"...extensive data from a spectrum of physiological systems indicate that hypocapnia (low carbon dioxide) has the potential to propagate or initiate pathological processes. As a common aspect of many acute disorders, hypocapnia may have a pathogenic role in the development of systemic diseases. "

quote from;

Hypocapnia

John G Laffey MD

Brian P Kavanagh MB

N Engl J Med Vol 347 No. 1 July 4 2002  www.nejm.org  53

Horses with chronic ailments or behavioural problems may be over breathing. 

Chronic over breathing in humans results in depletion of the body’s carbon dioxide. 

Low carbon dioxide levels can cause damage leading to symptoms.

The idea behind Equine Breathing is that it reduces the breathing back towards normal levels and thereby restores carbon dioxide levels and helps to reverse the damage and symptoms. This proposal has its origins in scientific studies of human respiration physiology (see quote to left) although as is often the case equivalent scientific studies on horses have yet to be carried out. 

flared nostril of over breathing horse at rest

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For optimal functioning the human body needs carbon dioxide in the lungs at nearly 200 times higher levels than the concentration in the outside air. Being a gas, carbon dioxide diffuses from places of high concentration (the body) to low concentration (the air). 

When you breathe in a lungful of air, carbon dioxide immediately diffuses into it from your body and is then expelled as you breathe out. So the lungs are a constant seat of loss of carbon dioxide. Normally this loss is compensated by the body's production of carbon dioxide. The body produces carbon dioxide as a result of respiration or metabolism. When muscles are worked aerobically the rate of carbon dioxide production increases. 

However, if the in and out breath become larger than normal as in over breathing, more carbon dioxide is lost than is created by cellular respiration and levels in the lungs drop.

Breathing is controlled by the respiratory driver in the brain. It is triggered by carbon dioxide. If carbon dioxide levels fall due to chronic over breathing, the respiratory driver gradually becomes recalibrated to lower levels of carbon dioxide and fails to restore breathing to a reduced, normal level.

page contents

Breathing too much

Reducing the breathing

Why is carbon dioxide so important?

• Oxygen availability

• Acid/alkaline balance

• Smooth muscle functioning

• Nervous system cell functioning

• Biosynthesis of amino acids, lipids and carbohydrates

Other effects of over breathing

Why does a horse start over breathing?

Why does a horse's breathing deteriorate?

Reducing the breathing

If the in and out breath are reduced back to optimal levels using Equine Breathing, less carbon dioxide is lost and carbon dioxide levels gradually build back up.

So although low levels of carbon dioxide can cause problems, the good news is that the damage is reversible and increasing the level of carbon dioxide results it is believed in healing of that damage. Increasing the carbon dioxide level therefore can help the horse to heal.

Equine Breathing sessions appear to increase carbon dioxide and regular sessions help reset the brain’s respiratory driver, gradually enabling it to regain normal breathing at reduced, optimal levels.

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For details of the physiology get this free download;

A brief overview of the Chemistry of Respiration

Peter M. Litchfield, Ph.D.  in California Biofeedback.  Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2003)

kindly made available with permission from the author  

See also www.bp.edu 

Why is carbon dioxide so important?

The reason low levels of carbon dioxide (and therefore over breathing) can affect such a wide range of ailments and conditions is because it is one of the body's main regulators and has five critical functions.

Oxygen availability

Blood takes up oxygen in the lungs and delivers it to the cells of the muscles and organs. A century ago Christian Bohr discovered that carbon dioxide is needed to make this happen. The lower the carbon dioxide levels the less oxygen is released to the tissues. 

The result of this ‘Bohr’ effect is that the deeper you breathe, the more oxygen you take in but the more carbon dioxide you lose, so paradoxically the less oxygen is available to you. 

If you try taking rapid deep breaths for just a few minutes or blow up several balloons quickly, you will start to feel dizzy or head achy. This is the lack of oxygen in your brain. This effect is quickly dispelled by taking reduced, gentle breaths. 

Cells 'burn' fats and carbohydrates with oxygen to gain energy which enables them to perform their various functions eg detoxification (liver), movement (muscles), thinking (brain). If oxygen is unavailable the cells have to switch to anaerobic respiration which produces only a small fraction of the energy, doesn't produce much needed carbon dioxide and produces lactic acid instead, which needs to be removed.

Hypoxia or lack of oxygen is a damaging effect that underlies many ailments. Muscles and organs including the brain work poorly under the stress of not enough oxygen, resulting in fatigue and poor concentration.

Acid/alkaline balance

Carbon dioxide is the main buffer for the body’s fluids, keeping them at the correct pH level. Cells die if the pH changes only a little from the biological norm. When carbon dioxide is low the body has to use other mechanisms for maintaining viable pH levels.  An example is the excretion by the kidneys of substances such as buffer bases which may then fall to low levels.

Countless biochemical reactions go on in the body and require a specific chemical environment. Many of these reactions are disrupted when the acid balance is disturbed causing malfunctioning for example of the immune and endocrine (hormone producing) systems.

Changes is the electrolyte balance disrupts calcium mechanism which may result in muscle stiffness, arthritis and osteoporosis.

Smooth muscle functioning

Carbon dioxide is essential to allow the relaxation of smooth muscle. Internal organs such as the digestive tract and blood and respiratory vessels are made of smooth muscle. Lack of carbon dioxide causes constriction and spasm of vessels resulting in colic, poor circulation and respiratory difficulties to name but a few.

