About Doctor Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko
Doctor
Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko (1923-2003) was a medical doctor, leading Soviet
physiologist, and
clinical physician who devoted his life to the study of respiration. When he was
an Honors student of the First Moscow Medical Institute in the early 1950s, he
observed that severely sick people usually had heavy breathing and that their
breathing got even heavier when death approached. (You can visit any hospital to
observe this simple fact.) The breath holding time of terminally ill people
gradually decreased: 5 s, 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0, when death occurred.
During
the 1960’s, Dr. Konstantin Buteyko was heading a project funded by
the Ministry of Aviation and Space Research as a part of the program for
launching the first manned spaceships in outer space. Dr. Konstantin Buteyko was given
a respiratory laboratory in Novosibirsk for this purpose. However, since he was
also interested in diseases, he conducted many other studies.
Buteyko discovered that many health problems are always accompanied by
abnormal breathing, usually chronic
hyperventilation (overbreathing)
that causes tissue hypoxia (low levels of oxygen in cells) due to CO2 effects.
He also
found that the restoration of normal breathing parameters eliminated hypoxia,
symptoms of the disease, and a need for medication with improved quality of life.
Normal breathing, apart from other parameters, means breathing about 4-6 liters
of air per minute with a breathing frequency of about 8-12 times per minute and
40-60 s for the body-oxygen test. In
order to achieve normal breathing, he developed and, together with other Russian
medical professionals, refined the Buteyko breathing method.
In 1985, the
Soviet Health Ministry officially approved the Buteyko breathing
method. It has been used by family doctors (or GPs) and breathing practitioners
in Russia for more than 100,000 asthmatics, over 30,000 people with
cardiovascular problems and many other patients. The Buteyko breathing method
has saved the lives of thousands of people in the Soviet Union who were
officially diagnosed as terminally ill.
The method has had several successful clinical trials (England, Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, USSR). Practice shows that the normalization of breathing for most people means to become disease-free. It is still unclear, due to our limited knowledge, which health problems can be treated and what the success rates for various health conditions are.
From the 1960's and until his death in 2004, Dr. Konstantin Buteyko was severely persecuted by some mysterious "Siberian medical mafia", as it was documented in many Russian sources. The most detailed account of Dr. Buteyko's life and these persecutions can be found in Doctor Buteyko's Discovery Trilogy, by Sergey Altoukhov, who spent many years learning, working and travelling with Dr. Konstantin Buteyko.
My views about the KGB-related origins of this "medical Siberian Mafia" are expressed here: Gulag KGB Mafia. Biographies of Doctor Konstantin Buteyko and his interviews can be found in the Resources.
Reference pages: Breathing norms and medical facts:
-
Breathing
norms: Parameters, graph, and description of the normal
breathing pattern
- 6 breathing myths: Myths and superstitions about breathing
and body oxygenation (prevalence: over 90%)
- Hyperventilation: Definitions of
hyperventilation: their advantages and weak points
- Hyperventilation syndrome:
Western scientific evidence about prevalence of chronic hyperventilation in patients with chronic conditions
(37 medical studies)
- Normal minute ventilation: Small and
slow
breathing at rest is enjoyed by healthy subjects (14 studies)
- Hyperventilation prevalence: Present in
over 90% of
normal people (24 medical studies)
- HV and hypoxia:
How and why deep breathing reduces oxygenation of cells and tissues of
all vital organs
- Body-oxygen test (CP test)
: How to measure your own breathing and body oxygenation (two in one) using a simple DIY test
- Body oxygen in healthy:
Results for the body-oxygen test for healthy people (27 medical
studies)
- Body oxygen in sick
: Results for the body-oxygen test for sick people (14 medical studies)
- Buteyko
Table of Health Zones: Clinical description and ranges for breathing zones:
from the critically ill (severely sick) up to super healthy people
with maximum possible body oxygenation
- Morning hyperventilation: Why people feel
worse and critically ill people are most
likely to die during early morning hours
References: pages about CO2 effect:
- 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: How alveolar CO2 influences
oxygen transport
- Oxygen transport: O2 transport is controlled by
vasoconstriction-vasodilation and the Bohr effects, both of which rely on CO2
- Free radical generation:
Reactive oxygen species are produced within cells due to anaerobic cell respiration caused by cell hypoxia
- Inflammatory response: Chronic inflammation
in fueled by the hypoxia-inducible factor 1, while normal breathing reduces
and eliminates inflammation
- Nerve stabilization: People remain calm due to calmative or
sedative effects of carbon dioxide in neurons or nerve cells
- Muscle relaxation: Relaxation of muscle cells
is normal at high CO2, while hypocapnia causes muscular tension, poor posture
and, sometimes, aggression and violence
- Bronchodilation: Dilation of
airways (bronchi and bronchioles) is caused by carbon dioxide, and their constriction
by hypocapnia (low CO2)
- Blood
pH: Regulation of blood pH due to breathing and regulation of other bodily fluids
- CO2: lung damage: Elevated carbon
dioxide prevents lung injury and promotes healing of lung tissues
- CO2: Topical carbon dioxide can heal skin and tissues
- Synthesis of glutamine
in the brain, CO2 fixation, and other chemical reactions
- Deep breathing myth:
Ignorant and naive people promote the idea that deep breathing and breathing
more air at rest is beneficial for health
- Breathing control: How is our
breathing regulated? Why hypocapnia makes breathing uneven, irregular and erratic.
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