Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a widely used treatment for many elite athletes for recovery from muscle injuries. This study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology looked at this relationship by taking a group of rats and inducing injury to the leg muscles. They then followed up with a program of 10 hyperbaric oxygen sessions over a 2-week period. The results demonstrated an acceleration in healing and functional recovery, with greater expression of IGF-1 and other repair factors noted at days 3 to 5 <view study> Read Less

Growth factors including blood vessels to transplanted areas are important and key factors for successful procedures. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been long-used for wound healing due to it’s ability to increase blood vessels to the area. This study looked at applying hyperbaric oxygen therapy following tissue implantation. The observed growth factors, including vascular endothelial growth factor, were shown to increase and support the notion that hyperbaric therapy can be used to enhance implantation procedures <view study> Read Less

People still believe that hyperbaric oxygen therapy only works at higher pressures. Most of them are only practicing with higher pressure protocols and have not taken the time to go through the steady influx of all the recent data and research making its way into current medical journals and publications. If they did, they would very quickly be able to see that lower pressures can provide very powerful effects, and sometimes even more powerful than those observed with higher pressures; the latter was just the case in a landmark study released in 2013. This study was published in the UHMS journal (a mainstream, peer reviewed, hyperbaric medical journal) and looked at the difference between 2.4 ATA (higher pressure HBOT) and 1.5 ATA (lower pressure HBOT). The results were stunning in virtually all areas observed. Researchers observed 92 inflammatory genes and this is what they quoted:

"Interestingly, oxygen at 1.5 atm abs affected many genes much more strongly than oxygen at 2.4. The reasons for this effect are unknown, but it does raise questions about the most appropriate treatment pressures for inflammatory conditions"

It was landmark study for lower pressure protocols, because it clearly demonstrated that the lower pressure protocols (1.5 ATA) had much stronger effects in the inflammatory genes observed than the higher pressures (2.4 ATA). <view study>     Read Less

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has received a lot of attention over the past 20 years for helping patients following traumatic events. Though this therapy is not part of the approved medical treatments for traumatic brain injuries, both clinical research data and case reports have documented that there is a potential benefit from this procedure. Of late, mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI's) have been in the news, due to the increasing understanding and concerns with concussions, particularly with athletes in sporting events. This study took 56 patients who had prolonged post-concussion syndrome following 1-5 years post mTBI. A "typical" program of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (this HBOT protocol included 40 treatment sessions (5 days/week), 60 minutes each, with 100% oxygen at 1.5 ATA) was given to the treatment group, which demonstrated significant improvements. These results led the researchers of this study to conclude that "HBOT can induce neuroplasticity leading to repair of chronically impaired brain functions and improved quality of life in mTBI patients with prolonged PCS at late chronic stage" <view study>     Read Less