In a letter to the editor within the, Science, Public Health Policy and the Law website:
Letter to the Editor: Potential Contribution of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to A New Vision of Transformative Medical Research via NIH to Make America Healthy Again
The New Vision of Transformative Medical Research via NIH to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) [1] involves four priorities: 1) Preventing, reversing, and treating iatrogenic illnesses 2) Addressing the country’s mental health crisis 3) Combating diabetes and metabolic disorders and 4) Mitigating the rise of autoimmune diseases. While research is a necessity, its timeline precludes implementation of results in the narrow 2–4-year window of the New Vision. Effective treatment of the illnesses in #’s 1-4 could have a rapid impact and the only therapy that has both stand-alone and adjunctive potential to achieve this is hyperbaric therapy/hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Hyperbaric therapy (HT)/hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is a 362-year-old therapy [2] that has been applied to over 132 conditions [3]. It is a treatment for common acute and chronic wound pathophysiology [4-7] found in acute and chronic wound [4-9] and inflammatory conditions [4-12]. Composed of increased barometric pressure and hyperoxia [13] it takes advantage of all living organisms’ sensitivity to changes in environmental pressure [14] and oxygen. When delivered intermittently HT/HBOT exploits this natural phenomenon to have wide-ranging effects on disease pathophysiology [4].
The core effect of HBOT is its epigenetic DNA signaling capability [15] that became understood in 2009 and 2010. In two experiments, HBOT demonstrated independent, overlapping, and interactive effects of increased barometric pressure and increased pressure of oxygen [16] on 8,101 of the 19,000 (40.3%) protein-coding genes embedded in our 46 human chromosomes [17]. The largest clusters of genes turned on were the anti-inflammatory genes and the growth/repair hormone genes, while the largest clusters of temporarily suppressed genes were the pro-inflammatory genes and the genes coding for programmed cell death. These two experiments explained 346 years of application to wounding and inflammatory conditions by showing inhibition of inflammation, stimulation of tissue growth/repair in damaged areas, and cessation of programmed cell death with every exposure to increased barometric pressure and increased oxygen (a hyperbaric treatment).
