make a continuous effort for, since it becomes habit after awhile.

[panacea]

Interesting, but not easy to read for somebody who doesnt know much about the subject.
Could you please write a cohesive summary of all the above, using these studies to support the facts?
You may write it from the perspective that the reader doesnt know anything about the mentioned terms.

My bad I'm still working on posting more studies, another guy actually collected all these but in different places, I plan to put them all in one post here then make coherent summaries since I don't like that he's a guru selling e-books for his method which can be said in one paragraph anyway and he simply pawned the idea from a guy before him which didn't even sell anything but is now dead. But at least these studies are unbiased, and he's the one with the financial motivation to find them for me (:

Any way once all the studies are here it will be easier to paint an unbiased clear picture of what breathing habits affect in us.

[RRM]

Ah, okay. Thank you.

[Oscar]

Okay, but 'correcting' the symptoms might then 'just' ease the living with a certain condition, not cure it?

[panacea]

What better way to 'cure' something than fix the way you interact with the environment most (through breathing)? It's no different than regulating what you take in through diet like the wai diet, except it's a much more frequent medium. I don't know what other possible routes there are other than controlling how and what we consume and physical things like how we sleep and move, and I've already attempted to go over those in stressor solutions.

So as far as I can tell, once our body is in bad shape all we can do is harm it the least possible, give it what it needs, and let it do its thing - no drugs unless severe conditions. So that is what regulating breathing the correct way (not chest and not heavy) does, gives the body less work to do and more oxygen (paradoxical, right? that less breathing means more oxygen reaches the tissues).