Sports Training: Hypobaric Chamber Like High Altitude

Yesterday's tennis story in the Wall Street Journal has taken the web by storm. Here come yet more questionable claims about sports training with pressure. But this time, much to our relief, it's a hypo- rather than a hyperbaric chamber in the media spotlight. What's not to like about star athletes and secret egg-shaped pods? Never mind the tennis phenom in question denies using the thing.

Essentially the CVAC pod is a vacuum chamber. The computerized device also employs "a patent-pending methodology that applies rhythm-based changes to pressure, temperature and air." Occupants hope to gain competitive advantage by simulating the lower atmospheric pressure some athletes experience when training at higher altitudes.  

WSJ reporter Hannah Karp plays pretty loose with hypo- and hyper- and references to oxygen. Favorite quote:

In 2006 the World Anti-Doping Agency ruled that such oxygen tents enhance performance and violate "the spirit of sport," but did not add them to the list of banned substances and methods, saying they would wait until further studies were conducted.

Click PLAY to watch the video below. We replicated the collapsing water bottle trick earlier this month, when descending from the High Sierra to the Central Valley of California.

About FDA Clearance and UHMS Approval

Plenty of homework has gone into our new FDA Clearance and UHMS Approval page, which nicely covers the basics of medical device regulation and safety in hyperbaric oxygen therapy today. Many readers familiar with HBOT may also learn for the first time how "approved" diseases and conditions got approved and what "off-label" treatment really means. We could find nothing like this information all in one place on any other website. So we looked to primary sources and pieced the story together ourselves. It's the kind of easy-to-read, carefully researched, and original content you will find on HyperbaricLink and nowhere else in the hyperbaric community. And it's the centerpiece of our new campaign to assure our visitors the information we provide is trustworthy. Whether you're here to learn more about HBOT, research your disease or condition, or find a treatment center, we'll provide helpful facts and links all along the way. All our best for your good health.

CORRECTION: Chronic Wounds and Diabetic Ulcers

Thanks to a reader's comment on our June 20 blogpost, HyperbaricLink's chronic wounds and diabetic ulcers pages now recognize an important distinction in wound classification systems. Pressure ulcers (see chronic wounds) are classified into six stages defined by the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP). Diabetic foot ulcers (see diabetic ulcers) are classified into six grades defined by the Wagner Scale. Our chronic wounds page now explains the pressure ulcer stages, and we have added NPUAP to our list of clinical resources. We are grateful to the reader who spotted our error, and we always welcome your comments, criticisms, and conversations.

HyperbaricLink Welcomes ETC Biomedical Systems

Earlier this week we posted a new, expanded profile for ETC Biomedical Systems in our directory of Hyperbaric Chamber Manufacturers. Environmental Tectonics Corporation (ETC) has been manufacturing hyperbaric chambers for over 40 years, including both monoplace and multiplace chambers currently in use in hundreds of hospitals, outpatient treatment centers, and government facilities in the United States and throughout the world. The company's Bara-Med chambers feature innovative SMOOTH RIDE™ technology for enhanced patient comfort and safety. 

Welcome, ETC, and thank you for your participation in HyperbaricLink. 

We urge all hyperbaric chamber manufacturers and other product and service suppliers to share more information with us, so we can better inform our visitors.

OxyHeal, COMEX Enter Joint Agreement

OxyHeal Health Group (La Jolla, California, USA) and COMEX (Marseilles, France) announced they have entered a joint cooperation agreement. Combined, the two companies bring more than 100 years of experience in naval architecture and engineering and extreme pressure system design, including hypo- and hyperbaric environments for clinical use, for industry, for research, and for undersea and space exploration.

From the 21 August 2011 news release:

“We are extremely pleased to have this agreement and to continue to work with and expand our relationship with our good friends at COMEX. We are very proud of our friendship with COMEX.” said W. T. ‘Ted’ Gurneé, the President & CEO of the OxyHeal Health Group. “With this cooperation agreement, the joint experience and knowledge that both parties can provide their customers far exceeds that of any other individual company or partnerships of companies in the industry and will be of great benefit to our customers – both present and future.”

