Anti-Aging And Cognitive Decline: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

HEALTH anti-aging and cognitive decline

HYPERBARIC OXYGEN THERAPY (HBOT)

THE BEST KEPT SECRET IN MEDICINE

HBOT

is a medical treatment administered in a chamber in which the patient breathes 100% oxygen under pressure. This treatment produces up to a 15-fold increase in blood oxygen concentration causing oxygen to diffuse into every cell in the body. This stimulates healing in all tissue, including the brain. It is an extremely safe, noninvasive, painless therapy.

LKNEXPERT

Dr. Roger Hunter is the owner of Nirvana Hyperbaric Institute located at 146 Medical Park Road, Suite 110, in Mooresville. Roger and his team bring more than 30 years of experience in hyperbaric medicine to Nirvana Lake Norman. For more information or a free consultation, you can reach them at 704.471.4100 or visit www.nirvanahbo.com.

COGNITIVE FUNCTION USUALLY PEAKS AROUND the age of 30…from there it is a subtle decline. More than half of those 60 and older express concern about the decline in their cognitive abilities that includes overall slowness in thinking, difficulties sustaining attention, problem solving and short-term memory issues. That decline may unfortunately culminate in dementia or Alzheimer’s which occurs when the pathological processes end with significant brain cell death and tissue loss.

COGNITIVE DECLINE

Dr. Efrati and his team are the leading researchers in hyperbaric medicine for the past 15 years with particular focus on the brain. They completed a July 2020 peer-reviewed randomized controlled study that demonstrated for the first time that HBOT can significantly enhance the cognitive performance of healthy older adults. The main areas of improvement were attention, information processing speed, and executive function, in addition to the global cognitive function, all of which typically decline with age.1 “In the past, we have demonstrated HBOT’s potential to improve/treat brain injuries such as stroke, traumatic brain injury and anoxic brain injury by increasing brain blood flow and metabolism,” per Dr. Hadanny. “The occlusion of small blood vessels, similar to the occlusions which may develop in the pipes of an ‘aging’ home, is a dominant element in the human aging process. We found that HBOT induced a significant increase in brain blood flow, which correlated with cognitive improvement. We can conjecture that similar beneficial effect of HBOT can be induced in other organs of the aging body,” per Dr. Efrati.

ANTI-AGING

Another study released by Dr. Efrati’s group was released in November 2020 entitled “Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases telomere length and decreases immunosenescence in isolated blood cells: a prospective trial.”2 The study showed an increase of telomere length by over 20% and a reduction of senescent cells of up to 37%. The accumulation of senescent cells (from either an increase in the generation of these cells and/or a decrease in their removal), aggravates the damage and contributes to aging. Quoting Dr. Efrati: “Telomere shortening is considered the ‘Holy Grail’ of the biology of aging…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 cellularbiological level.” w

HBOT helps by stimulating:

Neurogenesis—

the formation of new neurons

Angiogenesis—

the formation of new blood vessels

Stem cell recruitment—

an 8-fold increase in stem cells that can differentiate into any cell that signals the need for repair.

Mitochondria function restoration—

restores the cells ability to produce energy.

DRSARAH STUCHELL

R ELAT I ON S H I P E XPE RT

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