submitted 8 months ago by QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I saw someone on hexbear mention it a while ago, and went on my own research rabbit hole. It seems pretty cool, and I believe it could cure diseases and increase health in general, it’s just hard. The jist is a Soviet doctor named Buteyko realized breathing less and increasing CO2 in one’s body can greatly improve health. His method is to do lots of breath exercises, stay active, and eat healthily. I’ve been doing 15 minutes of exercises everyday for a few weeks, but it’s slow, and my control pause is a terrible 9 (probably part of why I’m always tired. Fuck school for making me wake up at an unnatural time and making me sit so long). The people around me irl that I’ve mentioned it to seem to think it’s too hard or a waste of time. For better or worse, I’m also a modernist, believing in human “perfectibility” with the right conditions and influences.

https://www.reddit.com/r/buteyko/comments/c8px11/start_here_intro_faq_of_rbuteyko/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/fjh47l/a_buddhist_monks_experience_with_buteyko/

What do you think? Is it legit? Do any of you practice?

top 27 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] EmmaGoldman@hexbear.net 16 points 8 months ago

It's absolutely not legit at all. This is pseudoscientific woowoo, and can potentially be dangerous. As far as it being an attempt to change and perfect your body, this is the same as the weird "mewing" trend in that it appears to do something in a way that might convince you that you're progressing in some way, but the actual thing happening has absolutely nothing to do with your goal. Mewing teaches you to hold your tongue high for a time period in the hopes that it will somehow magically make you have a stronger jawline permanently, but it functionally cannot do anything of the sort. Here, you're just learning to do weird movements and breath-holding, this is in no way improving your breathing.

The only evidence-based outcome anyone has found for Buteyko breathing in the last 70 years is that it can have a slight impact on a couple of asthma symptoms leading to a reduction of need for bronchodilator use without actually improving lung function, but does not affect the cause of those symptoms. If you're not an asthmatic who wants to reduce their inhaler use, science has not substantiated any of the many claimed other positive effects.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml -3 points 8 months ago

I know anecdotal evidence isn’t the most legitimate, but do you think the testimonies are lies? Also, there seems to be some data backing it up. I saw a study that it can decrease anxiety. Maybe not cure a bunch of diseases. Mouth breathing seems to be agreed to cause the harm they claim. Has it been really tested recently?

Maybe this is an appeal to nature fallacy, but the difference between this and mewing, as I think about it, is that we would’ve been hold our doing the tongue thing for a while if it actually worked, whereas Buteyko is more like how people breathed during most of our species’ existence, eating in that way and being way more active.

[-] sudo_halt@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 8 months ago

I'm sorry, soviets had brilliant dicks like Lysenko too, this sounds like prime time bullshit

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 8 months ago

Funnily enough, Lysenko was an early epigenetics advocate, a field that it is gaining steam recently.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 8 months ago

That’s true, im still not sure though

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

At best this is pseudoscientific garbage that will do absolutely nothing for you. At worst… THIS WILL KILL YOU IF YOU ACTUALLY FOLLOW HIS “RESEARCH”.

Increasing CO2 in the body will cause a condition called hypercapnia which forces cells to desperately drag out energy from carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen, also known as fermentation. This has two major and devastating effects, one, your blood will become acidic and trigger a condition called acidosis, which will cause severe organ damage, brain damage, and tissue damage which will lead to cardiac arrest, muscle and bone deterioration, lung damage, among a laundry list of other symptoms. Secondly, your brain cells will die off from lack of adequate oxygen diffusion, and you will experience confusion, fatigue, paranoia, seizures, and eventually brain death or cardiac arrest.

CO2 is a waste product. Your body is trying to get rid of it. Do you think you’ll have any benefits from holding your poop in?

If he was correct, then why has there been no follow up research from any reputable institution, university, or laboratory? He was a known quack in the Soviet Union and Russia for this idea. You know what will help you? Just exercising and living healthy.

The entire point of science is that it can be replicated and analyzed. Many have tried to follow his ideas and they have all failed to replicate his claims.

