Could simple oxygen therapy be enough to reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia?
The illness is known to cause brain cells and neural connections to degenerate and die, leading to memory loss and other important mental functions.
But a new, small-scale study by researchers at Tel Aviv University suggests that dementia patients may see those symptoms improve, and even reverse, through hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). Their work was published in the journal Aging on Thursday.
The treatment prescribed to the six trial participants included five, 90-minute sessions per week for three months, in which patients inhaled pure oxygen through an air mask while within a pressurized chamber.
The goal of HBOT is to increase the amount of oxygen blood can carry — particularly the brain, in this case — which is necessary for normal organ function and tissue repair. For volunteers in the study, a straight shot of oxygen to the dome was enough to see “significant” healing in the brain by allowing a more robust and efficient flow of blood to the brain — the lack of which is linked to the onset of dementia.
“Elderly patients suffering from significant memory loss at baseline revealed an increase in brain blood flow and improvement in cognitive performance, demonstrating hyperbaric oxygen therapy’s potency to reverse core elements responsible,” Tel Aviv University professor Uri Ashery told The Telegraph this week.
Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, affects nearly six million Americans, according to the US Centers for Disease Control — and that number is projected to triple to 14 million by 2060. Most people with the disease will die as a result of complications associated with its symptoms, such as an infection that the body is ultimately too frail to fight.
The study group included six patients, all around age 70, who had shown signs of severe memory loss, called Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) — a precursor to Alzheimer’s. Participants took part in 60 HBOT sessions over the course of three months. Their progress was measured with memory exercises as well as blood tests, administered before and after the experiment.
With treatment, researchers saw increased blood flow by 16 to 23% in many parts of the brain, indicating a marked improvement in the functionality of participants’ blood vessels. They also scored an average of 16.5% higher on memory tests post-HBOT, showed a 6% better ability to focus and a 10.3% jump in processing new information.
A simultaneous mice study also revealed that HBOT had the power to make the harmful buildup of beta-amyloid proteins, or plaques, a telltale sign of dementia, disappear by up to 30%. Even the plaques which lingered were shrunk by about 18%.
As a result, the afflicted mice improved their nest-building skills and completed reward mazes faster than before therapy.
Indeed, the proposed therapy begs further testing, and further development is needed to increase its accessibility to average patients. As professor Tom Dening, an expert in dementia at the University of Nottingham, told the Telegraph, “To be useful, the treatment would have to be continued indefinitely, so any patients would have to be very highly motivated and have good transport links to the treatment facility.”
With some 6 million dementia sufferers in the US, “it is hard to see how hyperbaric oxygen could ever be available on this scale,” said Dening. “It’s an interesting idea but a long way off meeting the usual criteria to become a standard treatment.”