CO2 is essential for your life

 Why carbon dioxide is not a waste gas!

In the second half of the 18^th century, Lavoisier gave a gas the name oxygen – from that day viewed as the gas of life. By contrast, scientists saw carbon dioxide, shown to kill mice at high concentrations, as poisonous. Or at best a waste gas. 

Yet a later experiment with baby mice, placed in a container with pure oxygen, showed a dark sided to the gas of life. It made the mice blind. But this experiment and its outcome aren’t common knowledge.

The common, but false, belief that after inhaling oxygen we exhale a waste gas called carbon dioxide (CO2) has led to a fundamental misunderstanding of asthma. In fact, carbon dioxide is one of the most important chemical regulators of the human body. 

It monitors the activity of the heart, the blood vessels and the respiratory system. As Haldane discovered in 1905, the amount of carbon dioxide in our blood regulates the rate and depth of our breathing.

When we remove carbon dioxide from the body in undue quantities, by excessive artificial ventilation of the lungs, there occurs a gradual failing of the heart and circulation with death resulting - as Professor Yandell Henderson of Yale discovered in 1909.

Levels of Oxygen VS Carbon dioxide

The level of oxygen in the room where you’re reading this is twenty per cent - the normal level for our atmosphere. It’s unlikely you’d notice if the oxygen level doubled or even tripled around you because our bodies are blind to higher levels of oxygen. 

Further, if the oxygen level dropped considerably, you’d be unlikely to notice any difference in your breathing. Only when the level drops below fifteen per cent - as it does at high altitudes - would you be aware of the difference.

Contrast that situation with carbon dioxide. Asthmatics have between 3.5 and 4.5 per cent of carbon dioxide in their alveolar air. If this were decreased by as little as 0.I percent anyone - whether asthmatic or not – would develop dizziness, palpitations, wheezing and a blocked nose. Or even a mild asthma attack.

These figures show that our bodies are fifty times more sensitive to changes in carbon dioxide levels than they are to changes in oxygen levels. It follows then that carbon dioxide is far more important to your body than oxygen.

Asthma

If an asthmatic can 'normalise' his or her carbon dioxide level by raising it to 5.5 or 6 per cent, they can get rid of their asthma. Experiments have shown that carbon dioxide levels of more than ten per cent causes loss of consciousness. Yet there is never any need to increase carbon dioxide to such an extent, and the Buteyko method (mentioned above) doesn’t involve raising carbon dioxide levels above normal.

 

SYMPTOMS

Chronic hyperventilators may be referred to a succession of specialists who find no evidence of organic disease. Many become chronic invalids with gross anxiety neuroses as a result of the continuance of undiagnosed, alarming symptoms. The situation is self-perpetuating in this group of people. They breathe in such a manner that their arterial carbon dioxide level is persistently low. And this may form the basis of a variety of symptoms.

 

This list gives some of the symptoms of chronic hyperventilation:

• Cardiovascular symptoms: a fast, strong and irregular heartbeat, restricted blood vessels.

 

• Respiratory symptoms: narrowing of the bronchial tubes, breathlessness, air hunger, excessive sighing, chest pain.

 

• Neurological symptoms: tingling or pricking in peripheral nerve endings, dizziness, lack of co-ordination, disturbance of vision, disturbance of hearing, black-outs.

 

• Musculoskeletal symptoms: muscle pains, involuntary contractions, tremors, cramps, intermittent muscle spasms.

 

• General symptoms: exhaustion, weakness, sleep disturbance, headache, poor concentration and memory, anxiety, panic attacks, phobic states -irrational fears or aversions, excessive sweating.

 

According to Professor Buteyko, these are a mere one-tenth of all the symptoms of chronic hyperventilation. He believes they may cause headaches, migraine, chronic fatigue, schizophrenia, and of course, asthma, to name but a few.

There exists a further interesting link between asthma and epilepsy in that in both of these disorders, hyperventilation is a major cause of the attacks or fits.

To find out how to tackle these issues with simple mindful breathing: https://natural-therapy-centre.blogspot.com/2022/05/5-myths-to-take-your-breath-away.html

Or book a taster session: http://bit.ly/3I5pPbe  

 Until next time, Be WELL

Julie Nicholls ​Body~Mind Coach  LCSP(Phys), IEMT, former RGN Tel: 01793 495551

 Based on : ALEXANDER STALMATSKI, Freedom from Asthma, https://amzn.to/3t3lsZi