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An Israeli doctor claims to have made physical changes in human blood cells that “reverse” aging using oxygen therapy.
Shai Efrati reported in a peer-reviewed journal article that his research group’s 60-day therapy stretched telomeres, the structures found at the ends of chromosomes, by an average of more than a fifth.
He claims this represents a “Holy Grail” in the battle against aging. However, some other doctors have reservations and are worried that it could open a Pandora’s box that could end up causing health problems.
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“We try to address aging with exercise and diet changes, but that only slows the decline,” Efrati told the Times of Israel. “We are showing that we can actually turn back the biological clock and improve the quality of blood cells. This means that we can begin to see aging as a reversible disease. ”
The Tel Aviv University associate professor said that in the near future large numbers of people could sign up for the therapy he administered to the subjects in his process: a course of sessions in a pressurized or hyperbaric chamber, breathing pure oxygen for some of the the weather.
A hyperbaric chamber that uses the Efrati anti-aging Shai protocol. (courtesy of the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine)
The non-profit Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Shamir Medical Center near Rishon Lezion, which he directs, offers its oxygen protocol to businesses outside of Israel. It is sold at the Aviv Clinic in a retirement village in Florida, which offers it as an answer to aging. Efrati is the clinic’s medical consultant.
An illustration of the telomeres. (FancyTapis via Getty Images iStock)
Some other doctors say claims should be treated with caution.
“I am skeptical that a single manipulation can reverse aging, a complicated process with many factors,” geriatrician Yoram Maaravi, who is not related to the research, told the Times of Israel.
He said telomeres are widely believed to be one of several factors that impact aging, not a single factor, the change of which can simply go back in time. And he said it’s too early in telomere study to make bold decelerations that elongation will tackle aging, as much of the knowledge today consists of inferences for humans drawn from mouse studies.
Maaravi, chief physician at Hadassah Medical Center’s geriatric rehabilitation department and head of home rehabilitation in Jerusalem for the Clalit health fund, also said that if oxygen therapy is actually lengthening telomeres, it could be a development that backfires. since so little is still known about them. “Once we see the elongated telomeres it is with cancer,” he said. “Cancer cells have an enzyme that can stretch them and we have to be very careful about manipulating nature.”
Efrati reported that, in addition to lengthening telomeres, his therapy led to a decrease in senescent cells, whose population is thought to be related to the onset of various diseases.
Maaravi said the impact of shrinking these cells is not sufficiently understood to be the basis of a claim to address aging. “Will removing senescent cells reduce aging?” churches. “We do not know yet.”
Professor Shai Efrati of the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Shamir Medical Center (courtesy of the Sagol Center)
Efrati’s new study was written after he recruited 35 people over the age of 64 and took blood samples. He then gave some of them a 60-day course of treatment, during which they spent periods in a hyperbaric chamber, breathing pure oxygen for some time.
In a study published in July, he said the therapy improves cognitive function. In the latest research, he looked at telomeres, which are like protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. They lengthen with age, and some studies indicate that their length can affect the pace of physical aging and the onset of age-associated diseases.
He excluded results for nine of his participants from his telomere analysis, five because they didn’t meet baseline ratings and four because their blood samples were of low quality. For the senescent cell analysis he excluded 15 participants, five because they did not meet the baseline ratings and 10 because their blood samples were of low quality.
Among the other study participants, there was an increase in telomere length, on average by more than 20 percent, and a reduction in senescent cells on a similar scale, Efrati reported.
“Researchers around the world are trying to develop pharmacological and environmental interventions that allow telomere elongation,” Efrati said. “Our hyperbaric oxygen therapy protocol was able to achieve this by showing that the aging process can actually be reversed at the basic cellular-molecular level.”
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