Why the study?
The study aimed to assess cardiac and respiratory blood pressure and subarachnoid space width oscillations during slow and fast breathing and breathing against inspiratory resistance.
Does controlled slow breathing alter cardiac and respiratory blood pressure and subarachnoid space width oscillations in healthy volunteers?
Does controlled slow breathing alter cardiac and respiratory blood pressure and subarachnoid space width oscillations in healthy volunteers?
Controlled slow breathing reduces cardiac-derived blood pressure pulsatility, which may serve as a cardiovascular protective mechanism against target organ damage.
Slow breathing may reduce cardiac pulsatility in BP and SAS; leaves open long-term protective effects in clinical populations.
The aim of the study was to assess cardiac and respiratory blood pressure (BP) and subarachnoid space (SAS) width oscillations during the resting state for slow and fast breathing and breathing against inspiratory resistance. Experiments were performed on a group of 20 healthy volunteers (8 males and 12 females; age 25.3 ± 7.9 years; BMI = 22.1 ± 3.2 kg/m 2 ). BP and heart rate (HR) were measured using continuous finger-pulse photoplethysmography. SAS signals were recorded using an SAS monitor. Oxyhaemoglobin saturation (SaO 2 ) and end-tidal CO 2 (EtCO 2 ) were measured using a medical monitoring system. Procedure 1 consisted of breathing spontaneously and at controlled rates of 6 breaths/minute and 6 breaths/minute with inspiratory resistance for 10 minutes. Procedure 2 consisted of breathing spontaneously and at controlled rates of 6, 12 and 18 breaths/minute for 5 minutes. Wavelet analysis with the Morlet mother wavelet was applied for delineation of BP and SAS signals cardiac and respiratory components. Slow breathing diminishes amplitude of cardiac BP and SAS oscillations. The overall increase in BP and SAS oscillations during slow breathing is driven by the respiratory component. Drop in cardiac component of BP amplitude evoked by slow-breathing may be perceived as a cardiovascular protective mechanism to avoid target organ damage. Further studies are warranted to assess long-term effects of slow breathing.
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Nuckowska et al. (2019) studied this question.
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