Are You a Nose Breather or Mouth Breather? One Might Be Healthier

Follow Drugslib on

Medically reviewed by Drugs.com.

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Jan. 22, 2024 -- It turns out that primarily breathing through the mouth isn’t good for your health compared to breathing through the nose, a new study finds.

Breathing through the nose rather than the mouth can lead to lower blood pressure and an overall more relaxed body, lowering the risk of heart disease, researchers found.

“This work advances our knowledge of how nasal breathing affects clinically relevant cardiovascular variables,” concluded the research team led by Joseph Watso, an assistant professor of health and human sciences at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

More than half of U.S. adults say they primarily breathe through their mouth rather than their nose, researchers said in background notes.

Breathing patterns can affect blood pressure and heart rate, which are two predictors of heart disease, due to the crosstalk that occurs between the respiratory and circulatory systems.

Nose breathing has been shown to relax the airways and improve the efficiency of breathing, but up to now its effects on heart health have not been fully explored, researchers said.

For their study, researchers recruited 20 young adult volunteers who were randomly asked to breathe through either their nose or their mouth while at rest or exercising on either a treadmill or a stationary bike.

Researchers found volunteers at rest had a lower average and diastolic blood pressure when they breathed through their nose. Diastolic blood pressure is pressure within the arteries in between heartbeats.

Nasal breathing also shifted the body’s nervous system into a “rest and digest” rather than a “fight or flight” mode, researchers added.

However, that was only during rest. When exercising, there appeared to be no difference between nasal or mouth breathing.

“We interpret the collective data to suggest that nasal compared with oral breathing provides modest, but potentially clinically relevant, improvements in prognostic cardiovascular variables at rest, but not during exercise,” the researchers wrote.

The new study was recently published in the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

Sources

  • American Physiological Society, news release, Jan. 17, 2024

    • Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

    Source: HealthDay

    Posted : 2024-01-22 22:15

    Read more

    Disclaimer

    Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided by Drugslib.com is accurate, up-to-date, and complete, but no guarantee is made to that effect. Drug information contained herein may be time sensitive. Drugslib.com information has been compiled for use by healthcare practitioners and consumers in the United States and therefore Drugslib.com does not warrant that uses outside of the United States are appropriate, unless specifically indicated otherwise. Drugslib.com's drug information does not endorse drugs, diagnose patients or recommend therapy. Drugslib.com's drug information is an informational resource designed to assist licensed healthcare practitioners in caring for their patients and/or to serve consumers viewing this service as a supplement to, and not a substitute for, the expertise, skill, knowledge and judgment of healthcare practitioners.

    The absence of a warning for a given drug or drug combination in no way should be construed to indicate that the drug or drug combination is safe, effective or appropriate for any given patient. Drugslib.com does not assume any responsibility for any aspect of healthcare administered with the aid of information Drugslib.com provides. The information contained herein is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, warnings, drug interactions, allergic reactions, or adverse effects. If you have questions about the drugs you are taking, check with your doctor, nurse or pharmacist.

    Popular Keywords