“Breathing oxygen at a higher-than-normal air pressure might ease some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, if recent research done in mice has the same results in humans.”

Mice genetically engineered to develop some human features of Alzheimer’s disease showed significant reductions in physical and behavioral symptoms after 2 weeks of daily treatment with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).

This was the result that a team hailing from the University of Tel Aviv (TAU) in Israel reported in a paper that was published recently in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

New research in today’s BMC Pediatrics may give the therapy more credibility as a treatment for autism. The randomized, double-blind controlled study of 62 children found that those who received 40 hours of treatment over a month were less irritable, more responsive when people spoke to them, made more eye contact and were more sociable than kids who didn’t receive it. They were also less sensitive to noise (some autistic children experience a kind of sensory overload from loud sounds and background noise). The most improvement was observed in kids older than five (the study included children ages two to seven) who had milder autism.

“This research is extremely exciting,” notes lead investigator Uri Ashery, a professor in TAU’s Faculty of Life Sciences, “as it explores a new therapy that holds promise as a treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The results showed that, compared with the control mice, HBOT reduced both disease-related plaques and brain inflammation by 40 percent, and it also reduced “behavioral deficits” in the transgenic mice.

The team suggests that the findings show that HBOT shows promise as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, especially given that it “is used in the clinic to treat various indications, including neurological conditions.”

“We assume that the main challenge in human use will be to initiate the treatment at early stages before significant amount of brain tissue is lost.” – Prof. Uri Ashery

Read the full article on Medical News Today here