Helium Treatment for Lung Disease: Yeah, You'll Talk Funny

Helium is helium, even if you’re inhaling it along with oxygen to help you breath better when you’re sick. That’s the word from Dr. Neil Eves, lead author of a study examining patients who breathed an oxygen-helium mixture. (I asked him about the squeaky voice issue.) Yes, helium changes the pitch of your voice which […]

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Helium is helium, even if you're inhaling it along with oxygen to help you breath better when you're sick.

That's the word from Dr. Neil Eves, lead author of a study examining patients who breathed an oxygen-helium mixture. (I asked him about the squeaky voice issue.)

Yes, helium changes the pitch of your voice which everyone knows from being a kid and sucking the air out of a balloon at parties.

In this study we didn't want them to be able to identify the gas they were on so we asked them not to talk while they were breathing any gas. However, if they had talked it would have changed their voices for sure just because of the nature of the gas.