Young at heart. This is a very common mantra that most people live by. Thanks to promising research results on Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment it seems this won't be just a quote to live by. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment can be best described as a form of therapy whereby a patient is required to sit in a hyperbolic chamber to breathe in pure oxygen. The conditions in the chamber are highly decompressed to simulate environmental conditions one would find at the bottom of the sea.

This treatment is commonly used to cure;

• Bacterial infections such as gangrene – Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is used to combat the bacterial toxins that cause gangrene while also improving the general reaction of white blood cells when combating foreign harmful organisms.
• Carbon monoxide poisoning - Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is used to reduce the damage by infusing high levels of concentrated oxygen to offset the carbon monoxide levels in the body.
• Decompression sickness – this is a condition where people who work at low altitudes such as miners and scuba divers. When they return to high altitudes without following the proper procedure, nitrogen particles to form bubbles in the bloodstream. Through hyperbolic oxygen treatment, the body can get rid of these effects and heal itself.
• Traumatic brain injuries – hyperbolic oxygen treatment helps heal the brain tissues by ensuring there is a rich flow of oxygen to the damaged-oxygen deprived tissue. This in turn gets rid of the harmful oxygen radicals which are responsible for clogging up the blood vessels which restores blood flow to the brain.
• It is due to these successes in various areas that medical researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Shamir Medical Center decided to see how HBOT can be used to reverse the human aging process and its related ailments. The scientists studied cells exposed to high-pressure oxygen and the results were exceptional. Their findings showed that the exposed cells were able to slow down the aging lifecycle. This was because hyperbolic oxygen treatment was able to reverse the accumulation of dying and defective cells in the body. It was also able to shorten cap-like structures present in chromosomes known as telomeres.

The team further studied 35 subjects of the older demographic who were exposed to the therapy a couple of days each week. The results were promising as 75% of the subjects exhibited cellular levels of those twenty-five years younger. They also exhibited a better attention span, improved cognitive processing, and executive functions.

These results are encouraging to the medical field as this form of therapy will help medical practitioners to combat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes which are all associated with old age.

This form of therapy will also help people who partake in unhealthy lifestyle choices such as smoking, laziness and unhealthy eating habits have a longer and more productive life.

From the above, we can see that this form of therapy will help both the old and young live a longer and more fulfilling life.