Causes of Heart Disease: Many or One?

Man with heart disease What causes heart disease? On a cell level, the cause of heart disease is known: low oxygen levels. Any person who gets critically low levels of oxygen in the heart tissue will experience horrible angina pain. Low tissue oxygenation can be caused by many factors: stress, overeating, overheating, physical exertion, and many others. But how could all these factors create low oxygen levels in body cells? All these factors have one common mechanism: they intensify respiration. And then hyperventilation reduces oxygen delivery to the heart muscle and other organs. Do people with heart disease have heavy breathing in stable conditions (when they are at rest)?

Scientific evidence about prevalence of ineffective

breathing patterns in people with heart disease

Condition	Minute ventilation	Number of patients	References (click below for abstracts)
Normal breathing	6 l/min	-	Medical textbooks
Healthy Subjects	6-7 L/min	>400	Results of 14 studies
Heart disease	15 (±4) l/min	22	Dimopoulou et al, 2001
Heart disease	16 (±2) l/min	11	Johnson et al, 2000
Heart disease	12 (±3) l/min	132	Fanfulla et al, 1998
Heart disease	15 (±4) l/min	55	Clark et al, 1997
Heart disease	13 (±4) l/min	15	Banning et al, 1995
Heart disease	15 (±4) l/min	88	Clark et al, 1995
Heart disease	14 (±2) l/min	30	Buller et al, 1990
Heart disease	16 (±6) l/min	20	Elborn et al, 1990

Heart muscle with blood vessels All these studies testify that heart patients have abnormally low oxygen and CO2 levels in the heart tissue and other organs 24/7 due to their .... chronic overbreathing. Since they breathe at rest about 2-2.5 times more air than the medical norm (this is called hyperventilation), their arterial CO2 is below the norm. This causes constriction of arteries and arterioles (due to CO2 Vasodilation Effect), suppressed Bohr effect, reduced oxygenation of all vital organs (the heart and brain included), increased level of blood lactate (lactic acid), abnormal excitability of nerve cells (causing additional electrical problems in the heart pacemakers), generation of free radicals and oxidative damage, suppressed immunity, increased viscosity of the blood, predisposition to chronic inflammation and many other effects. (See the links for medical studies related to all these CO2 effects below.)

Doctors and their patients The solution to heart disease is simple. One needs to slow down his or her automatic breathing pattern back to the medical norm (6 L/min) and this eliminates the cause: chronic hyperventilation or deep automatic breathing pattern. Normal breathing will increase CO2 levels in the arterial blood. This will improve oxygen transport to heart tissue and normalize other processes.

Vice versa, hyperventilation provocation test, as several medical studies found immediately causes symptoms of the coronary artery spasm and worsens one's health. If breathing more induces heart attacks in less than 2 minutes, it would be logical to investigate the opposite way: teaching people with heart disease how to breathe slower and less air.

Medical people smiling After testing and treating thousands of heart patients, Russian medical doctors found that the main symptoms of heart disease disappear when the person gets more than 20 s for the body oxygen test. However, complete reversal of pathological changes in the heart muscle tissue requires more than 35 s for the body oxygen test 24/7.

There numerous breathing techniques used by hundreds of medical professionals for breathing normalization in people with heart disease are: Resperate, the Buteyko method (it has the best lifestyle program for high body oxygen levels), Amazing DIY breathing device and the Frolov breathing device (most effective breathing exercises). Samozrdav and Breathslim breathing devices produce similar effects (as the Frolov device). The discovery of the cause of heart disease is made by Dr Konstantin Buteyko, MD, PhD.

Reference Web Pages: Breathing norms, Medical Graphs and Tables about Breathing Rates (Minute Ventilation) and Body Oxygen in Healthy, Normal and Sick People
Breathing norms Parameters, graph, and description of the normal breathing pattern
6 breathing myths 6 myths about breathing and body oxygenation (prevalence: over 90%)
Hyperventilation Definitions of hyperventilation: their advantages and weak points
Hyperventilation Syndrome in the Sick. Table 1. Western scientific evidence about prevalence of CHV (chronic hyperventilation) in patients with various chronic conditions (34 medical studies)
Normal Minute Ventilation in Healthy Subjects: Easy and Light Breathing (14 Studies)
Hyperventilation Prevalence Present in Over 90% of Normal People (24 medical publications)
HV and hypoxia How and why deep breathing reduces oxygenation of cells and tissues of all vital organs
Body oxygen test How to measure your own breathing and body oxygenation (a simple DIY test)
Body oxygen in healthy Table 4. CP (body oxygen level) in healthy people (27 medical studies)
Body oxygen in sick Table 5. CP (body oxygen level) in sick people (14 medical studies)
Buteyko Table of Health Zones with clinical description of most common zones
Morning HV Morning hyperventilation effect or how and why critically ill people are most likely to die during early morning hours

References: CO2 Effects Web Pages
Vasodilation: CO2 expands arteries and arterioles facilitating perfusion (or blood supply) to all vital organs
The Bohr effect How and why oxygen is released by red blood cells in tissues
Cell Oxygen Levels and oxygen transport are controlled by alveolar CO2 and breathing
Oxygen Transport depends on breathing and these two effects (Vasoconstriction-Vasodilation and the Bohr effect) are parts of two diagrams that summarize influences of hypocapnia (low CO2 content in the blood and cells) on circulation and O2 delivery
Free Radical Generation takes place due to anaerobic cell respiration caused by cell hypoxia. Hence, antioxidant defenses of the human body are also regulated by CO2 and breathing
Inflammatory Response is controlled by breathing since hypoxia leads to or intensifies chronic inflammation through over-expression of the hypoxia-inducible factor 1, while normal breathing reduces these processes
Nerve stabilization takes place due to calmative or sedative effects of carbon dioxide in neurons or nerve cells
Muscle relaxation or relaxation of muscle cells is normal at high CO2, while hypocapnia causes muscular tension, poor posture and, sometimes, aggression and violence
Brochodilation - dilation of airways (bronchi and bronchioles) by carbon dioxide, and their constriction due to hypocapnia
CO2: Best Natural Cough Suppressant and "home remedy" since it calms urge-to-cough nerve receptors located in the tracheobronchial tree and larynx
Blood pH regulation and regulation of other bodily fluids
CO2: Lung Damage Healer: Elevated carbon dioxide prevents injury and promotes healing of lung tissues
CO2: Skin and Tissue Healer
Synthesis of Glutamine in the Brain, CO2 fixation, and other chemical reactions
CO2 myth "CO2 is a toxic waste gas" myth
Breathing control How is our breathing regulated? Why hypocapnia makes breathing uneven and erratic?

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