article on the indo on friday

synchro

My miracle asthma cure

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(and why the Irish medical profession are ignoring it)

When it comes to asthma, Ireland's lungs are in a bad way. At the last count more than 400,000 Irish people had asthma and we have the highest prevalence of it in Europe. Worldwide, we now have the fourth highest rate among children and the highest rate among adults aged 18-44. At 29%, our childhood asthma rate is just behind Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

And the problem is getting worse. Asthma attacks diagnosed by GPs are five times higher than 25 years ago. As such, Irish children miss 10 school days every year because of it, while adults miss about 12 days from work.

Asthma is now one of the world's most common long-term conditions, affecting as many as 300 million people worldwide. They estimate this number could jump by 150 million by 2025.

But the statistics only give half the story. Any asthma sufferer will tell you that that the symptoms of wheezing, chest-tightness and breathlessness that are its hallmark, are the most uncomfortable, debilitating and sometimes frightening experiences a person can have.

The financial cost of this ailment is equally huge. No one knows for certain how much Irish adults and children spend every year on drugs to control their asthma, on prescriptions and tests from doctors and specialists, and on fitting their houses with dust-free this and allergy-free that. We can, however, glimpse the cost.

New Zealand has a population roughly similar to ours and, coincidentally, an asthma rate also similar to ours. It spent about €50 million on asthma drugs alone in 2002.

With so much at stake you would have thought that any treatment offering relief would be welcomed with open arms. But not so.

If the reality behind the statistics is frightening then there is something equally ominous taking place in the background of the asthma industry in Ireland today. A new treatment has arrived on the scene that offers hope and yet it is being ignored by the establishment. It is achieving startlingly good results wherever it has been tested but in this country these tests are being downplayed. Most remarkable of all, it is affordable and it is completely drug-free. Yet conventional medical practitioners are rubbishing it at every turn.

The Buteyko Breathing Technique, named after Professor Konstantin Buteyko, the Russian scientist who developed it, was brought to Ireland a few years ago by Irishman Patrick McKeown, a chronic asthmatic for 25 years. Leaving aside the fact that he himself is now asthma-free having undergone the treatment, he is teaching it to hundreds of Irish people a year, most of whom are finding it allows them breathe freely again.

The question is: are we dealing with hocus pocus or is this a new wonder treatment? This is where the debate rages. The Asthma Society of Ireland, the first port of call for all asthmatics, does not believe in it, will not recommend it or make any move to research it, and encourages its customers to keep taking the drugs.

Yet, even ignoring the groundswell of individual testimonies from people who are benefiting from it here, successive research on Buteyko in Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and Moscow has shown amazing improvements in asthmatics' dependence on their inhalers.

The New Zealand Medical Journal in December 2003 said the Buteyko Technique was very effective with asthma and after six months Buteyko users had reduced their blue inhaler usage by 85%, compared to 37% in the non-Buteyko group. Buteyko users also reduced their steroid usage by 50% whereas the non-Buteyko people had no change at all.

According to Dr Pat Manning, chairman of the medical committee of the Asthma Society of Ireland and Consultant Respiratory Physician at the Bon Secours Hospital, Dublin, the research evidence is not to their liking because it is not scientifically rigorous enough. The society has no objection to conducting its own tests, he said, provided someone puts up the hefty cash for the trials, and it will then subject Buteyko to the most thorough scientific testing, a process which he warns could take a very long time. But he has no plans to do so.

"The person that is teaching this method is teaching it to other teachers and they are making a lot of money out of it," Dr Manning said. "They are telling people it will cure their asthma. I have had patients who have tried this method and it has made no difference. We are concerned people will get the impression it'll cure their asthma."

For his part, the Buteyko advocate in Ireland, Patrick McKeown, said he has made repeated attempts to get the Asthma Society to let him explain the method and to have them put it to the test but each request has been ignored. In spite of the successes of the Buteyko method, he says he has had to put up with a barrage of negativity and sniping.

"I think it is very unfair to say that we are in it for the money," Mr McKeown said. "I was a chronic asthmatic for about 25 years and often struggled going to and from school with my schoolbag. I am now completely asthma-free. My main impetus to become involved was due to my own condition and it gives me tremendous drive especially when I hear detractors who have not looked into the method in the first place."

Asthmatics who spend small fortunes on doctors, consultants and prescription drugs will probably find it strange to hear a technique that has a once-off cost of €195 in Sligo, Galway and Athlone and €245 in Dublin, Cork and Limerick being pilloried as mercenary, money-grabbing, or a 'pyramid-selling operation', as one eminent specialist described it to me.

