The Truth about Asthma - The Buteyko Method, Modern Medicine & The Pharmaceutical Industry

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The Buteyko Method

Buteyko is a technique, based on well established physiological principles. It was developed by Konstantin Butyeko, a Russian doctor about 50 years ago. It was used in Russia for some time despite orthodox medical resistance, until recent years when it became a part of the national medical system.

The Buteyko method is a proven effective treatment of asthma and other breathing disorders.

It offers a radically different approach to the usual asthma treatment which has changed little in the past 50 years except for the increased use of more powerful drugs and newer drugs. The incidence of diagnosed asthma has increased dramatically in the West as well as deaths from asthma. It used to be very rare to die from asthma before the advent of modern drug therapy.

The Buteyko Method is a drug-free, non-contact breathing exercise therapy which restores breathing rates to normal levels.

The Buteyko Method Clinical Trial

In a clinical trial held at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane in 1995, the group treated by the Buteyko method exhibited more than 90% reduction in medication. The control group showed scant improvement. People generally experience noticeable relief and reduction in medication within the first few days of following the Buteyko program.

This translates into a marked improvement in lifestyle, fewer symptoms and fewer episodes of asthma. The Buteyko program has decided benefits. There is a significant financial saving in medication, less time lost to illness and overall economic benefit to the general community.

Research Funding in the Hands of the Drug Companies

Two major problems have arisen that impede the rapid introduction of this cost effective, safe and rationally developed approach into mainstream medicine. Firstly the resistance to a radical change in thinking of the medical establishment and change of therapeutic approach to a broad range of respiratory complaints that till now relied on increasingly aggressive drug therapy. Secondly the understandable reluctance of the pharmaceutical industry, that gains 20% of its revenue from such complaints, to either fund more research into the Buteyko Method to break the conceptual mind-set of the medical fraternity or to remain passive while the Buteyko Method increasingly takes hold of the public's mind as a preferable option for themselves or their children.

These problems of increased verification through research and radically changing the accepted protocol for treating asthma are both made more difficult by the fact that we cannot agree what asthma is in the first place. All argument and debate takes place on shifting sands of opinion and definition.

The National Health Service & Health Promotion

From society's point of view our national health service stands to reduce the medical expediture on drugs and expert medical intervention by introducing the Buteyko Method by £1-3 billion per year or approximately £500-750 per year per patient. (Two GP surgeries in the UK have already demonstrated such savings on trial schemes click here and here)

The additional bonus goes to patients who will not suffer the myriad side effects of drug therapy and will enjoy a better quality of life.

However, from the standpoint of the drug companies, there will be a commensurate loss in earnings that will be difficult to compensate for in any other field as the repercussions of reducing chronic hidden hyperventilation go far beyond the treatment of asthma. Hypertension, panic attacks, sleep disorders, hay fever, skin disorders, IBS, angina and many more modern diseases often show marked improvement when the patient's breathing is normalised.

A further potential benefit to the nation 's finances and health but a further blow to the drug industry.

If we add all such potential savings we are looking at a NHS that would be able to redirect resources to those areas currently under funded and generally raise the quality of care for the remaining people who needed care to the highest levels possible. At this stage it would be wise to dramatically increase funding of HEALTH PROMOTION, perhaps the most injured victim of modern medical development.

Health promotion is not synonymous with current preventative medicine that tends to be focussed primarily on early diagnosis of pathologies but is a positive attitude towards enhancing health and wellbeing. (see The Peckham Experiment et alia click here)