Björn Magnússon, specialist in lung medicine at the Healthcare Institution of South Iceland, is one of the authors of a new study on breathing in asthma patients.

The paper has just been published in Physiological Reports – a respected international journal of physiology and is a collaboration between The Physiological Society of Europe and The American Physiological Society. The paper shows that measurements of physiological changes in breathing can shed new light on the treatment of asthma patients. The paper is called Assessing ventilatory efficiency at rest in asthma: A longitudinal comparison with healthy subjects.

Among the authors is Björn Magnússon, physician at the Health Institute of South Iceland, who explains the participation;

“The reason I was invited to participate is that from 1981-1997 I worked at Reykjalund to establish a multidisciplinary lung rehabilitation program, which was successful. A lot of scientific work was done in our multidisciplinary group. Since I left Reykjalund I have kept in touch with some of my previous colleagues and worked on a small amount of research with biologist and director of research Marta Guðjónsdóttir.”

“She contacted me nearly 10 years ago and asked me to advise her on the thesis of the Masters degree in Physical Therapy, which was written by the physiotherapist Monique van Oosten, and Marta was her instructor. The result was the above article, which was published in Physiological Reports in July.”

The study has taken a considerable amount of time as follow-up with patients

The study, led by physiotherapist Monique van Oosten and biologist Mörta Guðjónsdóttir, was conducted in Reykjalund, Iceland. 30 individuals with unstable asthma and 23 healthy controls were followed for one year. Participants underwent repeated measurements of various respiratory parameters.

Interesting results that can be used in the future

The results show that the astmal patients had increased sensitivity of respiratory centers to carbon dioxide compared to healthy individuals, and this difference continued throughout the study period. Such measurement is rare in astmal research, especially in long term context.

Hopefully some of the variables that were measured in the study can be used in the future to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments such as lung rehabilitation, relaxation and breathing instruction.

The paper is published in the journal The Physiological Society in Europe and The American Physiological Society in the USA. For interested parties, read the paper