9

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and Oxygen Multistep Therapy

Although hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy (also referred to as HBOT) has been around for centuries, it received widespread press attention as an adjunct modality to treat the only survivor of the Sago Mine disaster of January 2006. Suffering from severe carbon monoxide poisoning and oxygen deprivation to the heart, brain, and other organs, Randal McCloy Jr. received several hyperbaric oxygen treatments at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with good results.¹

In hyperbaric oxygen therapy, 100 percent pure oxygen is administered at two to three times normal atmospheric pressure. To begin, the patient is placed in a specially designed chamber. The pressure in the chamber is gradually increased, which causes a rise in the body’s blood plasma oxygen content. This results in enhanced oxygen delivery to compromised tissues. With HBO therapy, oxygen can be dissolved in the blood plasma and go directly into tissues. The technique also has an important systemic effect on bacterial growth and enhances the body’s overall inflammatory response. Hyperbaric oxygen reduces swelling or edema in body tissues, produces antioxidant effects, and promotes new blood vessel formation in areas of the body where blood supply is limited.

Hyperbaric oxygen has been used to treat a wide range of health problems. It is best known as a primary therapy in treating carbon monoxide poisoning, gas gangrene, and tissue decompression, known in scuba diving as “the bends.” However, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is now increasingly being used as an adjunct to standard medical and surgical care, including the treatment of problem wounds, anaerobic infections, chronic bone infections, gas embolism, crush injuries, soft tissue injuries, thermal burns, compromised skin grafts, and radiation injuries. It has been found to be useful in treating patients suffering from impaired healing or compromised blood circulation where oxygen cannot reach important tissues.

HBO therapy has also been found useful in treating people with diabetes and vascular disease, as well as amputees, cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, and patients recovering from plastic, cosmetic, or laser surgery. Research is now under way to study the effects of HBO therapy on patients suffering from stroke and chronic fatigue syndrome.²

HBO therapy has also been studied in treating HIV and AIDS. In 1990, Michelle R. Reillo, R.N., began research on three hundred patients with late-stage AIDS who underwent HBO treatment for diverse AIDS-related complications. Results were reported in her book AIDS under Pressure (see the resources—appendix 2, here). Although the patients’ life expectancy was just two years at the time the study was begun, more than half of the patients were still alive six years later, even though they did not take antiviral drugs. Reillo investigated how HBO therapy works in the manifestation of peripheral vascular insufficiency, pulmonary complications, neurological manifestations, dermatological manifestations, metabolic disorders, and liver problems and found the therapy—whether used alone or as an adjunct to traditional medical therapy—safe, clinically beneficial, and cost effective. In some cases, HBO therapy enhanced drug effectiveness.³

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is finding greater acceptance in treating sports injuries and is believed to enhance performance in competitive athletics. Hyperbaric chambers have been widely used in Russia, East Germany, and other socialist countries. In the West, some professional sports teams have hyperbaric chambers in their training rooms, including the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. However, large-scale scientific studies on the ability of HBO therapy to enhance athletic performance have yet to be carried out.

A typical HBO treatment lasts between 60 and ninety minutes, and the number of treatments given depends on the patient’s medical condition. For example, divers suffering from the bends would normally receive one or two treatments, while an individual with a severe or infected wound may require daily HBO treatments for several weeks.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has several general health benefits:

• It reduces gas embolism. Any free gas trapped in the body will decrease in volume as pressure exerted on it increases. This may allow it to pass through into general blood. This makes HBO therapy especially useful in management of gas embolism and decompression illness among divers.
• Hyperbaric oxygen causes the blood vessels to contract. This can result in the reduction of healing time for burn or crush injuries. At the same time, HBO therapy provides extra oxygen to the blood plasma, so that a net increase in tissue oxygen occurs. This, in turn, promotes healing.
• HBO has an anti-ischemic effect on body tissues. Ischemia occurs when the flow of blood is reduced to a part of the body, which slows the healing process. Hyperbaric oxygen physically dissolves oxygen into plasma. This allows an increase in the quantity of oxygen transferred to the ischemic tissue by the blood, thus promoting healing.
• Oxygen is a powerful antimicrobial. Anaerobic bacteria (or bacteria that thrive in a low-oxygen environment) do not contain natural defenses to protect them from superoxides, peroxides, and other compounds formed in the presence of high oxygen tension. Many of the body’s defense mechanisms are dependent on oxygen, and when tissue pO₂ [oxygen partial pressure] drops too low, effective infection-fighting mechanisms are retarded. By reoxygenating those body tissues, we allow the body’s defense mechanisms to function at an optimal level once more.
• Oxygen promotes the formation of new blood cells. Our body’s defense mechanisms (such as the “oxidative burst”) are necessary for the formation of white blood cells, which kill bacteria and produce collagen, a protein that helps heal wounds. When hypoxia (or oxygen starvation) is reversed by HBO therapy, these body processes are enhanced.⁴

