Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation and exercise capacity in healthy volunteers | Hacker News Reader

Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation and exercise capacity in healthy volunteers

academic.oup.com

106 pointsPaulHoule20 comments

I use a TENS unit with an almost identical setup to the paper (ear clip is the same, duration is the same, frequency is 30hz instead of 25hz).

My use of vagus stimulation is for managing anxiety and promoting digestion / gut motility. I have neck issues that probably impinge on this nerve, contributing to these symptoms. Evidence suggests that the effect isn't purely psychosomatic; when laying on my back with TENS, I observe an increased frequency of GI tract "gurgles" relative to off. The observable product of my GI tract has also normalized somewhat.

I forgot to mention that the entire setup is about $60 on Amazon, so, for the HN audience, the biggest factor to trying it will be your time and/or intellectual aversion to non-mainstream medicine :-).

Which unit do you recommend? I see a wide variation of pricing and options on Amazon. *and thank you

Hmm, this is interesting. I have rheumatoid arthritis and recently saw news of trials for using vagus stimulation to treat that. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/02/03/nx...

It looks like it operates somewhat differently to this, but I'd be, well, delighted to be able to reverse my RA, even if a few of my joints are already FUBAR.

Do you have a unit you would recommend? I have pretty bad GI issues, anxiety and terrible posture.

I bought a TENS 7000, which is #1 in Amazon's "Muscle Stimulators & Accessories" category. Mine came with a 9V battery. The specific "tens ear clips" that I purchased are no longer on Amazon, but similar ones are around $20 for a pack of 3-4.

Note: some people place electrodes on the tragus, as in this paper, but others stimulate the concha. Tragus needs one two pad clip, concha needs two one pad clips. The rubber pads are just slightly bigger than the eraser of a number 2 pencil.

Thank you, i will give it a try

Which mode on your TENS 7000 unit do you use when doing the vagus stimulation?

Burst, Normal or Modulation?

normal

Sounds like the place to start reading is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcutaneous_electrical_nerv...

This paper is relevant to Long Covid, where many patients have reduced parasympathetic function and suffer post-exertional malaise (PEM). The fact that vagus nerve stimulation improves VO2Max in healthy volunteers is a nice proof of concept for a treatment that could then be tried in sicker populations.

You can stimulate your vagus nerve simply by breathing out slowly while under moderate exertion. The sensation can be very unpleasant, but it also tends to take you slightly out-of-body for a while which can help with pushing through difficult tasks.

20th century Czech runner Emil Zatopek practiced, among other things, interval training with held breath. He could have been training his parasympathetic system just as well as respiration pathways.

It's been my experience in endurance exercise is that if you are inexperienced in it, you overreact to certain signals from your body like rising CO2 or falling O2. After just small effort of a short duration you start gasping for air. Years later, in retrospect, you wonder why you did that.

Another adaptation, in high latitude outdoor runners, is the adaptation to inhaling cold, wintry air. The unbearable burning that feels like you're inhaling alcohol somehow goes away. The interesting thing is that it appears to be permanent. Even if you're out of the game for few years, that discomfort doesn't come back. Could be psychological. If you've been there and done that, you dismiss the discomfort signals and don't pay attention to them.

And before that, maybe the Apache "Mouthful of water run" which among other things enforced nasal breathing when training.

https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/2017/11/apache-runnin...

and then there is the ? Wim Hoffman, breathing method, which is somewhat startling and unpleasant if you do it right, but not realy horrible, and it does become routine quickly will try the mouthfull of water exercise

I’ve tried that and it just feels like getting high to me. It didn’t have any lasting benefit.

I wonder whether swimmers benefit from this, after all, they're breathing-constrained (if going at anything more than a comfortable pace).

So they stimulate the Vagus nerve, exercise them to exhaustion and measure vo2 peak during the exercise. Done for 7 days.

Would be interesting to see the effect on athletes, you would expect no effect on them, but if there's any benefit people will try it to get any performance gain.

28 sample size. And sham reduced capacity by half as much as the real thing increased it? Anyone got any comment on tbe conclusion as I am sceptical but can be persuaded maybe.

Unfortunately I’m in the same boat. What appears especially telling is:

> tVNS applied for 30 min daily over 7 consecutive days increased VO2peak by 1.04 mL/kg/min (*95% CI: .34–1.73*; P = .005), compared with no change after sham stimulation (−0.54 mL/kg/min; *95% CI: −1.52 to .45*)

(emphasis mine) The 95% CIs for the case and control groups overlap. Seems borderline irresponsible to have a the abstract reporting a significant result.

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