Overview

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an umbrella term for a number of different respiratory diseases that are characterized by decreased ability to inhale deeply (forced vital capacity, FVC) and exhale rapidly (forced expiratory volume in 1 second, FEV1).

Specific disorders that fall into the category of COPD include:

Please see conventional, complimentary and alternative medical treatments for important background information regarding the different types of medical treatments discussed on this page. Naturopathic, Complimentary and Alternative treatments that may be considered include:

Treatment

Naturopathic, Complimentary and Alternative Treatments

Bill Mitchell, ND has presented treatments that include herbal products such as quercetin [personal communication].

Neurotransmitter Balancing

Neuro Research [Hinz2015] reports that Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) can be benefited by balancing neurotransmitter levels in the body.

This is not particularly surprising, since the well-known drug "Mucomyst", which is normally inhaled (nebulized), is simply N-acetylcysteine (NAC), the acetylated form of the natural amino acid cysteine [Dekhuijzen2004], [Dekhuijzen2006].

[Hinz2015] further suggests that the the acetylated cysteine may be toxic, and recommends oral dosing of the unacetylated amino acid cysteine instead.

Other researchers have reported good response to appropriate doses of oral NAC with little or no toxicity [Grigel2013], [Tse2013].

Dr. Weyrich has been trained in neurotransmitter balancing protocols, but has not treated Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease using this technique.

Please see What is Neurotransmitter Balancing? for more information.

References