His claims are also completely asinine. Do you know what the Bohr effect is? It’s the process that your body uses to request MORE oxygen. Not less. If you don’t get enough oxygen then you build up lactic acid through fermentation, which makes your muscles hurt in order to prevent you from over exerting yourself and hurting yourself.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 8 months ago

They say the acidity increases oxidation with the acidity. I have not had the chance to look into the clinical results and stuff, but I just found this. Would you say people think the method works because they are just so healthy in general with diet and exercise, as opposed to the breathing exercises?

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yes. The human body increases oxidation itself with constant exercise and proper breathing. When the body undergoes exercise, it’ll eventually hit a wall where it cannot get enough oxygen, so cells begin to ferment and create lactic acid to slow you down to not hurt yourself. However, with enough time, your body will become more efficient at the various process that allow oxygen to pass into cells, allowing you to go further and do more. The acid does not cause this.

This is why athletes are banned from breathing pure oxygen before races, or getting quick blood transfusions of oxygenated blood.

He’s trying to claim that it’s his laughable “breathing exercises” doing this.

Second, those studies are all but useless. I read through a handful, and they would barely qualify for a conceptual piece. The most up to date one is a small study from 1998 with 38 people, that is laughable and obsolete in the realm of science. They are also trying to sell their “program”. They are frauds. Don’t waste your time.

Just go exercise once a day and don’t bother with the waste of time.

And lastly, if it was real. Why isn’t every Olympics team doing this? Why aren’t China, Russia, and the US training their soldiers and cosmonauts to do this? It’s a scam.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 8 months ago

That’s fair, I suppose “you have to do all the other lifestyle stuff too” is the equivalent of “you still need to tie your camel and not rely on allah.”

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 8 months ago

Exactly.

Buteyko is telling you to tie your camel, then claiming that is is Allah that made it so your camel didn’t run away, and not the very obvious rope.

[-] RedClouds@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

testimonies are lies?

Remember you can be honest and still wrong. "Feelings" you get are not science based medicine. The placebo effect is very strong indeed.

some data backing it up.

I don't have time to look into it right now, but a lot of times preliminary studies that are not decisive will sometimes be forwarded as evidence when it's really not. Also, there are for-profit journals where you can publish junk science (I mean all journals are for profit. But at least some of them try to do good science. At any rate, there are definitely journals that do not give a shit about science and are just there to make money. This is, of course, a problem with capitalism, but we're talking about science right now.)

Buteyko is more like how people breathed during most of our species’ existence

No it is not. Please be aware that the way your body naturally breathes is just fine unless you have a very well-known breathing condition.

I'm sorry, but this is junk science through and through.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 8 months ago

I was going to look more into the evidence eventually. deng stare

I did notice on one study they claimed as evidence it just said five minutes of breath work (but not Buteyko) made people happier than meditation (that’s obviously too short for actual meditation).

[-] OrnluWolfjarl@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 8 months ago

Not legit at all. We don't even need to analyze it deep. Just with rudimentary high school biology. CO2 is a waste product of your cells. It interferes with many processes including respiration itself. Your body goes through a lot of effort to remove it. You shouldn't be trying to increase it. It's like drinking your own pee.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml -4 points 8 months ago

The problem with that argument for me is that it feels like the anti-trans argument “in biology everyone learned that there are two genders (sexes) and you’re born one of them. how dare you say there’s more to it than that.” I learned how CO2 is a waste product of cellular respiration but maybe it also plays an important role and so on, idk I’m not as arrogant to say I know enough just from basic school knowledge.

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

You yourself have just made the mistake that conservatives make though. You conflated gender and sex by putting sex in parentheses next to gender as if they are the same thing.

Biology makes no mention of gender, that is a sociological and anthropological phenomenon. Biology states that besides incredibly rare niche cases, there are two main distinct sexes in humans as demonstrated by the XX and XY chromosomal combinations.

Gender is not sex. Sex is not gender. Gender identity is a human construct.

Nowhere does biology state there are two genders.

