Effects of Post-Exertional Malaise on Markers of Arterial Stiffness in Individuals with ME/CFS, Bond et al, 2021

Effects of Post-Exertional Malaise on Markers of Arterial
Stiffness in Individuals with Myalgic
Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2366/htm

 

Could to explain air hunger? I know nothing of exercise physiology but I assume vasodilation occurs to facilitate transportation of oxygen (amongst other things) in the blood to muscles. If this isn't happening in sufficient quantity then the bodies reaction might be to call for increased breathing rate aka "air hunger".

 

As far as I am aware air hunger is a technical term for the deep respiration seen in metabolic acidosis. Low oxygen tension is actually quite a poor driver of respiration - which is more dependent on carbon dioxide (I was taught). During exercise increased production of CO2 produces a degree of metabolic acidosis but 'air hunger' is used to describe the resting hyperventilation seen in people with kidney disease or other forms of chronic metabolic acidosis due to poor handling of acidic molecules, including bicarbonate, in the kidney

 

I'm referring to the type of air hunger discussed in the threads I've linked below. I've experienced this in my younger and more stupid days when doing far more than my sustainable exertion limit, the time it took for my increased breathing to return to normal was noticeably longer (and not easily explained by different levels of conditioning).

Breathlessness and air hunger in ME/CFS

Feeling of lacking air.?

 

In your case you are referring to shortness of breath on exertion ('SOBOE') being extended. The threads seem to more about people feeling they need to get more air unrelated to exertion. I think calling this air hunger is probably unhelpful since the term has a technical meaning. People with acidosis are often unaware of their increased respiratory rate. But I am not sure we should treat it as related to prolonged SOBOE.

If SOBOE is prolonged in ME I am not sure that would relate to this study which is looking at changes over days?
I am not all that impressed by the background biology in this paper. Oxidative stress is something that has been blamed for lots of things for decades without much reason and I don't see any reason to raise it in ME/CFS particularly. Vascular inflammation does not make sense in the context. Inflammation is characterised by vasodilatation. Vessel wall inflammation is arteritis and would have been picked up long ago if it s was present in ME.

 

My daughtergets airhunger during PEM. As inflamed glands are also a feature of PEM ( to the extent that you could map a physiology lecture from them) , I did wonder if it was inflamed glands in lungs which were contributing to this feeling?

 

I thought this was an interesting study. Surprised they didn't mention this study though.

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/8/2531

 

given that the study made 24 comparisons and didn't seem to make any adjustments for multiple comparisons, the single "significant" P value of 0.03 would suggest that there is no effect here.

 

What we call air hunger is one of those symptoms which is not discussed often enough. It does not happen all the time so it would be hard to research which is a problem for a lot of the distressing things which happen.

I don't even know if what I experience is the same as other people call air hunger. It often happens when I am asleep and I will be dreaming about crawling through tight tunnels or being crushed then I waken feeling I am in danger of dying. Bending forward helps and I try to be near an open window. Each breath requires effort to draw in air. It is nothing like breathlessness from overexertion but more a problem with the mechanism of breathing.