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Helium helps lung patients breathe easier
March 10, 2009New U of C research creates innovative intervention to help people with lung disease exercise longer and harder
New research published in the international journal Chest, by Neil Eves, PhD, finds that people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who breathed a mix of 60% helium and 40% oxygen during a rehabilitation program were able to exercise longer and harder than those who breathed normal air.
This innovative therapy is significant because research has shown that patients who perform more exercise and get greater improvements in fitness also get better improvements in their symptoms and health-related quality of life.
"COPD is not curable," says Eves, a researcher with the Faculties of Kinesiology and Medicine. "Our hope is that this research will help more individuals with COPD to realize the benefits of exercise."
Eves says he chose this specific gas mixture, because helium is a less dense gas that allows patients suffering with COPD to empty their damaged lungs better, while oxygen slows their breathing and further helps to reduce the shortness of breath these patients commonly suffer from. Standard air is generally made up of 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen with just a trace of Helium.
In the study, individuals with COPD breathed either the helium/oxygen mix or air during cycling exercise. While both groups improved their tolerance for exercise over a six-week rehabilitation program, the group that trained with helium could exercise significantly longer following rehabilitation than the control group.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the fourth leading cause of death in Canada. It currently kills more women than breast cancer and health experts project that the disease will become more prevalent as the population ages.
Interestingly, Eves' innovative research protocol is already being used in a clinical application by Alberta Health Services Chronic Disease Management Program.
"We are always interested in innovations that can help to improve the effectiveness of our health interventions," says Dr. Sandra Delon, PhD, the director of Alberta Health Services' Chronic Disease Management Program. "We've already seen some promising results in this pilot program, so we're very encouraged."
University of Calgary
"COPD is not curable," says Eves, a researcher with the Faculties of Kinesiology and Medicine. "Our hope is that this research will help more individuals with COPD to realize the benefits of exercise."
Eves says he chose this specific gas mixture, because helium is a less dense gas that allows patients suffering with COPD to empty their damaged lungs better, while oxygen slows their breathing and further helps to reduce the shortness of breath these patients commonly suffer from. Standard air is generally made up of 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen with just a trace of Helium.
In the study, individuals with COPD breathed either the helium/oxygen mix or air during cycling exercise. While both groups improved their tolerance for exercise over a six-week rehabilitation program, the group that trained with helium could exercise significantly longer following rehabilitation than the control group.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the fourth leading cause of death in Canada. It currently kills more women than breast cancer and health experts project that the disease will become more prevalent as the population ages.
Interestingly, Eves' innovative research protocol is already being used in a clinical application by Alberta Health Services Chronic Disease Management Program.
"We are always interested in innovations that can help to improve the effectiveness of our health interventions," says Dr. Sandra Delon, PhD, the director of Alberta Health Services' Chronic Disease Management Program. "We've already seen some promising results in this pilot program, so we're very encouraged."
University of Calgary
Helium Current Events and Helium News RSSProton's party pals may alter its internal structure
A recent experiment at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has found that a proton's nearest neighbors in the nucleus of the atom may modify the proton's internal structure.
A bubbling ball of gas
The Sun is a bubbling mass. Packages of gas rise and sink, lending the sun its grainy surface structure, its granulation. Dark spots appear and disappear, clouds of matter dart up - and behind the whole thing are the magnetic fields, the engines of it all.
Carbon atmosphere discovered on neutron star
Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding this object.
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In the quest to produce nuclear fusion energy, researchers from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility have recently confirmed long-standing theoretical predictions that performance, efficiency and reliability are simultaneously obtained in tokamaks, the leading magnetic confinement fusion device, operating at their performance limits.
Dirty stars make good solar system hosts
Some stars are lonely behemoths, with no surrounding planets or asteroids, while others sport a skirt of attendant planetary bodies. New research published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters explains why the composition of the stars often indicates whether their light shines into deep space, or whether a small fraction shines onto orbiting planets.
Superheavy Element 114 Confirmed: A Stepping Stone to the Island of Stability
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been able to confirm the production of the superheavy element 114, ten years after a group in Russia, at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, first claimed to have made it.
MSU researcher adds to knowledge of how early stars, galaxies formed
Research by a Michigan State University scientist sheds new light on how stars and galaxies were formed back in the early days of the universe - some 13 billion years ago.
Researchers putting a freeze on oscillator vibrations
University of Oregon physicists have successfully landed a one-two punch on a tiny glass sphere, refrigerating it in liquid helium and then dosing its perimeter with a laser beam, to bring its naturally occurring mechanical vibrations to a near standstill.
Study gives clues to increasing X-rays' power
Three-dimensional, real-time X-ray images of patients could be closer to reality because of research recently completed by scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a pair of Russian institutes.
Caltech visiting associate champions the study of solar eclipses in the modern era
Championing the modern-day use of solar eclipses to solve a set of modern problems is the goal of a review article written by Jay Pasachoff, visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College.
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