Abstract
The number of people practising recreational breath-hold diving is constantly growing, thereby increasing the need for knowledge of the acute and chronic effects such a sport could have on the health of participants. Breath-hold diving is potentially dangerous, mainly because of associated extreme environmental factors such as increased hydrostatic pressure, hypoxia, hypercapnia, hypothermia and strenuous exercise.
In this article we focus on the effects of breath-hold diving on pulmonary function. Respiratory symptoms have been reported in almost 25% of breath-hold divers after repetitive diving sessions. Acutely, repetitive breath-hold diving may result in increased transpulmonary capillary pressure, leading to noncardiogenic oedema and/or alveolar haemorrhage. Furthermore, during a breath-hold dive, the chest and lungs are compressed by the increasing pressure of water. Rapid changes in lung air volume during descent or ascent can result in a lung injury known as pulmonary barotrauma. Factors that may influence individual susceptibility to breath-hold diving-induced lung injury range from underlying pulmonary or cardiac dysfunction to genetic predisposition.
According to the available data, breath-holding does not result in chronic lung injury. However, studies of large populations of breath-hold divers are necessary to firmly exclude long-term lung damage.
Abstract
Breath-hold diving may result in acute respiratory symptoms, but does not lead to chronic lung dysfunction http://ow.ly/D03r302uMOD
Footnotes
Previous articles in this series: No. 1: Adir Y, Bove AA. Can asthmatic subjects dive? Eur Respir Rev 2016; 25: 214–220. No. 2: Szpilman D, Orlowski JP. Sports related to drowning. Eur Respir Rev 2016; 25: 348–359. No. 3: van Ooij PJAM, Sterk PJ, van Hulst RA. Oxygen, the lung and the diver: friends and foes? Eur Respir Rev 2016; 25: 496–505.
Support statement: T. Mijacika and Z. Dujic were funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (grant no IP-2014-09-1937).
Conflict of interest: None declared.
Provenance: Submitted article, peer reviewed.
- Received May 24, 2016.
- Accepted July 1, 2016.
- Copyright ©ERS 2016.
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