by Dr. Artour Rakhimov

The state of the digestive tract depends, apart from the diet, on 3 physiological parameters of the human body:
1. Blood supply (or perfusion) of digestive organs
2. Oxygenation of digestive organs
3. Strength of the immune system.

Clearly, recurrent Candida will be the norm, if GI blood supply and oxygenation are low. Why? Poor oxygenation and perfusion mean production of free radicals, tissue pollution and hypoxia, anaerobic cellular metabolism, increased acidity, and oxidative damage. In such conditions, the resources of the immune system will be spent on these problems, instead of removal of the yeast from the surfaces of the GI tract. The person can have a superior diet, best supplements, and dozens of other wonderful things, but if these fundamental physiological problems are nor resolved, Candida will come back at the first opportunity weeks or months later.

How to measure oxygenation and circulation
Do the stress-free BHT (breath holding time) test. Here are the steps to follow. After your usual exhalation, pinch the nose, and close the mouth. Hold your breath, but only till the first distress or discomfort. It will appear at certain moment of time and will start to grow. Release your nose and resume breathing exactly at the beginning of this stress. If you do the test correctly, your breathing after the test will be the same as before it. [Warning. Some, not all, people with heart disease, migraine headaches, and panic attacks may experience negative symptoms minutes later after this light version of the test. If this happens, they should avoid this test.]

Why does circulation influence this test? Should breath holding be only about body oxygenation? Well, if blood supply to tissues is reduced, oxygen delivery will be reduced, and body oxygenation will suffer. Hence, good breath holding abilities are possible only when circulation is good.

Normal values for the breath holding test are about 40-60 s. People with normal breathing parameters can do such breath holds easily. If your result is less than 30 s, your GI circulation and oxygenation are compromised. You need to change your unconscious breathing pattern and correct lifestyle factors which influence oxygenation. How?

Medical self-oxygenation therapy
Russian Doctor Konstantin Buteyko, MD developed the Buteyko breathing re-training method for treatment of asthma and heart disease. For his system, the stress-free version of the breath holding time test is the main measuring tool that reflects body oxygenation and personal health. He trained about 200 Russian doctors to teach this therapy to patients. These Russian doctors tested thousands of patients and discovered the following results.

Severely sick, hospitalized, and terminally ill patients have from 1 to 10 s BHT. When the BHT is less than 10 s, Candida can be present in the blood with no resistance from the immune system. With approaching death, their breathing gets bigger, deeper, and heavier, while breath holding time approaches zero: 5, 4, 3, 2, and only 1 second of oxygen just before the death.

Sick patients with mild forms of the disease (asthma, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.) have about 10-20 s of oxygen. These patients are usually on medication to control their symptoms. Candida can be controlled using diet and Antibiotics .

Healthy adults, according to published western results, should have about 40 s BHT, but Doctor Buteyko found that 60 s of oxygen is incompatible with about 150 chronic diseases or diseases of civilization. Hence, he established 60 s as a standard of ideal health. The immune system starts to fight Candida when body oxygenation gets to about 25-30 s.

Their most surprising result is that healthy people breathe little (only 4-6 liters of air per minute), while sick patients breathe about 2-4 times more air than the medical norm. Indeed, there are hundreds of Western studies that found totally the same effect: patients with various health problems have deep and frequent breathing pattern at rest and …low body oxygenation. Hence, restoration of health, according to Doctor Buteyko and his system, should be based on slowing down one’s breath, the same as in hatha yoga. Light, slow, and easy breathing results in better oxygenation.

These ideas may sound counter-intuitive. However, you can apply your observation skills. Watch breathing of your very healthy friends and relatives and you will find out that their breathing is invisible and inaudible. Observe how sick people breathe and you will notice that their breathing is noisy and large. Hence, breathing less should be the goal for the sick.

Doctor Buteyko and some of his colleagues achieved up to 3 min BHT using variety of tools and activities (e.g., special physical and breathing exercises, taking cold shower, raw diets, and sleeping on the hard surface). This is, they found, possible for anyone who can change one’s own breathing pattern to very shallow and light one, with only 3-4 breaths per minute at rest. Such people require only about 2 hours for sleep and have amazing clarity of mind.