After being exposed to the pioneering work of hyperbaricist George Hart, MD, at the American Heart Association's (AHA) 65th Scientific Session held in New Orleans on November 16, 1992, the AHA issued a press release praising the use of hyperbaric oxygen to boost emergency treatment for heart attack. It advised medical journalists that hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) as treatment enhances clot-dissolving drugs' ability to minimize heart damage and save the lives of heart attack patients. The addition of HBOT resulted in earlier relief of chest pain and electrocardiogram (ECG) changes toward normal in patients treated with the clot-dissolver, tissue plasminogen activator (TPA). HBOT also tended to preserve more of the heart's blood-pumping capacity, compared to treatment with TPA alone, said Myrvin H. Ellestad, MD, director of research at the Memorial Heart Institute at Long Beach Memorial Medical Centre in Long Beach, California.
 

Laboratory studies have shown that hyperbaric oxygen minimizes cell damage and death by reducing fluid accumulation in the injured cells. "We believe the same thing happens in patients," said Dr. Ellestad. "In heart attacks, sort of the last straw that kills cells is increasing cell water, which finally breaks the cell membrane. We believe hyperbaric oxygen's primary effect in heart attack may be to reduce edema [fluid accumulation] in heart cells." The Long Beach group studied forty-six heart attack patients, twenty-two of whom received only TPA. The remaining twenty-four patients got TPA, followed by two hours of treatment in a hyperbaric chamber. It provided a pure oxygen environment with twice the normal atmospheric pressure (two atmospheres absolute).
 

Patients treated with HBOT felt chest pain relief an average of 271 minutes after the onset of heart attack symptoms, a statistically significant difference compared to the 671 minutes for patients who received only TPA. Dr. Ellestad said patients generally reported an easing of chest pain within ten minutes of entering the hyperbaric chamber. HBO therapy reduced by 50 percent the time required for the heart to resume normal electrical activity, as determined by an electrocardiogram (ECG) finding called "ST normalization." ("S" and "T" waves are two points on an ECG tracing.) The time was 188 minutes for patients who went into the chamber vs 374 for those who did not.

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Recent studies into HBOT and heart health

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Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can improve heart functionality in healthy aging humans, according to a study by the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Shamir Medical Center in Be’er Ya’acov.

Healthy patients receiving HBOT to improve cognitive function underwent a 60-session treatment course using the Sagol Center’s regenerative HBOT protocols. Using a high-resolution echocardiography, 31 patients were evaluated before HBOT was administered and three weeks after treatment concluded to identify the sustained effect of the treatment.

What the team observed was “an improvement in contractility function of the heart – meaning, the heart muscle contracted more efficiency over the course of the 60-session protocol.” Further research is ongoing.

 

HBOT and heart attacks

Every year, about 805,000 Americans have a heart attack—that’s one every 40 seconds.[1]

A recent study using rats set out to determine if hyperbaric oxygen therapy could reduce necrosis (tissue death) during myocardial ischemia—an event where blood flow to the heart is reduced, often resulting in a heart attack (myocardial infarction).

What the study concluded was that HBOT was shown to improve redox control and reduce mortality in the acute phase of heart attack.