Delaying Ageing

"After dedicating our HBOT [hyperbaric oxygen therapy] research to exploring its impact on the areas of brain functionality and age-related cognitive decline, we have now uncovered for the first time in humans HBOT's biological effects at the cellular level in healthy aging adults."

"Since telomere shortening is considered the 'Holy Grail' of the biology of aging, many pharmacological and environmental interventions are being extensively explored in the hopes of enabling telomere elongation."

"The significant improvement of telomere length shown during and after these unique HBOT protocols provides the scientific community with a new foundation of understanding that aging can, indeed, be targeted and reversed at the basic cellular-biological level."

Shai Efrati, professor, Shamir Medical Centre, Tel Aviv University

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy targets aging as a reversible disease

The prospective clinical trial is part of a comprehensive aging research program taking place in Israel. It was conducted by Prof. Shai Efrati, MD, from the Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University, and Amir Hadanny, MD, Chief Medical Research Officer of The Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research and co-author of the study. Using a specific protocol of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), telomere length was significantly increased and senescent cells were reduced in a population of healthy aging subjects. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Aging. Titled: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Increases Telomere Length and Decreases Immunosenescence in Isolated Blood Cells: A Prospective Trial. 

LongevityLive.com

 

Another milestone in setting back the ageing clock has been achieved by scientists in Israel indicating a method whereby two key areas of the body believed to be responsible for the frailty and ill health that accompanies growing older have been manipulated by exposing older people in a hyperbaric chamber to pure oxygen.  Telomeres, protective caps at the ends of chromosomes shorten as people age and this process damages DNA, resulting in cells no longer replicating. Senescent cells build up presence in the body simultaneously preventing regeneration.

A process whereby telomere length can be increased, and ridding the body of senescent ('zombie') cells have been studied by many anti-aging researchers. This study, whose results were published in the journal Ageing, appears to have hit the jackpot. By the expedient of giving pure oxygen to older people in a hyperbaric chamber the length of their telomeres were increased by 20 percent, a first-time-ever scientific achievement. According to researchers the growth of the telomeres may result in participants' bodies assuming a status similar to that of 25 years earlier.

 

The pressurized chamber where participants were placed   (Shamir Medical Center)

Senescent cells were also reduced by up to 37 percent. Removing senescent cells extends remaining life by over one-third, as demonstrated by earlier animal studies. There is broad agreement among many scientists that ageing is responsible for major conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, arthritis, cancer, heart disease and diabetes. All of which are hastened not only by the ageing process but by obesity, smoking, lack of physical activity, vitamin deficiency and inflammation all of which accelerate telomeres shortening.

 

For the trials, 35 healthy adults, aged from 64 and over were placed in a hyperbaric chamber five days a week over a three-month period, for 90 minutes' duration each session. The therapy amounted to breathing in 100 percent oxygen through a mask, to achieve the desired effect.

"Until now, interventions such as lifestyle modifications and intense exercise were shown to have some inhibition effect on the expected telomere length shortening."

"However, what is remarkable to note in our study, is that in just three months of therapy, we were able to achieve such significant telomere elongation – at rates far beyond any of the current available interventions or lifestyle modifications."

Dr Amir Hadanny, study co-author