Posted 28 June 2013 - 01:02 AM
I had an interesting experience at my doctor's office the other day. First, a little background: I grew up in one of the smoggiest parts of southern California, near a couple busy streets and not far from the I-10 freeway. The smog was terrible. In the summer, if you went swimming in a chlorinated pool, later your lungs would burn and it would hurt to inhale. There was probably some major oxidative damage going on there. Later, as a teenager, there were a couple summers where I smoked a lot of cheap Mexican weed. Some of it might have been dusted with paraquat- hard to say, but I guarantee that it wasn't good for lung tissue. In later years, I developed some allergies that were undiagnosed and untreated for a long time. In my mid thirties, I finally made my way to an allergist. He was shocked at how crappy my lung function was. The main problem is scar-like tissue remodeling that has increased the resistance to airflow. The main figure of merit is Fev1, (forced expiratory volume in one second) the maximum amount of air you can exhale in one second. At that time, I was about 40% below normal. I've probably had my lung function checked about 50 times in the past 20 years, and it's never been that great. Fortunately, it's not bad enough to impact daily living or athletic function. We've been monitoring it closely and I've been avoiding further lung damage wherever possible.
Last week, I saw my doctor for one of my frequent checkups. He listened to my chest as usual, and since I'd been pretty good about using my inhalers, and hadn't had any infections, I thought it would be routine. When he was done, he said, "let's check your breathing." I was surprised, and asked him if it sounded bad. He said "No- it sounds good. I want to get an upper bound." So we did the spirometry, and my Fev1 and total lung volume were better than they had ever been! My Fev1 was about 20% below normal for my age. I immediately wondered if this unexpected improvement in airway function could be related to my C60-oo use. I've been using c60 for about 7 months. The only other possible confounding factor is that I started doing a minimal HIIT regimen about six or eight weeks ago. This is the 20 seconds / three times approach, which I've done at most three times a week. This sort of airway dysfunction doesn't particularly respond to exercise, as far as I'm aware. I've done lots of different kinds of aerobic exercise over the years without seeing an improvement like this. If c60 wasn't involved in my unexpected improvement in lung function, then I can at least say that it doesn't seem to have hurt!
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