Hyperventilation: Definition and Clinical Facts

- Updated on November 1, 2020

Proofread by Samson Hui Proofreader on July **, 2019

Grammarly-Daan-Sept-2019

Hyperventilation: Definition and Clinical Facts 1By Dr. Artour Rakhimov, Alternative Health Educator and Author

Hyperventilation

Define hyperventilation

Hyperventilation is breathing more air per minute than the medical norm. Normal minute ventilation at rest for a 70-kg person is 6 L/min.

Hyperventilation causes alveolar hypocapnia (a lack of CO2). This reduces O2 transport to all vital organs and promotes chronic diseases.

Overbreathing is common in people with chronic diseases, as this Table shows.

Breathing rates in healthy, normal people vs diseases

For more details about hyperventilation, you can visit this highly-intelligent article from Wikipedia that assumes that overbreathing appears due to panic or some other situations, like those on the Moon: click here.

Hyperventilation Prevalence Table (Historical changes)
at rest for normal subjects

 

ConditionMinute
ventilation
AgeN. of
subjects
References
Healthy Subjects6-7 L/min>400Results of 14 studies
Normal breathing6 Medical textbooks
Normal subjects4.9 5Griffith et al, 1929
Normal males5.3+-0.1   27-4346Shock et al, 1939
Normal females4.6+-0.1   27-4340Shock et al, 1939
Normal subjects6.9+-0.9100Matheson et al, 1950
Normal subjects9.1+-4.531+-711Kassabian et al, 1982
Normal subjects8.1+-2.142+-1411D’Alonzo et al, 1987
Normal subjects6.3+-2.212Pain et al, 1988
Normal males13+-340 (av.)12Clague et al, 1994
Normal subjects9.2+-2.534+-713Radwan et al, 1995
Normal subjects15+-428-3412Dahan et al, 1995
Normal subjects12+-455+-1043Clark et al, 1995
Normal subjects12+-241+-210Tantucci et al, 1996
Normal subjects*11+-353+-1124Clark et al, 1997
Normal subjects8.1+-0.434+-263Meessen et al, 1997
Normal females9.920-2823Han et al, 1997
Normal males1520-2847Han et al, 1997
Normal females1029-6042Han et al, 1997
Normal males1129-6242Han et al, 1997
Normal subjects13+-336+-610Tantucci et al, 1997
Normal subjects12+-165+-210Epstein et al, 1996
Normal subjects12+-112-6920Bowler et al, 1998
Normal subjects10+-639+-420DeLorey et al, 1999
Normal seniors12+-470+-314DeLorey et al, 1999
Normal elderly*14+-388+-211DeLorey et al, 1999
Normal subjects17+-141+-215Tantucci et al, 2001
Normal subjects10+-0.510Bell et al, 2005
Normal subjects8.5+-1.230+-869Narkiewicz, 2006
Normal females10+-0.411Ahuja et al, 2007
Normal subjects12+-262+-220Travers et al, 2008
ConditionMinute
ventilation
AgeN. of
subjects
Reference

 

The references for the above Table can be found here.

For details related to the prevalence of chronic overbreathing in the modern population (more than 90%), visit the Homepage of this site. An extended analysis of too fast and heavy breathing is provided on this page: hyperventilation.

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