Key Points:
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) uses a chamber to infuse pure oxygen into people’s bloodstream.
- HBOT has long been used to treat certain injuries and burns, and the FDA has approved it to treat 13 conditions.
- There is minimal research showing the effects of HBOT on human aging.
One of the latest anti-aging and life-extension trends is hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). Celebrities like Justin Bieber, Michael Phelps, Steve Aoki, and Miyam Bialik—who not only stars on The Big Bang Theory but also has a PhD in neuroscience—all swear by HBOT.
Physician-backed longevity clinics offering medical-grade HBOT promise to “reverse the biology of aging,” “transform the way people age by using the latest innovations in healthcare,” and “restore youthful vitality with a medical treatment clinically proven to reverse biological aging”—sounds tempting, no?
What Exactly is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy?
HBOT is a very simple, straightforward, and old technique. It raises tissue oxygen levels by breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber and artery oxygen levels by 10 times. Thus, HBOT is considered safe when used properly, with rare, treatable side effects.
HBOT has been used to treat chronic conditions like non-healing wounds and delayed radiation injury and to prevent decompression sickness, or “the bends,” in scuba divers. HBOT devices are FDA-approved for infections, burns, crush injuries, radiation injuries, and diving sickness. The only medical conditions that HBOT can treat and relate to aging are hearing loss and vision loss. However, these conditions are symptoms, not causes, of aging.
What is driving the hype?
The 2020 study by Dr. Shai Efrati and his team garnered global attention, including Business Insider’s “It may be possible to reverse key markers of aging with a therapy used by astronauts and deep-sea divers.”
The paradigm for Efrati’s research is a well-known observation that even non-scientists can understand: younger people can replicate and regenerate better than older people. Cellular regeneration is slowed down in adults by cellular senescence and telomere shortening. Age increases cellular senescence because genetic mutations and shorter telomeres damage DNA in many cells, stopping replication.
In mice, increasing telomere length and reducing cellular senescence partially reverse age-related regenerative decline. The most intriguing finding is that an injectable and inhalable virus that extends telomeres in mice increased lifespan by 41.4%.
Efrati’s study examined HBOT’s effects on older people, not telomere extension via a virus. This matters because HBOT depends on hyperoxygenated chamber time, while the viral approach can consistently maintain, protect, and extend telomeres. Participants in Efrati’s 3-month study had 60 90-minute daily sessions. Participants measured a week or two after HBOT showed a 20% increase in telomere length and a 10% to 37% reduction in senescent cells.
Does the science make sense?
Efrati’s 2020 study has a few issues that raise eyebrows. The first has to do with the “landmark” study, which has a small sample size of 35 participants. Due to the small sample size, it is difficult to determine whether participants with different responses are outliers or part of the real trends. Indeed, Efrati’s study appears to indicate something exciting, but a cursory look at the statistical analysis shows that the results are weakly supported.
Second, because the researchers stopped measuring participants a week after the study, what effects were long-lasting is unclear. A month after the study, telomere extension and senescent cell levels may have returned to pre-HBOT levels. HBOT’s effects on telomeres, which protect chromosomes, must be studied in more cells and over time. Some cells may have more problems with telomere extension. Telomeres shorten when cells divide, and when they get too short, cells commit cellular seppuku so that the chromosomes do not get damaged, which can cause cancer. Lengthening cancer cells’ telomeres would prevent them from reaching the natural sensor that stops them from dividing, ultimately driving cancer growth.
Thirdly, there were no reported benefits to any physiological condition—that is, there was no evidence that the heart, brain, or immune system was “rejuvenating” itself. In fact, the paper did not report much beyond telomere length and senescence of a few blood cell types. It did not report on any other types of changes to cells or side effects for the participants. This is an important point because it is pretty well established that hyperoxia can create a lot of what is called oxidative stress, which can lead to a cascade of problems. In a dish in a lab, hyperoxia often causes a lot of damage to DNA and cellular injury, which both lead to inflammation, which is more and more looking like one of the major drivers of aging.
What Does the Future Hold for HBOT?
Spending tens of thousands of dollars at Aviv Clinics seems risky given the lack of evidence that HBOT reverses biological aging markers.
Beyond that, there are risks associated with HBOT. It may be okay in a medical setting with strict rules, but too much pressure or improper handling can cause seizures, hearing loss, or vision problems. Tragically, a 4-year-old boy and his grandmother died in 2009 when a hyperbaric chamber caught fire in a Florida clinic, and a person and a horse were killed in 2012 by an exploding hyperbaric chamber.
If you want to replicate Efrati’s studies, you must be careful about which HBOT you use. Some spas and clinics in the US offer HBOT for as little as $25 per session, and Groupon even has deals for two sessions for $50. Yet, the chambers used are unlikely to be as medically sound as Efrati’s. To truly experience HBOT in the same way that the participants in Efrati’s study did, go to Efrati’s Aviv Clinics and pay $45,000 for the program, which, according to Aviv Clinics, has over 2,000 participants.
Which brings us to the most important point—even though thousands of people have undergone Efrati’s HBOT protocol, there is no proof from the company’s end that it really slows or stops biological aging in any meaningful way.
It is exciting to think about a simple, non-invasive treatment that could turn back time, but wellness centers’ and spas’ anti-aging claims are not to be trusted. HBOT research may reveal more benefits, but there is no miracle cure for aging. For now, it is probably best to wait for more research before diving into this expensive trend.
Comments