Over four decades, Russian scientist Professor Konstantin Buteyko completed pioneering work on illnesses that develop as a result of breathing more air than the body needs. His life's vocation provided humanity with what is arguably the greatest discovery to date in the field of medicine.
As a medical student, he discovered from his observations of hundreds of patients that their breathing was closely related to the extent of their illnesses. The greater the volume of air inhaled by a patient, the worse the sickness, he noted. This newly-discovered relationship between breathing and health was so precise that he was even able to predict accurately the exact time sick patients would pass away.

The greater the volume of air inhaled, the poorer the health

As a result of his research, Buteyko went on to devise a breathing programme for his patients, based on reducing the amount of air that passed through their lungs. Buteyko found that many patients suffering from the most common diseases of civilisation were able to recover completely from their condition. Others were able to significantly improve their health and quality of life. As time went on, the results helped Buteyko to refine and improve his method.
Buteyko’s discovery on October 7th, 1952 has improved the health and saved the lives of many thousands of people. Now that his discovery is becoming better known in the Western world, it will save the lives of many more.



Breathing and Health

The volume of air we inhale and exhale is measured in litres, and measurements are usually taken over one minute.
The standard volume of normal breathing for a healthy person is three to five litres of air per minute.
If we breathe more than our body needs, it is known as hyperventilation. If this is happening on a day-to-day basis, it is called chronic hyperventilation. Severe overbreathing can be fatal if it is sustained over a short period of time, so it is plausible to accept that there will be negative health effects caused by less severe but still excessive breathing over a long period of time.

Buteyko’s discovery is that long-term overbreathing leads to the build-up of organ damage, resulting in the development of illnesses specific to the hereditary traits of each person.

Often, overbreathing is not obvious or noticeable and therefore was called ‘hidden hyperventilation’ by Professor Buteyko. Other researchers, such as Robert Fried in his book Hyperventilation Syndrome, have agreed with this description. Obvious indicators of a person who hyperventilates are: sighing regularly, sniffing, upper chest breathing, yawning, taking large breaths before speaking and, of course, breathing through the mouth.



Symptoms of overbreathing

Hyperventilation contributes to many conditions, but because it receives very little attention in the diagnoses of illnesses, many patients suffering from various physical symptoms sometimes spend years going from doctor to doctor looking for the cause. This group of patients are often labelled as ‘psychosomatic’ and there is a belief that the condition is ‘all in the head’.
Physician Claude Lum noted that hyperventilation “presents a collection of bizarre and often apparently unrelated symptoms, which may affect any part of the body, any organ and any system”.

Some of the symptoms of hyperventilation affect:

• The respiratory system in the form of blocked nose, wheezing, breathlessness, coughing, chest tightness, frequent yawning and snoring.

• The nervous system in the form of a light-headed feeling, poor concentration, numbness, sweating, dizziness, vertigo, tingling of hands and feet, faintness, trembling and headache,

• The heart; typically a racing heartbeat, pain in the chest region, and a skipping or irregular heartbeat.

• The mind, including some degrees of anxiety, tension, depression, apprehension and stress.

• Other general symptoms include mouth dryness, fatigue, bad dreams, nightmares, dry itchy skin, sweaty palms, increased urination such as bed wetting or regular visits to the bathroom during the night, diarrhoea, constipation, general weakness and chronic exhaustion.



Your respiratory system

Your respiratory system consists of the parts of your body used for the delivery of oxygen from the atmosphere to your cells and tissues, and for transporting the carbon dioxide produced in your tissues back into the atmosphere. If cells and tissues are to function properly  if you are to live  your body needs the atmosphere’s oxygen. Your nose, mouth, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi and lungs are all part of your respiratory system.

Carbon dioxide is produced as an end product of the process of breaking down the fats and carbohydrates that you eat, and this gas is brought by your venous blood vessels to your lungs where the excess is exhaled.
Correct breathing results in the required amount of carbon dioxide being retained in your lungs.

Cause and Effect The sustenance of life requires oxygen and carbon dioxide. Just as excess oxygen results in damage to the lungs when the toxicity level is higher than antioxidants can counteract, too little carbon dioxide impairs the correct functioning of all organs.
The key to Buteyko theory is that carbon dioxide is not just a waste gas; it is essential for all metabolic functions.

Dr. Yandell Henderson put it well when he wrote: “carbon dioxide is produced by every tissue and probably acts on every organ,” in the Cyclopedia of Medicine published in 1940. Medical science has long recognised that the required amount of carbon dioxide in the little air sacs of the lungs, the alveoli, for a healthy person is five per cent. This is well illustrated in any university medical textbook. However, constant overbreathing leads to a loss of carbon dioxide and the concentration may drop as low as three-and-a-half per cent. Butekyo found that a level of below three per cent led to death.



