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Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

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Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#61

Post by jinto36 »

parliowl wrote: post #49
ed wrote: post #4

Here’s the paper https://www.aging-us.com/article/203485 > The study population comprised adults (5 males, 1 female) with significant memory decline aged 64 years and older > The protocol consisted of 60 daily sessions at 5 sessions per week within a three-month period. Each session included breathing 100% oxygen by mask at 2ATA for 90 min with 5 min air breaks every 20 min. > At baseline, patients attained a mean gl…

I skimmed the article for the pertinent table. Three observations: 1. There is no control group. Since people get better with cognitive tests with practice, we don’t know whether these improvements were due to the treatment or just the normal practice effect. (Though if I were a betting person, my money is on the latter.) 2. Cognitive tests are not noiseless. The same person may vary by a few points between repeated…

While a control group is essential to determine if the effect is really due to the treatment or to practice, if they did the mouse study first and expected a positive effect, then they might have felt pressure to only have a human treatment group in what looks like a pilot trial. Maybe their original proposal included a control group, but their institutional review board decided against it?

I'm a little surprised they wouldn't have done a larger secondary trial before publishing, the impact would have been much greater if the effect was still observed in a larger group, even if they still did not have a control group- or perhaps had an alternative treatment schedule (shorter exposure times- is treatment duration correlated with degree of improvement? Then you have less of a moral dilemma of denying participants of a useful treatment while still getting some data that would indicate the treatment itself actually does something).

(working on a PhD in genetics)

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#62

Post by wheaties »

ed wrote: post #4

Here’s the paper https://www.aging-us.com/article/203485 > The study population comprised adults (5 males, 1 female) with significant memory decline aged 64 years and older > The protocol consisted of 60 daily sessions at 5 sessions per week within a three-month period. Each session included breathing 100% oxygen by mask at 2ATA for 90 min with 5 min air breaks every 20 min. > At baseline, patients attained a mean gl…

6!? They used an N=6 to make such a bold claim? If I had ever thought about that as a sample size for any scientific research my professor would have run me off campus.

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#63

Post by nradov »

koolba wrote: post #36

Is this the same thing as scuba diving? And if so, can we look at the medical history of scuba divers to see the relative prevalence of Alzheimer’s?

Scuba diving oxygen exposures are much more limited. Most divers still breathe compressed air, so a typical dive to, let's say, 66 ft / 20 m would only cause an oxygen partial pressure of 0.63 ATA.

Some of us do go deeper and use mixed gasses with more oxygen, but we carefully limit oxygen exposure to ensure safety. Acute oxygen toxicity can cause a seizure which is usually fatal underwater. So we never go above 1.6 on the oxygen, and then only for brief periods.

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#64

Post by nradov »

ezekiel68 wrote: post #26
vncecartersknee wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ivermectin is an FDA approved drug and is regularly prescribed to humans. Sure, it probably doesn't do anything for covid but it's not just 'horse dewormer'.

You can remove the "probably". The manufacturer of Ivermectin states there is no scientific evidence [0] supporting the use of the drug for COVID-19. So much for the notion some espouse that "Big Pharma" pushes their drugs on us without fail. [0] https://www.merck.com/news/merck-statement-on-ivermectin-use...

If you're so certain that ivermectin doesn't do anything for COVID-19 then you ought to let the NIH know. They're currently running a huge clinical trial on it.

https://www.nih.gov/research-training/medical-research-initi...

You might also want to let these researchers know that you disagree with their results

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/6/989

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#65

Post by DarknessFalls »

sgeisler wrote: post #18

If this turns out to be true I wonder if it'd be practical (given the financial resources) to have pressure sealed rooms that you spend a lot of time in at home (e.g. your office). These could be precisely controlled (O2, CO2 levels, pressure, …) and possibly both increase current and future performance. The main problem seems the time needed to exit because an abrupt loss of pressure would be hazardous. But if you h…

Well yeah, this is what Darth Vader did to heal his extensive burns and lacerations in his Meditation Chamber.

