Latest Breathing Stories

FRESNO, Calif., May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- As someone who has dealt with serious and chronic illnesses resulting from exposure to heavy metal toxins, James Bunetta has had his share of ups and downs. In the first stages of his illness, he and his doctors were baffled, and a sense of hopelessness threatened to sap Bunetta's will to keep fighting. Since then, however, he has achieved several noteworthy milestones. With his recent book, "Determined to Detoxify," he hopes to spread his...

SHREWSBURY, N.J., April 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Kurt Matthewson went out for his typical run one morning, and quite suddenly, felt shortness of breath and was unable to continue. When the problem persisted he went to a specialist, who administered tests revealing the left side of Matthewson's diaphragm was not functioning due to damage to his phrenic nerve, the nerve that controls function of the diaphragm muscle. The diaphragm muscle is the primary muscle involved in breathing....

Cell Press Mice living in the high-altitude, oxygen-starved environment of the Andean mountains survive those harsh conditions by fueling their muscles with carbohydrates. The findings, reported online on December 6 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, provide the first compelling evidence of a clear difference in energy metabolism between high- and low-altitude native mammals. "The high-altitude mice we examined in this study are a rare exception to a general exercise fuel use...

The National Drowning Prevention Alliance (NDPA) announced the formation of an International Breath Hold Blackout Task Force for the purpose of defining the physiology and safety of breath hold and how it relates to the loss of consciousness in breath-hold swimmers and divers. (One issue is that it is commonly referred to as “Shallow Water Blackout”). Fort Lauderdale, FL (PRWEB) October 19, 2012 The primary objectives of the task force will be to define the terminology surrounding the...

SHREWSBURY, N.J., Oct. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Imagine a 12-year-old boy's greatest joy is to take deep breaths for the first time in nearly half his life. That's the case with Tristan Loitz, from Fairbanks, Alaska, who made the trip for groundbreaking phrenic nerve surgery with Dr. Matthew Kaufman of The Institute for Advanced Reconstruction in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. For Kaufman, reconstructive plastic specialist and the only known surgeon to perform phrenic nerve surgery,...

Oxygen microparticles could deliver oxygen when breathing is impaired Patients unable to breathe because of acute lung failure or an obstructed airway need another way to get oxygen to their blood—and fast—to avoid cardiac arrest and brain injury. A team led by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital has designed tiny, gas-filled microparticles that can be injected directly into the bloodstream to quickly oxygenate the blood. The microparticles consist of a single layer of lipids...

[ Watch the Video ] One exhale and new device could screen for everything from diabetes to lung cancer This invention could give new meaning to the term "bad breath!" It's the Single Breath Disease Diagnostics Breathalyzer, and when you blow into it, you get tested for a biomarker—a sign of disease. As amazing as that sounds, the process is actually very simple thanks to ceramics nanotechnology. All it takes is a single exhale. You blow into a small valve attached to a box that is...

LOS ANGELES, March 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Non-profit organization, Do As One, is leveraging its array of powerful breathing technologies to unite 1 billion people online and via smartphones on November 11, 2012. The latest addition to the mix is the free Breathe Together iPhone app which enables users to synchronize their breathing cadence with all other Breathe Together app users along with all users in the Universal Breathing Room on www.DoAsOne.org. "People are downloading...

Researchers at the RIKEN SPring-8 Center in Harima, Japan have clarified the crystal structure of quinol dependent nitric oxide reductase (qNOR), a bacterial enzyme that offers clues on the origins of our earliest oxygen-breathing ancestors. In addition to their importance to fundamental science, the findings provide key insights into the production of nitrogen oxide, an ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas hundreds of times more potent than carbon dioxide. As the central process by which...

Some illnesses such as lung and stomach cancer or liver diseases which, due to the difficulty of diagnosis, have symptoms that are often confused with routine disorders. Therefore, in most cases, the disease is only detected at an advanced stage. New methods for early detection are being investigated as an urgent need. Tecnalia, through the Interreg project Medisen, is contributing to develop biosensors capable of detecting the presence of tumour markers of lung cancer in exhaled breath....