Test to determine if you overbreathe

To find out if you overbreathe, perform this simple test called the Control Pause. You will need a watch or clock with a second hand.

1. Breathe in gently for two seconds.

2. Exhale gently for three seconds.

3. Hold your breath, pinching the nose after exhaling.

4. Hold your breath until you feel first urges to breathe in.

5. Count the seconds that you held your breath for.

If your control pause is less than 10 seconds you have very serious health problems. If you can hold less than 25 seconds your health requires attention, 30-40 seconds is satisfactory and 60 and above is excellent.

This measurement is due to the observation that persons with low carbon dioxide levels have low breath holding ability. The control Pause was developed by Professor Buteyko following years of research with thousands of patients. Professor Buteyko also developed a table relating control pause to exact Carbon Dioxide measures. While you may not have asthma, if you do have a low control pause your health is not good.



How does overbreathing affect carbon dioxide?

If you breathe in a large volume of air then you will breathe out a large volume. Humans don’t inhale air to store it in any form in the body, so therefore the volume exhaled has to be the same as the volume inhaled. The more air we inhale causes more air to be exhaled, and this greater quantity of exhaled air results in too much carbon dioxide being carried out of the body.

Large volume of air in = large volume of air out. This causes a loss of carbon dioxide

Overbreathing is a bad habit Breathing more than your body needs over a period of hours, weeks, months, or years will result in the day-to-day levels of carbon dioxide remaining low. Our respiratory centre becomes accustomed to or fixed at this lower level of carbon dioxide and determines it to be ‘correct’. Our respiratory centre will therefore instruct us to overbreathe to maintain this low level of carbon dioxide, even though the rest of the body’s organs and tissues are suffering. In essence it is a bad habit.


Why is carbon dioxide so important?

Transportation of oxygen
Oxygen is relatively insoluble in blood, so ninety-eight per cent of the gas is carried by haemoglobin molecule. The release of oxygen from haemoglobin is dependent on the quantity of carbon dioxide in our alveoli/arterial blood. If the level of carbon dioxide is not at the required level of five per cent, oxygen “sticks” to haemoglobin and so is not released to tissues and organs.

This bond was named after the physician who discovered it and is now known as the Bohr Effect.

Breathing too much results in our organs receiving less oxygen. Have you ever noticed that you get dizzy from taking big breaths?

Dilation of blood vessels and airways
Carbon dioxide dilates the smooth muscle around airways, arteries and capillaries. Following an increase in carbon dioxide, there is greater distribution of blood due to dilation of blood vessels. Instant feedback comes in the form of reduced symptoms and increased body warmth due to improved blood circulation. People with respiratory problems experience a dilation of their airways and so can breathe better.

Correct breathing improves blood flow and helps open our airways



Why do we overbreathe?


Earlier on I explained that when we overbreathe on a permanent basis, the respiratory centre in our brain is trained to accept a lower level of carbon dioxide. This level is determined to be correct even though it is less than the body requires for good health.

There are many reasons why we overbreathe but not all of them may apply to each individual. The following six factors are more prevalent in countries of increasing modernisation and affluence, and this helps explain why diseases of civilisation are so prevalent in the same countries.


1. Diet
Over-eating increases breathing because the body requires more energy to digest and process food. Instead of listening to the body and eating when hungry, as we have done for thousands of years, society now dictates at what time we should eat. In addition, we condition ourselves to eat more food than is necessary. How many times have you continued to eat all the food on your plate, or all the courses on offer, even though you didn’t feel hungry?
We have lost the art of listening to the body about what it needs. People in ancient times only ate when they were hungry. The primary reason for this was that hunting and gathering food required effort, and that more energy had to be spent to gather a larger quantity of food. Our ancestors didn’t have the luxury of accessible modern-day convenience stores, supermarkets and fast-food outlets to obtain something to eat whenever they desired, so they ate less and better food.
Protein, especially animal protein, and processed foods contribute to overbreathing. Professor Buteyko believes that food is the single biggest contributor to overbreathing. A supplementary factor is the use of chemicals and pesticides in growing all foodstuffs. The body has to work harder to remove the increased amount of toxins in food. This increases breathing.


2. Misconception of deep breathing
The traditional view in the Western world is that deep breathing is conducive to fitness and maintaining good health. A ‘deep breath’ is misinterpreted as a ‘big breath’. This fixed belief prevails among sports coaches, schools, hospitals, asthma clinics, radio, TV, magazines and even Western yoga. The most common instruction to those taking exercise or experiencing stress is to “take a deep breath”. By exercising in the gym or taking a walk along the beach, you can see how many people believe in the benefits of big breathing.
In the Eastern world, reduced breathing and breath control is very much enshrined in culture and philosophy. Its therapeutic value has been recognised for centuries.


