Commotion: Reversing Aging

Misbar has discovered that a new study from Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the Shamir Medical Center in Israel indicates that hyperbaric oxygen treatments (HBOT) in healthy aging adults can stop the aging of blood cells and reverse the aging process. The study involved administering high-pressure oxygen in a pressurized chamber for 90 minutes a day, five times a week for three months. 

The researchers found that the oxygen treatments actually reversed the aging process in two of its major aspects. The most important reversal had to do with telomere length. Telomeres are the caps at the ends of chromosomes that protect DNA from damage. As we age, they get shorter. In the study, the telomeres at the ends of the chromosomes grew longer instead of shorter, at a rate of 20%-38% for the different cell types. According to the study’s author: “Today telomere shortening is considered the 'Holy Grail' of the biology of aging. Researchers around the world are trying to develop pharmacological and environmental interventions that enable telomere elongation.” According to the study, the physical changes after three months were equivalent to how the participants’ bodies were at the cellular level 25 years earlier.

This indicates that we can reverse the aging process. However, the study was extremely small and even though telomere lengths were made longer, it is uncertain how these changes will translate into living more years or visible physical changes.