Oxygen is a colorless, odorless gas that makes up about 21% of the atmosphere. It is essential for life for two main reasons:
1. Oxygen is one of the body’s basic building blocks. All of the
body’s major components – water, protein, carbohydrate, and fat – contain
oxygen.
2. Oxygen helps promote certain chemical reactions within the
body that result in energy production. Energy is needed for proper circulation,
respiration, digestion, temperature control, and many other important functions.
Nature has proven that healing cannot take place without
appropriate oxygen levels in the body’s tissues. Many serious health problems
stem from or are complicated by tissues having low oxygen levels. In many cases
adequate oxygen cannot reach the damaged areas. Without adequate oxygen in the
tissues, the body’s natural healing process fails to function properly, and we
begin to see damaged tissues, decreased tissue function, slow healing, dry
& sagging skin, aging, fatigue, wrinkles, and a
variety of other symptoms.
Oxygen given under normal atmospheric pressure is not enough to
raise tissue oxygen levels to reverse this lack of oxygen because red blood
cells cannot carry and release enough extra oxygen. In order to overcome the
oxygen starvation and raise tissue oxygen levels high enough for optimal
healing to occur, the oxygen must be delivered under slightly increased
atmospheric pressure.
Blood is made up of three main components: White blood cells
that help fight infection; red blood cells that carry oxygen; and plasma, which
is the fluid that carries both kinds of cells throughout the body.
Normally, only the red blood cells deliver oxygen, via a protein
called hemoglobin, to the body’s tissues and cells. A healthy person’s
hemoglobin is 97% saturated with oxygen when exposed in our lungs to normal
air, or 100% saturated when breathing pure oxygen. Whether breathing air or
pure oxygen, the limited number of red blood cells can only deliver a certain
level of oxygen to the body’s tissues.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) is a 300 year old medical
treatment that consists of administering 100% oxygen at greater than
atmospheric (sea level) pressure in order to improve and correct certain
medical conditions. The underlying principle of hyperbaric oxygen therapy is
quite simple: HBOT saturates the body and its tissues with oxygen so they can
function properly.
When HBOT is used, you are breathing 10 times the regular amount
of oxygen under increased pressure. These increased oxygen molecules are not
only dissolved in the red blood cells, but also forced into the blood plasma,
which makes up the bulk of the blood. This allows oxygen to be delivered to
every parts of tissues and cells that that may be deprived of
oxygen.
Oxygen is transported by blood in two ways: Chemically,
bound to haemoglobin, and physically, dissolved in plasma. The main effect of
HBO is hyperoxia. During this therapy, oxygen is dissolved physically in the
blood plasma.
HBOT forces oxygen into the body under pressure, oxygen dissolves
into all of the body’s fluids including the blood plasma, the lymph, and the
cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. All of these fluids
carry the extra oxygen to the tissues and cells of the body, even where
circulation is poor or blocked. In short, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)
works by saturating a person’s blood and plasma with oxygen resulting in
increased oxygen delivery to tissues.
The physiological effects of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy includes: vasoconstriction and enhanced
oxygen delivery, reduction of edema, phagocytosis activation and also an
anti-inflammatory effect - enhanced leukocyte function,
neovascularization - angiogenesis in hypoxic soft tissues,
osteoneogenesis as well as stimulation of collagen production by fibroblasts
are known long-term effects.
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