Further, cellular respiration is a biological process that has been studied for hundreds of years and is thoroughly understood. Do you really think that no one… not a single person or research group beyond this single quack would have blown the lid on what would be one of the most significant biological discoveries in history?

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 8 months ago

I understand that, allow me to clarify. What I meant is we are taught that one is either XX or XY with certain sexual characteristics. In reality there is a lot of variation beyond that norm and things can be altered.

I thought maybe the body evolved to need and make use of CO2 as a product of that necessary process, and now modern life has prevented that process from working properly (it’s simply true that most people don’t exercise nearly as much as hunter gatherers etc). I suppose it would be groundbreaking and well known if it was really as important and had the role Buteyko says, and that wouldn’t remain secret.

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

How is there a lot of variation between the two and how can they be altered? You didn’t learn about those “variations” because they are irrelevant to human biology except for researchers and doctors, since such cases are incredibly rare and not the norm. The rule is set by the constant, not the exception.

There are niche cases of XXY or other chromosomal deformities, however the body simply exhibits the primary sexual characteristics of a single sex. There is no such thing as a true hermaphrodite with both sex’s physical characteristics, and the body will only display secondary sexual traits while sometimes erroneously trying to develop a second primary set that are always non-functional, and often harmful.

The gender identity of an intersex person is essentially wholly irrelevant and determined on an individual basis.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 8 months ago

I agree, but do you get my thought process of “maybe there’s more to cellular respiration than I thought?”

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 8 months ago

I see what you mean, but you have to remember that you can’t go into something like this “looking for the hidden answer” and then disregarding what millions of scientists say when the information you find didn’t actually fit the hidden meaning you hoped to find.

It’s the same hole that anti-vaxxers and flat earthers fall into.

Like the advanced math example you gave earlier. You can find the i example in higher level textbooks… guess what you won’t find in higher level biology textbooks?

Also Econ isn’t a science.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah. Not my meme btw.

[-] RedClouds@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

You're not taking into account that there is actual science behind these claims.

And for political science, it's of course a lot less science and a lot more history and interpretation.

Of course, we teach kids simple things in order to allow them to step through science to the more advanced stuff. But the fact is when you want to debate medicine like this, you need real evidence. And a junk study that has never had a follow-up is not evidence-based medicine.

For example, the gender and sex thing is an overly simplistic way of explaining a more complicated process. But the actual science about that more complicated process exists. The advanced science about CO2 in the blood is junk. We can analyze this from an evidence-based medicine perspective. This is not real science.

For all of its faults, there is a reasonably high quality, evidenced-based way of doing real science and evidence-based medicine. And I'm sorry, this is pretty clear cut, but this is not real science.

I suppose it would be groundbreaking and well known if it was really as important and had the role Buteyko says, and that wouldn’t remain secret.

This is the strategy for junk science and fake medicine practitioners around the world. To claim that their work is actually on the cusp of discovering something new, even if the idea is 50, 100, or 1000 years old.

We can talk all day about how evidence-based medicine is impersonal and doctors just aren't good with their patients and they're pushing people away into the alternative medicine industry. But the fact of the matter is that evidence-based medicine is medicine and this is not.

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 8 months ago

Anything claiming to be a "cure all" is bullshit. Period. Human bodies are complex, and there is no "one size fits all" solution to medical health. Different people have different needs, and people often "feel better" after practicing something new, not because it actually provides medical benefit, but because they've actively been spending more time being mindful and trying to improve their own health. Cause and effect is reversed.

That's no to say this has no merits at all, but these sorts of health schemes are 99% healthy diet and regular exercise and 1% whatever their fad idea is. At least this one doesn't seem to be trying to extract as much money out of your wallet as possible.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 8 months ago

I was basically like “it’s probably good, but not that good.

I was probably less skeptical because no one else stood to benefit from me doing it. Ig they do say you should learn it from some teacher, but where the hell would I find one of those.

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah, this sounds like someone discovering something but not really fully understanding it, and they or others have taken what seems to be some kind of health benefit to an extreme, though at least this seems to not be something actively pushed by con artists at least.