Helium helps patients breathe easier

Researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada have discovered that by combining helium with 40 per cent oxygen allowed patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to increase their exercise capacity by an average of 245 per cent. COPD is a disease of the lungs caused by smoking and includes the conditions of emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

This was the first study to demonstrate that helium-hyperoxia (40 per cent oxygen, 60 per cent helium) improves the exercise tolerance of COPD patients to a greater extent than oxygen alone, which is currently used for treating patients with this disorder. People with severe COPD typically struggle for every breath while exercising and any improvements that could be made to their ability to perform exercise could have significant clinical implications.

The results of the study were published recently in the American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care Medicine.

Patients with COPD have difficulty breathing out and often air is trapped in the lungs at the end of each breath; this has been shown to be one of the primary reasons for the shortness of breath experienced by these patients. Combining the helium and hyperoxia slows down the frequency of breathing while making the air easier to breathe. This combined effect reduces the amount of air trapped in the lungs during exercise.

“This means they don't have to work as hard to breathe and they are not so short of breath during exercise, which allows them to do more,” said Dr. Neil Eves, lead author on the study. Eves conducted the study for his PhD dissertation at the University of Alberta.

In the study 10 clinically stable men with moderate to severe COPD were each given four different mixes of gases including room air, while they exercised. During each test they were monitored for exercise time, breathing capacity, work of breathing and symptoms of exertion. The best results were achieved with a mix of 40 per cent oxygen and 60 per cent helium.

The helium-hyperoxia mixture improved the exercise tolerance of the patients by 245 per cent compared with air (21 per cent oxygen, 79 per cent nitrogen), by 56 per cent compared with hyperoxia (40 per cent oxygen, 60 per cent nitrogen) and 116 per cent compared with a “normal” oxygen-helium gas (21 per cent oxygen, 79 per cent helium).

“If patients were to breathe helium-hyperoxia in a rehabilitation setting, they could potentially perform a lot more exercise, which may improve their exercise capacity, fitness level and as a result, quality of life,” Eves said.

Media Contact

Bev Betkowski EurekAlert!

More Information:

http://www.ualberta.ca

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors