Major News — A landmark study, in a mainstream and peer-reviewed hyperbaric medical journal has just been released, and it supports the use of lower pressure protocols for hyperbaric medicine. This is groundbreaking, because for over two decades now, there has been a constant and heated debate going on between hyperbaric physicians on the use of low pressure protocols, and whether or not they were as effective as higher pressures. Advocates of lower pressure protocols have clearly focused their opinion on the scientific rationale of the gas pressure laws of physics and say that ANY pressure will have a physiological effect – they also have growing support from empirical data. On the other hand, skeptics of lower pressure protocols say “where is the research”, and they also quote that “most of the clinical research is at higher pressures”.
This study should finally put these to rest. Here, they looked at 3 different pressure protocols: 1.3 ATA (ambient air), 1.5 ATA (pure oxygen), and 1.75 ATA (pure oxygen). They then added all 3 pressure protocols to a standard intensive exercise program for CP children and followed them with for an 8-month period of time. The results were astonishing. Not only did they find that all 3 hyperbaric oxygen pressures gave significant improvements, but there was no difference between the pressures. More startling to skeptics of lower pressure protocols, the lower pressure protocol did not even use the conventional pure oxygen, and instead only used regular ambient air.
Why this is groundbreaking is because typically in past studies, a lower pressure protocol using regular ambient air has been used as the placebo dose in studies. This is really the point of contention. The supporters of lower pressure protocols argue “how can you use 1.3 ATA ambient air as a placebo when the laws of physics clearly show that this is actually a treatment dosage” This study clearly supports their notion pressure is the key variable in hyperbaric oxygenation therapy. Pandoras box is open! <view study>