HBO AND OXIDATIVE THERAPIES

Because side-by-side clinical comparisons between oxidative and HBO therapies are difficult to come by, Dr. Bocci has attempted to compare the effectiveness of both hyperbaric oxygen therapy and ozone therapy in treating specific health problems. Based on his personal experience, he believes that HBO therapies excel in treating arterial gas embolism, decompression sickness, severe carbon monoxide poisoning, severe anemia due to blood loss, and clostridial myonecrosis (gas gangrene). Ozone therapy is not effective or its effectiveness has not been determined regarding these health problems.

By contrast, Bocci believes that ozone therapy has “good activity” in treating compromised skin grafts and flaps, radiation damage, refractory osteomyelitis, necrotizing fasciitis, traumatic ischemic injury, thermal burns, chronic ulcers, and failures in wound healing; it is also helpful in preventing osteoradionecrosis. The effectiveness of HBO therapy with these diseases is considered minimal. Dr. Bocci also believes that ozone therapy is more effective in treating senility and chronic fatigue syndrome than is hyperbaric oxygen therapy.⁵

Although HBO therapy is worthy of deeper consideration, it will not be included in the scope of our discussion in this book. For a comprehensive book on the subject, consult Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy by Richard A. Neubauer, M.D., and Morton Walker, D.P.M. (see the resources—appendix 2, here).

During their groundbreaking research at Baylor University in Texas during the 1960s, scientists discovered that many of the positive effects of HBO therapy could be reproduced or enhanced through the therapeutic use of hydrogen peroxide, resulting in much lower treatment cost. Similar findings have been discovered with ozone therapy; both therapies are easily available in a traditional medical setting and to patients living in developing countries or in other areas where expensive hyperbaric oxygen chambers are rarely found.

OXYGEN MULTISTEP THERAPY

Oxygen multistep therapy (O₂MT) was developed by Dr. Manfred von Ardenne (1907–1997), a German researcher and inventor known for his pioneering work in the development of television technology, electron microscopy, scanning microscopy, and isotope separation.

In the 1960s, von Ardenne met the Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburg several times. As mentioned earlier in this book, Dr. Warburg believed that the key precondition for the development of cancer was a lack of oxygen at the cellular level. Inspired by Warburg’s research, von Ardenne decided to explore how oxygen and other natural modalities could be used in cancer therapy. He developed a treatment he called “systemic cancer multistep therapy” or sCMT. His protocol utilized whole-body hypothermia, induced hyperglycemia, and oxygen enrichment of the blood in addition to traditional cancer treatment.

During the 1970s von Ardenne began suffering from extreme fatigue. Although his doctors could not provide a clear diagnosis or effective treatment, von Ardenne decided to inhale pure oxygen several times a day. Within a week he reportedly regained his health and energy. This resulted in the development of oxygen multistep therapy, popularly known as exercising with oxygen therapy or EWOT. He explored this therapy in great detail in his textbook Oxygen Multistep Therapy: Physiological and Technical Foundations (Thieme, 1990). Dr. von Ardenne’s clinic, which closed in 2000, claimed that some hundred thousand people utilized this therapy in German-speaking countries alone.⁶

Proponents of EWOT point out that during periods of strenuous exercise—such as long-distance running or competitive cycling—the body utilizes more oxygen than it receives from the air.⁷ EWOT is designed to reverse this imbalance. While EWOT is viewed as a medical therapy in Germany, it is not approved as such in the United States, Canada, or Australia. Because medical claims cannot be made for EWOT in these countries, it is considered primarily an exercise modality.

The most important feature of EWOT is the targeted, time-restricted, and controlled oxygen supply that is inhaled, often during exercise at home, at a gym, or at a clinic with a stationary bike, elliptical machine, or treadmill. Oxygen is provided by a special oxygen concentrator that removes nitrogen from the ambient air, providing between 92 percent and 97 percent pure oxygen to the user. As a result, the body is believed to increase its intake of oxygen, resulting in higher amounts of oxygen dissolved in blood (pO₂ levels). This is believed to result in improved mental clarity, increased energy, and a strengthened immune system. A total EWOT package, which includes an oxygen concentrator, face mask with nasal cannula, bubble humidifier, and tubing, begins at $1,000 and is available from a wide number of online companies that sell EWOT equipment.