Wim Hof breathing technique can modulate immune response to pathogens (2014)

Breathing techniques AND exposure to cold.

From the article:

ii) During the training, subjects voluntarily exposed themselves to cold in several ways: standing in the snow barefoot for up to 30 min and lying bare chested in the snow for 20 min; daily dipping/swimming in ice-cold water (0–1 °C) for up to several minutes (including complete submersions); and hiking up a snowy mountain (elevation: 1,590 m) bare chested, wearing nothing but shorts and shoes at temperatures ranging from −5 to −12 °C (wind chill: −12 to −27 °C).

There is a great discussion of this paper on Rhonda Patrick’s podcast: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/pierre-capel She also has a episode where she interviews wim himself.

> Subjects in the intervention group were trained for 10 d in meditation (third eye meditation), breathing techniques (i.a., cyclic hyperventilation followed by breath retention), and exposure to cold (i.a., immersions in ice cold water)... Subsequently, all subjects underwent experimental endotoxemia (i.v. administration of 2 ng/kg Escherichia coli endotoxin).

> In the intervention group, practicing the learned techniques resulted in intermittent respiratory alkalosis and hypoxia resulting in profoundly increased plasma epinephrine levels. In the intervention group, plasma levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 increased more rapidly after endotoxin administration, correlated strongly with preceding epinephrine levels, and were higher. Levels of proinflammatory mediators TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-8 were lower in the intervention group and correlated negatively with IL-10 levels. Finally, flu-like symptoms were lower in the intervention group.

Sounds like the research is promoting third eye meditation rather than measuring the contribution of each specific technique. Hyperventilation followed by breath holding is what free divers do. Immersion in ice cold water is extremely unpleasant and non-trivial for most people to do regularly. I wonder how the degree of inflammatory response using this technique compares to typical activities like strenuous exercise.

I just finished the book "Breath" by James Nestor. The book was very interesting and talked a lot about some of this but I was wondering if anyone has done any research on the book,I walked away feeling like there was a possibility that a lot of it was bullshit

n=12 sounds small to me, but I don't have the statistics background to really understand its significance.

Does it basically mean that the confidence intervals are way wider than we'd expect with a larger study size? If so, by how much?