Here is an interesting view of the causes of Asthma, found at: http://www.nqnet.com/buteyko/asthma_relief.html
Ivan. What Is The Theory Behind It? [Asthma/Hay fever] According to Buteyko, the key to asthma and other diseases lies in the gas - carbon dioxide. Consider the following facts: The basic reaction that produces the energy inside each of our body cells involves two main gases. Most energy comes from the breakdown [or burning] of sugars [carbohydrates] in the presence of oxygen [O2]. This produces a nice amount of energy that we use to run our bodies. It also produces water and very importantly carbon dioxide. So we have: Carbohydrate + Oxygen Are reacted in the cells to produce ENERGY + Water + Carbon Dioxide The amount of carbohydrate and oxygen used up and the amount of water and carbon dioxide produced depends on the energy need of the cell. For example running up a flight of stairs will use up more oxygen and produce more carbon dioxide than sitting quietly in front of your computer. To keep the levels of both oxygen and carbon dioxide within safe levels our body adjusts your level of breathing. You will breathe more deeply when you are more active and produce more carbon dioxide, and less deeply when you are quiet and produce less carbon dioxide. You will note that it is the levels of carbon dioxide that regulates your breathing, not oxygen. [The exception is when you are being strangled.] So our breathing is how we release the carbon dioxide that we have produced [and also replenish our oxygen.] A Little More About Carbon Dioxide There is only 0.03% carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today. This is almost none at all. If you are perfectly healthy you will have about 6.5% carbon dioxide in the alveoli of your lungs. This is more than 200 times more than is present in the air around us. Therefore your lungs act to trap in some of the carbon dioxide produced by your body. This carbon dioxide is critical for keeping the pH [A chemical measure of how much acid is in our body fluids] at a safe level. Our pH is the ratio of bicarbonate to carbonic acid, which are both forms of carbon dioxide. The level of your carbonic acid depends on the amount of carbon dioxide that is in the alveoli of your lungs. If the carbon dioxide level drops [or rises] too much it can make fatally large changes to your pH. More simply, the amount of carbon dioxide you keep in your lungs is very important. It affects the chemistry all of fluids of your body. If you adopt a breathing pattern which causes you to release more carbon dioxide than you produce, the level in your lungs will drop. If it drops too far, the level of carbonic acid will be altered, and so the pH will also change. Even a slight change in your pH is usually fatal. Now stay with me, this is the interesting part! To help prevent the loss of carbon dioxide to a fatally low level, the body has developed certain defensive mechanisms. These include spasms of the airpipes and bloodpipes, and the increased production of mucus. ASTHMA Is A Defense - Your Body Works Perfectly! To use asthma as a simple example, let's think like a plumber in talk in terms of pipes. Let's say that your breathing is too great. As you are breathing out air that is rich in carbon dioxide, and breathing in air that has almost no carbon dioxide, the more you breathe - the less you trap in. If the level of carbon dioxide in your lungs gets too low - you really will have a serious problem. As you continue to release more carbon dioxide than you produce, your level gets lower and lower. Now your body does not want you to die, so if it is [genetically] able it will act to restrict the airflow to trap in some carbon dioxide. It will do this by either reducing the size of the opening in your airpipes, or by increasing the production of mucus in the pipes, clogging them up. The first defense will make you feel tight or wheezy, the second will give you a cough. Both will cause more carbon dioxide to be trapped in - as you physically cannot get as much out of your body through a smaller or blocked airpipe. The harder you try to breathe deeply during an asthma attack, the more your airpipe will constrict. If you can learn to reduce your breathing depth more than your asthma is making you, the attack will subside. That is what Buteyko method gently and carefully teaches you to do. Even more than that, Buteyko method shows you how to gently condition the section of your brain that is sensitive to carbon dioxide to get used to higher levels of carbon dioxide in your lungs! This means that as you have started with a normal higher level in your lungs, you will have a "safety" or "buffer" zone between you and any asthma at all. You will then have fewer and less severe attacks. This is how the extraordinary results of Buteyko and asthma are achieved. For people who have personal classes with me, I have maintained a full guarantee of significant improvement in one week. The average decrease in symptoms and relief medication use in my clinic in 7 days is 92.5%. You have now been given a very basic part of the theory of what causes asthma, and how Buteyko training stops it. The next step is the application of the theory. You can figure it out for yourself, or you can learn it the most efficient way, which is preferably with a good instructor, or second best with a good instruction kit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Important Points: Even when you are breathing three or four times more air than you need, it feels like you are breathing normally. In fact, because of your body's defence of reducing the airflow, it usually feels like you are not getting enough air! If you measure your resting "minute volume", it will be far above the normal of around 5 litres. You are so used to breathing far too much, it feels normal to you. What about oxygen? For most of the time our blood is almost completely saturated with oxygen. You can only force in a small amount more no matter how much or how deeply you breathe [and this will lose extra CO2, which can cause a further restriction of your airways - causing a further lowering of your blood oxygen! -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -or- [email protected] with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. To post, address your message to: [email protected] List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
