According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, otherwise known as HBOT, ‘is a type of treatment used to speed up healing of carbon monoxide poisoning, gangrene, stubborn wounds, and infections in which tissues are starved for oxygen.’
But recently, a group of investigators managed to restore a brain trauma in a patient using HBOT as well.
Incredibly, this was the first time in the scientific world that a non-drug therapy showed major effectivity in preventing the fundamental biological processes that are normally accountable for the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
By using the usual particular protocols of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, ‘cerebral blood flow (CBF) improved/increased in elderly patients by 16-23%, alleviating vascular dysfunction and amyloid burden.’
The study was carried out at the Tel Aviv University, and is part of a comprehensive research program steered towards aging and concomitant health issues and maladies as reversible diseases. What they found is that the study shows intriguing new ways to look into the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease, not just by looking into the symptoms of the sickness, or by focusing on their biomarkers, but by targeting the core pathology and biology that’s a known reason for the disease’s development.
Hyperbaric chamber therapy works by requiring patients to remain in special chambers whose atmospheric pressure is much higher than what they would normally experience at sea level. Moreover, they are made to breathe in air that is composed of 100% oxygen.
It is also considered incredibly safe, and is used to treat a massive amount of other medical issues and conditions. More recently, HBOT has also shown scientific evidence that it has the ability to induce the repair of brain tissue damage, as well as help renew the growth of blood vessels and nerve cells located in the brain.
So far, only the first stage of the study has been published in the Aging journal. Although it has only been used on an animal model, the course of treatment has proven through brain tissue examination that specific therapeutic protocol does result in vascular function improvement, as well as in the production of new blood vessels.
The study also found that HBOT can stop new amyloid plaque deposits on the brain cells, while also leading to the extraction of any existing amyloid plaque deposits as well. These amyloids are considered non-soluble proteins, where these types of deposits in the brain are normally linked to severe degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.
During the next stage of the study, researchers looked at the effects of the treatment on participants that were above 65 in age with diagnosed cognitive decline that mostly consisted of memory loss, which is a stage the usually precedes dementia and Alzheimer’s.
The therapy used a series of 60 sessions of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in pressurized chambers over a span of 90 days.
High resolution perfusion MRIs were conducted on the participants to see the effects on their brains. What they found from the hyperbaric treatment protocol was the following, ‘increased blood flow in the range of 16% – 23%; significant improved in memory by 16.5% on average, significant improvement in attention and information processing speed.’
According to Dr. Ronit Shapira, “The combination of an animal model from which we could learn the pathology of the disease, together with existing and available therapy, raises the hope that we will now be able to fight one of the greatest challenges to the western world. According to our findings, hyperbaric therapy given at a young age is likely to prevent this severe disease entirely.”
And considering that more than 6 million Americans alone are living with Alzheimer’s, this new treatment could prove to be one of the best medical breakthroughs yet.
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