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#66

Post by simiones »

jinto36 wrote: post #61
parliowl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed the article for the pertinent table. Three observations: 1. There is no control group. Since people get better with cognitive tests with practice, we don’t know whether these improvements were due to the treatment or just the normal practice effect. (Though if I were a betting person, my money is on the latter.) 2. Cognitive tests are not noiseless. The same person may vary by a few points between repeated…

While a control group is essential to determine if the effect is really due to the treatment or to practice, if they did the mouse study first and expected a positive effect, then they might have felt pressure to only have a human treatment group in what looks like a pilot trial. Maybe their original proposal included a control group, but their institutional review board decided against it? I'm a little surprised the…

I am not a practitioner, so I have no idea if this is actually plausible, but it would seem absurd to me for an experimental, out-of-left-field treatment for Alzheimers, in a <10 person study, could be denied a control group on ethical grounds. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of Alzheimer's patients not receiving this potential treatment already.

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#67

Post by simiones »

tinco wrote: post #11
nxpnsv wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The popular paper completely fails to to state sample size or selection. It seems 10+10 mice also were studied. Maybe a little early to call it a breakthrough...

What do you mean? The sample size was 6, and they were selected on having the same symptoms. There is more information on the statistical analysis in the paper, but the conclusion is that it was significant. If this is a significant treatment of Alzheimer's then that's a breakthrough to me, what bar would you set?

> If this is a significant treatment of Alzheimer's then that's a breakthrough to me, what bar would you set?

Wouldn't having some kind of proof against a placebo or at least a dose-dependent improvement be the least possible requirements to actually believe the paper found any kind of effect at all?

If you randomly give 6 Alzheimer's patients an apple a day for 5 weeks, they could show improvements in cognitive tests by pure accident, especially for a disease that is known to ebb and flow.

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#68

Post by tgv »

wheaties wrote: post #62
ed wrote: post #4

Here’s the paper https://www.aging-us.com/article/203485 > The study population comprised adults (5 males, 1 female) with significant memory decline aged 64 years and older > The protocol consisted of 60 daily sessions at 5 sessions per week within a three-month period. Each session included breathing 100% oxygen by mask at 2ATA for 90 min with 5 min air breaks every 20 min. > At baseline, patients attained a mean gl…

6!? They used an N=6 to make such a bold claim? If I had ever thought about that as a sample size for any scientific research my professor would have run me off campus.

I also find it a bit hard to believe that going from 102±7 to 109±5 has a p<0.005. If I run a simple t-test, it says p-value (two-tailed) = 0.07.

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#69

Post by lthornberry »

simiones wrote: post #66
jinto36 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While a control group is essential to determine if the effect is really due to the treatment or to practice, if they did the mouse study first and expected a positive effect, then they might have felt pressure to only have a human treatment group in what looks like a pilot trial. Maybe their original proposal included a control group, but their institutional review board decided against it? I'm a little surprised the…

I am not a practitioner, so I have no idea if this is actually plausible, but it would seem absurd to me for an experimental, out-of-left-field treatment for Alzheimers, in a <10 person study, could be denied a control group on ethical grounds. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of Alzheimer's patients not receiving this potential treatment already.

This. There is basically zero chance that an ethics review would see this as a case in which a control group is unethical. I have been through plenty of IRB processes.

Resource constraints are a much more plausible explanation - running the study with a control group would cost twice as much (in time as well as money). This is either a pilot to apply for funding to run a better-controlled trial, or it's just not scientifically serious. Both are very plausible, in my experience.

Re: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

#70

Post by lthornberry »

HBOT is a widely used 'alternative' treatment for other neurological conditions. It's controversial, in part because there are very good reasons that it can cause neurological damage. This study is NOT a reason for anyone to run out and get HBOT. Even if the effect is real (and I don't think the study has enough info to draw than conclusion), you would need much larger trials to balance benefits and side effects.
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