3. Stress
Interpreting outside events, often those over which we can have no control, results in stress. Stress can be positive in the form of laughter, for example, or negative in the form of anxiety. Breathing is increased by stress, and in turn breathing leads to excitability of many brain areas, resulting in states of anxiety, panic and many psychological problems. At this point, one factor will feed off the other thus maintaining a constant state of arousal.


4. Temperature
Living in a hot and stuffy environment causes overbreathing. While body temperature is primarily controlled by skin pores and sweat glands, wearing too much clothing causes us to revert to primitive mouth panting as a way of regulating temperature.
Thanks to central heating and PVC windows and doors, our homes are better insulated and are becoming progressively warmer. Years ago houses were less well insulated and cooler, and a draught often brought fresh air through gaps under doors or between window frames. Research has demonstrated that mild or cool environments assist reduced breathing.


5. Lack of physical exercise
Exercise enables the body to accumulate large amounts of carbon dioxide produced by metabolic activity; lack of physical motion means less activity and less carbon dioxide.
For most people now, work means more mental effort and less physical activity. Even most of our forms of entertainment take place indoors, such as cinemas, theatres, computer games and satellite television. Out of an average twenty-four hour day, eight are spent sleeping, fourteen sitting and just two hours standing or walking. Compare this to the average day of our ancestors who spent all their waking hours completing tasks that demanded physical activity.


6. Over-sleeping
Professor Buteyko's research shows that lying down horizontally for a long period of time causes severe overbreathing. Most deaths occur between the hours of 3.00 and 5.00 a.m. when the body’s level of carbon dioxide passes below its lower threshold due to excessive breathing during sleep. Professor Buteyko emphasised that the position which causes the most overbreathing is sleeping while lying on one’s back. Incidentally, this can be observed among many people who stop snoring when they are turned over onto their side.


Professor Buteyko encapsulates his beliefs as follows:“One needs to eat less, breathe less, sleep less and physically work harder to the sweat of one’s brow because this is good. This is a fundamental change, this is true restructuring. This is what we need to do these days.”




The Life of Professor Buteyko


Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko was born near Kiev in the Ukraine on January 27th, 1923. This simple yet extraordinary man devoted his life to studying the human organism and made one of the most profound discoveries in the history of medicine.

Buteyko commenced his medical training in Russia in 1946 at the First Medical Institute of Moscow. While at University Buteyko was diagnosed as suffering from severe hypertension, which gave him a life expectancy of just 12 months. Under the guidance of his tutors Buteyko researched his illness in depth although it seemed that there was very little that he could do to reverse it.

On October 7th, 1952 after majoring in clinical therapy, he began to wonder whether the cause of his condition, which was going from bad to worse, might be his deep breathing. He checked this by reducing his breathing. Within minutes his headache, the pain in his right kidney and his heartache ceased. To confirm his discovery, he took five deep breaths and the pain returned. He again reversed his deep breathing and the pain disappeared. Buteyko established that breathing, so vital in sustaining life, can be not alone be the cure but also, amazingly, the cause of so many of diseases of civilisation.

Buteyko measured the breathing patterns of patients suffering from asthma, but he also included in his research sufferers from other ailments and found in many cases that they too hyperventilated between attacks. After many years research, he devised a programme to measure breathing and also a method of reconditioning patients' breathing to normal levels. This involved:

1. Switching from mouth breathing to nasal breathing.
2. Relaxation of the diaphragm until an air shortage is felt.
3. Small lifestyle changes are necessary to assist with this, thus commencing the road to full recovery.

In the years that followed, Buteyko continued his research, assisted by a team of two hundred qualified medical personnel and using the most up to date technology. By 1967 over one thousand patients with asthma, and other illnesses, had recovered from their conditions using his methods. In April 1980, following trials in Leningrad and at the First Moscow Institute of Paediatric Diseases, the Buteyko Breathing Method was officially acknowledged as having a one hundred per cent success rate. This research was directed by the Soviet Ministry's Committee for Science and Technology.The USSR Committee on Inventions and Discoveries formally acknowledged Buteyko's discovery in 1983 and issued the patent entitled "The method of treatment of hypocapnia", (Authors certificate No. 1067640 issued on September 15th, 1983).

Over two hundred medical professionals teach this therapy at present from centres located in major towns throughout Russia. Buteyko wrote over fifty scientific publications detailing the relationship between respiration and carbon dioxide and at least five Ph.D. dissertations were written by his colleagues. The basis of the Buteyko Breathing Method detailing the relationship between carbon dioxide and breath holding-time forms part of medical curriculum at Universities.

On Friday, May 2nd 2003 at 4.05 p.m. (Moscow time), Professor Buteyko parted from this world with some very deep inspirations. His death came as quite a shock to the many people around the world who had experienced excellent health as a result of his life's work.


It is our aim to continually advocate the work of this great man and to provide patients with a natural method to overcoming their conditions.