Friday, April 29, 2011

And about Wound Healing again

I know I keep stressing the relevance of hyperbaric treatments in wound healing.
That's why everytime I come across something that explains why it works
I want to post it here so you can see that it's actually not rocket science to
understand that hyperbaric oxygen is of extreme importance in wound healing.
The following quotation is a bit technical but right to the point:

"In wound healing, biochemical energy supply is a basic requirement. Oxygen is essential for the production of biological energy equivalents (e.g. adenosine triphosphate, ATP) in aerobic glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, and the oxidation of fatty acids. Therefore, sufficient oxygenation of tissue is a prerequisite for adequate energy levels, which are essential for proper cellular function.

In healing tissue, sufficient oxygenation is particularly relevant because of the increased energy demand for reparative processes such as cell proliferation, bacterial defence and collagen synthesis. The strictly oxygen-dependent NADPH-linked oxygenase represents a further highly important enzyme in wound healing; it catalyses the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as peroxide anion (HO₂ ⁻), hydroxyl ion (HO⁻) and superoxide anion (O²⁻). ROS play a prominent role in oxidative bacterial killing and coregulate prevalent processes in wound healing such as cytokine release, cell proliferation and angiogenesis.Against this background, the crucial role of reduced oxygen supply in chronic wound pathogenesis becomes obvious. Chronic wounds are characterized by an insufficient repair process that precludes the establishment of a sustained anatomical and functional result in an appropriate length of time" (1)

Like I said a bit technical but still enough regular English in there to understand

the point.

(1)

From The British Journal of Dermatology

Oxygen in Acute and Chronic Wound Healing

S. Schreml; R.M. Szeimies; L. Prantl; S. Karrer; M. Landthaler; P. Babilas

Authors and Disclosures

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Hyperbaric Oxygen and Diabetes

Every time I run into someone with advanced Diabetes, and
they already have the "red legs" or worse and having learned
that that problem has to do with hypoxia, which basically means
not enough Oxygen supply to the extremeties it of course occurs
to me that HBOT should be able to help with that. There is actually
a lot written on the WWW about this but I only post an excerpt
of one of the studies supporting this:

".....Animal and human studies support these findings. All cells require oxygen for aerobic metabolism and cellular energy production. Hunt and Van Winkle showed that a minimum PO₂ of 30 mm Hg is required by cells for functioning. Hunt and Pai demonstrated that collagen synthesis for maintenance and healing is oxygen dependent, with an optimal PO₂ of at least 50 to 100 mm Hg. Sheffield showed that HBOT can provide PO₂ levels in excess of 1,000 mm Hg in ischemic areas. Nemiroff et al., in a randomized, prospective animal study of ischemic flaps, demonstrated markedly greater survival of ischemic tissue when treated with HBOT (p<0.05). Kihara et al., in their controlled study of ischemic neuropathy, demonstrated that “hyperbaric oxygenation will effectively rescue fibers from ischemic fiber degeneration” (p<0.05). The effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen in clinical human studies is well documented, with acute ischemias arising from surgery and trauma having been particularly well studied. Bowersox et al., showed the effectiveness of HBOT in a large series of patients with ischemic flaps and grafts, as has Perrins. Shupak et al., demonstrated a doubling of the survival rate of ischemic limbs using HBOT. Hill et al., showed that even complex tissues, such as the ear, can survive severe post traumatic ischemia using HBOT........." (1)

And so on.

It looks to me that diabetic patients don't always need their feet
amputated but they could be rescued with Hyperbaric Oxygen.

(1) http://www.achm.org/index.php/General/Medicare-Accepted-Indications/Acute-Peripheral-Arterial-Insufficiency.html

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Does HBOT make cancer grow faster?

Every once and a while somebody will ask me
if it is true that someone should not seek
Hyperbaric Oxygen treatments if they have cancer.
Supposedly the additional oxygen would make the cancer
grow faster.

I could not really answer this question, so I did a little
research and here is one article I came up with:

(Bold print done by me)
"The Issue of Carcinogenesis
An issue that frequently arises when considering a patient for hyperbaric oxygen who also carries a cancer diagnosis is what does HBO2 do to growth or potential recurrence of the malignancy. In a publication from 1994, Feldmeier and his colleagues reviewed the discoverable literature related to this issue. An overwhelming majority of both clinical reports and animal studies reviewed in this paper showed no enhancement of cancer growth.
A small number of reports actually showed a decrease in growth or rates of metastases. In 2001 at the Consensus Conference jointly sponsored by the European Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO) and the European Committee for Hyperbaric Medicine (ECHM), Feldmeier updated this material. In this review, Feldmeier emphasized the differences known in tumor and wound healing angiogenesis. Each has similar but distinctly different processes operational. He showed that there are significant differences between tumors and wounds in the growth and inhibition factors, which modulate angiogenesis. He summarized the literature demonstrating that tumors, which are hypoxic, are less responsive to treatment, less subject to cellular death by apoptosis and more prone to aggressive growth and lethal metastases. Fears that hyperbaric oxygen may promote malignant growth are not supported by scientific evidence, and clinicians should not refuse to consider a patient for hyperbaric oxygen who has had a history of malignancy." 1

1 http://rubicon-foundation.org/dspace/bitstream/123456789/3998/1/15233169.pdf
Page 9