Hypoxia & Its Treatment
Tissue hypoxia can occur in many ways but the effect on the affected tissue is usually the same, its healthy functioning and energy is weakened. Hypoxia could be the most significant factor underlying most chronic diseases and general sickness, and like chronic hidden hyperventilation it is almost ignored in modern medicine.
Perhaps the key problem arising from tissue hypoxia is impaired energy production by the cells’ mitochondria, the cell’s energy source. This reduced cellular energy lays the foundation for an unhealthy cell and susceptibility to disease and poor health.
The evidence is now well established to link most chronic disease to hypoxia, this includes heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and almost every other disease of modern man.
So how can we combat hypoxia?
There are two proven approaches, one involves improving the way we breathe and eat, the other is a radical new discovery that uses oxygen-enriched water.
Breath Training to Aleviate Hypoxia
Poor breathing or more specifically chronic hyperventilation is a 21st century epidemic in modern societies. Over 75% of people in the West suffer some degree of hyperventilation or over-breathing. This arises from the lifestyle of modern western man; stress and diet being the two main factors causing this. Stress triggers the primitive fight/flight responses that includes increased respiratory rate. Chronic hyperventilation leads to loss of carbon dioxide and subsequent poor delivery of oxygen to the body’s tissue due to the Bohr Effect. Diet, the second major cause, arises from excessive over-consumption of meat, dairy and over-processed junk food that leads to metabolic acidosis. The body tries to correct this by eliminating large amounts of acid-forming carbon dioxide simply by hyperventilating or over-breathing..
Usually both these factors are involved. My recent research has shown a high correlation between the way we breath and what we eat, and between what we eat and the quality of our breathing.
Thus long-term health benefits can be achieved by learning better breathing and improved eating habits, and the good news is that as we improve the one it leads to improvement of the other!
The Buteyko Method of breath training improves tissue oxygenation long-term and a progressive shift to a Whole Plant Diet that eliminates the metabolic acidosis associated with SAD (Standard American Diet) not only improves oxygenation, but gives many beneficial effects from the reduction of meat, dairy and highly processed foods.
As part of any lifestyle changes, efforts should be made to ensure adequate hydration, as the vast majority of the public today also suffer from some degree of dehydration. Remember we are water-body creatures with liquid conductors for electric nerve impulses not copper wires, and it is water that transports all the nutrients to our cells, and it is water that carries away waste products and toxins and it is water that carries hormones that control body functions!
If there is poor circulation of blood in any area of the body, cells there may still be suffering from hypoxia even with improved respiration and normal oxygen delivery to the rest of the body. This is especially the reason for using the second approach to deal with hypoxia, the use of oxygen-enriched water. Since every cell must have water for its survival, the oxygen-enriched water will be well absorbed and the oxygen supply will be increased to eliminate the hypoxia.
Hydration with Oxygen Enriched Water
To speedily address hypoxia it is now possible to achieve this by drinking oxygen enriched water and even bathing in this water. Because our body circulates water to every cell, if oxygen enriched water is used, every cell in our body is better and rapidly oxygenated, hypoxia is eliminated, even in areas where blood circulation is impaired, where improved respiration would have little effect.
The oxygen enriched water is not simply water with added oxygen but it is the result of a special treatment that extracts hydrogen from the water leaving highly active and readily available oxygen. It is available internationally under two brand names, Kaqun Water or Elo Water.
The great advantage of this latter approach is that it does not demand any lifestyle changes, re-training of our breathing habits or changes to our eating habits. Improved oxygenation is achieved almost regardless of the individual’s current lifestyle.
What appears to happen is that over time, as the individual’s health improves, they tend to change their lifestyle towards a healthier way. This is similar to the effect of better breathing leading to better eating that my research has already demonstrated.
Practical Considerations
For anyone not suffering from any chronic disease and just wanting to improve their general health and well-being it would make sense to combine these two approaches initially and then to reduce the use of the oxygen enriched water over time. Such an approach would give a kick-start towards improved oxygenation and all the health benefits that derive from this. In the real world, the additional cost of oxygen-enriched water must be taken into account.
For others with significant ill health associated with hypoxia, a more intensive use of oxygenated water for longer periods would be better combined with lifestyle changes as and when they felt ready. If the hypoxia has been causing damage for some time, a longer period of such water support would speed up repair and normalization of tissue oxygenation. Improved oxygenation may reduce the need for other medical interventions that would offset the additional cost of this approach.
A balance should be met for each individual, depending on their state of health, their specific illness, their commitment to lifestyle changes and their financial status.