Nervous system cell functioning

At low levels of carbon dioxide nerve cells become hypersensitive so that any stimulus of noise, light, touch (grooming for example) etc can be painful. Horses exhibiting nervous stress are not necessarily like that because it’s their personality, they may have a biochemical imbalance. This imbalance can be remedied by returning carbon dioxide to optimal levels and the nervous stress disappears.

Biosynthesis of amino acids, lipids and carbohydrates

Carbon dioxide is essential for the production of many cellular products essential for healthy functioning and is involved in biochemical reactions involving nearly all vitamins and minerals.

The importance of carbon dioxide in these vital functions means that the effect of low carbon dioxide resulting from poor breathing may be shown in a large number of different illness and conditions. 

The good news is that the effect is reversible. We think that Equine Breathing works to replenish carbon dioxide levels and as they increase and return to normal levels, these functions start to work properly once more and symptoms can diminish and disappear.

Other effects of over breathing

Adrenaline

Over breathing causes the body to produce adrenaline and increase the heart rate, which puts the body into the  flight or fight, or 'catabolic' state. This is an evolved response so that in time of danger, resources can be channelled towards maximum muscle activity and away from routine maintenance. This gives the horse the best chance to save its life by fleeing.

By design the catabolic state should be an emergency and therefore short lived one. But if a horse is stressed and over breathes a vicious cycle sets up because adrenaline also acts to directly increase breathing. By design the adrenaline rush would be followed by strenuous physical exertion which boosts carbon dioxide levels and help the body back into the relaxed 'anabolic' state once the emergency is over. This burst of activity is usually is not permitted in our horses' lives.

The idea is that Equine breathing puts the horse back into the anabolic state of relaxation and healing (increased immune cell production, cell repair and replacement etc) by turning off adrenaline production.

Compensatory mechanisms

Some effects of low carbon dioxide would kill immediately if not for emergency compensatory measures turned on by the body such as excretion of buffer bases by the kidneys. Although they are life saving, these measures have their own unwelcome side effects such as loss of magnesium from the body.

These compensatory mechanisms are slow to turn off so if the breathing is reduced, allowing carbon dioxide to build up (a good thing) the ongoing mechanisms push the body out of equilibrium and it does the quickest thing to regain it which is to increase the breathing again (a bad thing).

Lactic acid

Low carbon dioxide results in lack of oxygen for the cells. Muscle cells go into anaerobic respiration and produce lactic acid instead of carbon dioxide. Lactic acid is toxic but also acts directly on the respiratory driver to increase breathing. This further reduces carbon dioxide levels.

Why does a horse start over breathing?

The main triggers that can initiate over breathing are

• emotional stress

• physiological stress

• over eating rich food

• inactivity

• copying

• toxic stress

• over heating

Emotional Stress

Horses are flight animals that are evolved to live in the constant social interaction of herd life. Shutting horses in stables on their own denies these basic instincts and can cause emotional stress.

Physiological stress

Despite centuries of domestication horses retain the physiology and anatomy of flight animals. They have evolved to be constantly on the move, covering large distances and eating lightly most of the time. These lifestyle elements are essential for complete health. 

However many horses these days are kept inactive and fed high protein food alien to a horse's natural diet with intervening periods of hunger. They may have their temperature regulatory system undermined by the use of artificial clothing and therefore overheat and chill. 

Illness or injury can trigger over breathing.

Copying

Horses it seems, like humans tend to co-ordinate their breathing patterns but at the level of the worst, not the best breather. A newly weaned youngster that is over breathing is likely to cause deterioration to the breathing of new stable or field mates. 

Horses seem to copy human over breathing as well. Handling horses and over breathing is likely to have a detrimental effect on the horses' breathing pattern. These days most people over breathe for many of the same reasons that horses do. The deterioration of human breathing over the last century has been charted in various research papers cited by Artour Rakhimov.

Toxic stress

Any chemicals that are not useful to the horse's body have to be detoxified and eliminated (or stored). Today's horses have to deal with wormers, veterinary drugs and treatments, food supplements, food additives and traces of pesticides in food or in spray drift.

stable kept horse

Why does a horse's breathing deteriorate?

Once a horse is triggered to over breathe, their breathing may tend to deteriorate.

There are several suggested causes for this.

Over breathing causes an increase in adrenaline production which causes further increases in breathing.

Falling carbon dioxide levels result in production of lactic acid in the tissues which directly acts on the respiratory driver and causes increased breathing.

Falling carbon dioxide levels require the body to initiate various compensatory mechanisms to avoid fatal consequences. These are slow to turn off, so if breathing is reduced, the resultant increased carbon dioxide level, upsets the balance. Rather than switch off the compensatory mechanism, the body restores (an unhealthy) equilibrium by blowing off the new carbon dioxide by over breathing again.

As these factors work to retain over breathing, carbon dioxide levels gradually fall and the respiratory driver in the brain becomes recalibrated to lower levels of carbon dioxide and thus maintains the increased breathing, rather than restoring normal (reduced) breathing.

The belief is that once a horse starts to over breathe it is difficult for them to regain their natural breathing pattern without help. 

Equine Breathing reminds the horse how to breathe more normally and to maintain the reduced breathing long enough for the body to readjust towards more healthy breathing patterns. 

Horses with normal breathing patterns, in the absence of over breathing triggers, retain that breathing pattern through their own natural body control.