I asked Dr Pat Manning if, given the importance of the asthma industry to drug companies, he and the Asthma Society of Ireland saw the Buteyko method as a threat because of its drug-free nature. The society's recent booklet for very young children with asthma is sponsored by Merck Sharp & Dohme.

"It is not a threat whatsoever," he said. "Any medicines we use are backed by the information that is out there. If any treatment wants to stand up to scrutiny it's going to have to stand against what we know of asthma."

The gulf separating the two sides is considerable. Conventional medicine tells us that asthma is a lung disease for which there is no cure. It is triggered by outside factors such as diet, dust or allergies but they are not sure exactly what. It has no defined cause and no defined cure. The only treatment is to control it, using inhalers or oral medication.

Buteyko Breathing Technique says that asthma has a cause and it is over-breathing. We over-breathe due to stress or diet or unfitness and we deplete the body of carbon dioxide which is vital in regulating oxygen uptake. The cure is to retrain the person's breathing habits and that is what the treatment entails.

Could it be that a treatment that uses no drugs, has a defined cost, takes just three eight-hour sessions and involves half-an-hour of breathing work a day can have such a revolutionary effect on the epidemic that is asthma?

The medical profession and the Asthma Society of Ireland are probably right to be cautious. They have probably seen every quack cure for asthma that was invented. But Buteyko is backed by too many positive personal and scientific results for it to be ignored much longer. And the continuing scepticism about it is beginning to smack of intransigence. Many people are suffering and could possibly benefit from this treatment. Those people are entitled to a little more healthy curiosity from the guardians of our health and a little less obstinacy.

Capt'n Midnight

on Airtel a while back there was something about asthma in northern ireland where they reckoned that about 70-80% of hospital visits and deaths due to it were preventable, something to do with the nurses union IIRC

DrIndy

Before doctors recommend treatments, you really need Level 1 evidence, which is randomised, placebo controlled clinical trials to prove that something works more effectively than a placebo.

(Placebo effect is that even without any real treatment, 30% of people report that they feel improved due to the effect of the mind on perception of illness)

It is very difficult to compare this breathing method with the equivalent "placebo" as they would have to be very similar. In medicines, this is much easier as anyone can take a sugar tablet as a placebo.

It is the same with acupuncture, it undoubtedly works, but there is no level 1 trials PROVING it......

I personally find it an interesting concept and am keeping an open mind on this, but the evidence is essential first.

Snickers Man

synchro wrote:

According to Dr Pat Manning, chairman of the medical committee of the Asthma Society of Ireland and Consultant Respiratory Physician at the Bon Secours Hospital, Dublin, the research evidence is not to their liking because it is not scientifically rigorous enough. The society has no objection to conducting its own tests, he said, provided someone puts up the hefty cash for the trials, and it will then subject Buteyko to the most thorough scientific testing, a process which he warns could take a very long time. But he has no plans to do so.

Let's talk free-market turkey here. Who is going to invest money to research the efficacy of a treatment that is drug-free and will result in no pay off to a pharma company in terms of sales of a new miracle drug?

Answer: nobody.

Unless of course a government were to take the courageous step of doing so. But then, the government of a country which has actively, and very successfully, targeted inward investment from ALL the leading drugs companies in the western world is hardly likely to think such a research project 'appropriate'.

A member of my family with severe asthma has used the Buyteyko method, considers the theory behind it to be sound, has the necessary expertise to make that judgement and has not needed Ventolin ever since.

Go for it.

And I say that fully aware of the fact that the original article posted at the start of this thread appears to be a paid for 'advertorial' for Patrick McKeown who claims to have brought the Buteyko method to Ireland. I'm not sure that he did. I don;t know the man, and have nothing to do with him or his company.

But on the basis of observing someone close to me practising the Buteyko method, I can say that it certainly works in some cases.

jazzbandit

Buteyko trials could be paid for by the guys who are selling it perhaps? Evidence for it is crap. Use of inhaler is no guide to asthma severity, as asthmatics often use their inhalers appropriately anyway. Need to look at different criteria. Psychosomatic probs certainly make asthma works, so buteyko may help, as may other simpler relaxation techniques. Nothing to suggest it's better than any of these though.

Patrick McKeown

The evidence of both trials (Mater Hospital, Brisbane 1995 and Gisbourne hospital, New Zealand 2003) took into account three variables namely; quality of life, need of reliever and preventer medication and lung function.

Both trials showed consistent results with a significant reduction in the need for medication and improved quality of life.

Lung function remained the same with less than half the need for preventer medication and 90% less need for reliever.

I suggest you look at New Zealand trials. - http://www.buteyko.ie/trials.html