The world's first clinical trial of its kind, conducted by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Shamir Hospital (Assaf Harofeh), states that pressure chamber treatment of healthy people in the third age can stop the aging of blood cells
Until today, the idea of turning the wheel back belonged to the science fiction genre. Who wouldn't want to enter a capsule with advanced equipment and leave it "like new"? It turns out that the future is already here. The world's first clinical trial of its kind, conducted by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Shamir Hospital (Assaf Harofeh), states that pressure chamber treatment of healthy people in their third years can stop the aging of blood cells.
Identify the causes of blood cell aging
The researchers found that a series of treatments in a unique stress cell protocol can reverse two main processes, known to be related to the aging process and the diseases that characterize it: the shortening of the telomeres, which are protective regions found at both ends of each chromosome (the chromosomes contain the genetic material in the cell nucleus), and the accumulation Old cells do not function in the body, called senescent cells. The experiment focused on the cells taken in blood tests, the cells of their immune system have DNA, and found a considerable lengthening of the telomeres - up to 38%, along with a decrease of up to 37% in the rate of senescence.
The research was conducted under the leadership of Prof. Shai Efrati From the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Segol School of Neuroscience, the founder and director of the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine at the Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh), and Dr. Amir Hadani, the director of medical research at the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at the Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh), and it was carried out as part of a comprehensive Israeli research program that deals with aging as a reversible disease treatable. The article was published in the scientific journal Aging.
Turn back the wheel
"We have been engaged in research and hyperbaric therapy for many years, which is treatment with unique protocols of oxygen at high pressure inside a pressure chamber with varying concentrations," explains Prof. Efrati. "Over time, we have recorded achievements in various fields, such as improving brain function, which is impaired due to age or due to brain injuries caused by factors such as strokes and head injuries. Now we wanted to examine the effect of the treatment on healthy and independent people in old age, and we asked: Can pressure chamber treatment slow down, stop, and perhaps even reverse the normal aging process at the cellular level?"
As part of the study, 35 healthy people aged 64 and over were exposed to a series of 60 hyperbaric treatments, for 90 days. The researchers took blood samples from the participants before, during, at the end and after the series of treatments, analyzed a variety of blood cells from the immune system (cells that have DNA), and compared the findings at the four times.
The findings indicated that the treatments were able to reverse the aging process in two essential aspects: the telomeres at the ends of the chromosomes lengthened instead of shortening, at a rate ranging from 20%-38% in the various cell types; The proportion of non-functioning old cells, the senescent, within the entire population of blood cells - decreased significantly, by 11% to 37% depending on the type of cells.
Find the 'Holy Grail' in the field
"The shortening of telomeres is now considered the 'holy grail' of the biology of aging, and researchers all over the world are trying to develop medicinal and environmental treatments that will lengthen telomeres. Our series of treatments succeeded in doing this, and proved that it is indeed possible to reverse the aging process at the cellular-molecular level", Prof. Efrati concludes.
"To date, we have seen that a change in lifestyle and intense physical activity can delay the shortening of telomeres to some extent. But our hyperbaric treatment succeeded, in just three months, in lengthening the telomeres far beyond any known intervention involving a change in lifestyle," says Dr. Hadani and concludes, "Our pioneering research opens the door to further research on the cellular effect of pressure chamber treatments over time, in any concerning the reversal of the aging process".
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