Amyloidosis, Alzheimer's and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Amyloidosis, Alzheimer's disease and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)
Amyloidosis is the accumulation of amyloid beta protein (Aβ) in the brain, forming neuritic plaques and leading to the neuronal toxicity in the central nervous system (CNS) thus causing neurological disfunction.
The most common neurological complications of systemic amyloidosisare disorders of peripheral nerves. Amyloidosis can affect peripheral sensory, motor or autonomic nerves, and deposition of amyloid leads to degeneration and dysfunction in these nerves.
The connection between Amyloidosis and Alzheimer’s Disease:
The predominant theory on the causes of Alzheimer's disease is the one suggesting Amyloidosis, since the Amyloid β protein (Aβ) is the main component of found in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, and its accumulation has been considered as the molecular driver of Alzheimer's pathogenesis and progression. Aβ has been the prime target for the development of AD therapy.
HBOT targets all four of the pathological processes of AD by affecting the microcirculation; mitochondrial dysfunction, and biogenesis; reducing amyloid burden and tau phosphorylation; controlling oxidative stress; and reducing inflammation (Shapira R, et al. 2017).
The group of Israeli scientists led by Dr. Shai Efrati and Amir Hadanny has since early 2000 systematically showing the effect of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) on neuro-regeneration in stroke (reference), traumatic brain injury (Hadanny A et al. 2018, Tal S et al. 2017), Fibromyalgia(reference), as well as healthy aging population (Vadas D et al. 2017, Hadanny A et al. 2020).
In 2019 a Chinese study (Chen L et al. 2007) on 42 patients with Alzheimer Dementia and 11 with mild cognitive impairment showed marked improvement in symptoms after 20 HBOT sessions when compared to 30 control AD patient. Same year Drs.Harch and Fogarty presented a single case of successful 8-week course (40 sessions) (Harch PG et al. 2019) proven by PET imaging. The authors continued to monitor the patient for almost 2 years thereafter and show that continued intermittent HBOT and normobaric oxygen (NBO) in conjunction with standard pharmacotherapy maintained the patient’s symptomatic level of function, suggesting that HBOT could be the long-term therapy of Alzheimer’ Disease.
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