Helium helps people with respiratory problems breathe easily

Canadian researchers have discovered that helium when combined with the 40 percent of oxygen helped patient with chronic obstructive pulmonarydefine disease (COPD) to increase their exercise capacity by an average of 245 cent.

COPD is a chronic lung disease in which breathing of a person becomes slow and forced. It is caused by smoking and includes the conditions of emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

The study demonstrates that helium-hyperoxia improves the exercise tolerance of COPD patients to a greater extent than oxygen alone.

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.

"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.

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.

The study was conducted on the 10 clinically stable men who had moderate to severe COPD. They were made to exercise in the room which had mixture of gases along with the room air. The time of exercise, breathing capacity, work of breathing and symptoms of exertion were monitored and the best result came out to be in the men who exercised in the room having 60% of helium and 40% of oxygen.

Helium is a colorless, odorless and tasteless element. It is used as a component of artificial atmospheres and laser media, as a refrigerant, as a lifting gas for balloons, and as a superfluid in cryogenic research.

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.

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.

"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.

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