Read the full news release on PRWeb.

Berkshire Health Moving, Expanding Wound Care

Berkshire Health Systems will relocate its Center for Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine at Berkshire Medical Center (BMC) in Pittsfield and open a second center at Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by October. Each center will operate two chambers. The expansion will help meet the growing demand for hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the South Berkshires, where BMC provides more than 1,600 hyperbaric oxygen treatments a year to nearly 150 patients. Both centers are managed by Diversified Clinical Services.

Read the full story on iBerkshires.com.

How It's Made: Monoplace Hyperbaric Chamber

Today we got our first glimpse into how acrylic-tube hyperbaric chambers are made. HBOTechBlog toured the Sechrist plant in Anaheim, California, and has generously posted an explanatory chart and a gallery of photos and videos. Go check out "Sechrist Hyperbaric Chamber SECRETS Revealed!" Our thanks once more to Roque Wicker, whose blog will soon require an email subscription. Sign up now!

[Photo: HBOTechBlog]

O2.0 is the news blog of HyperbaricLink, the independent web guide to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Brain Cancer: HBOT Combined with Radiation, Chemo

Most every FDA-cleared and UHMS-approved indication for hyperbaric oxygen involves its use as an adjunct, or supplement, to other standard therapies. Yet medical science is just now beginning important research into the potentially harmful and beneficial effects of hyperbaric oxygen in combination with common therapeutics. (See our July 21 post, "Mixing Hyperbaric Oxygen With Other Prescription Drugs.") New studies are exploring the use of HBOT with radio- and chemotherapy in the treatment of malignant glioblastoma, or glioma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer.

Investigators want to know if increasing the oxygen concentration in the tumor might lend standard therapies a boost. Early results show promise. Phase II of a long-term clinical trial in Japan, published March 17 in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics, concludes:

Radiotherapy delivered immediately after HBO with multiagent chemotherapy was safe, with virtually no late toxicities, and seemed to be effective in patients with high-grade gliomas.

Previous studies out of Japan showed similar benefit. Another Phase II study, the first in the US, at the Long Island Brain Tumor Center in Great Neck and Commack, New York, is currently recruiting participants. Learn more about enrolling on ClinicalTrials.gov and read more about this important work in Medical News Today.

O2.0 is the news blog of HyperbaricLink, the independent web guide to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Listening To The Public Health On Twitter

Does anybody hear you when you complain about your health online? Well get a load of "10 Things We Can Learn From Your Health-Related Twitter Rants" by Hans Villarica in The Atlantic. Really it's amazing what Johns Hopkins researchers were able to conclude simply by "listening" to 1.6 million tweets between May 2009 and October 2010. Click through the slideshow to learn about Twitter patterns and key takeaways on the flu, antibiotics, insomnia, Benedryl, allergies, aches and pains, obesity, cancer, and health insurance.

We're not involved in any such exquisite Twitter filtering or extrapolating, but we're huge fans and active users of the service. Just another tool that helps HyperbaricLink bring you the most trustworthy hyperbaric oxygen news on the web.

[Image: Michael J. Paul, Johns Hopkins University]

O2.0 is the news blog of HyperbaricLink, the independent web guide to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Hyperbaric Oxygen as Medical Gas: New Online Journal

We are excited to see Medical Gas Research, a new online journal focused on neurobiology and neurological diseases, join PLoS ONE and other open-access journals designed to ensure fast publication times without sacrificing rigorous peer review. The journal will cover

anesthesiology, hyperbaric oxygen medicine, diving medicine, internal medicine, emergency medicine, surgery, and many basic sciences disciplines such as physiology, pharmacology, biochemistry, microbiology and neurosciences.

Already a search for "hyperbaric" yields 6 articles on stroke, traumatic brain injury, and other neurologic issues. Here's looking forward to more evidence and accelerated hyperbaric medical research in this fascinating and important field.

O2.0 is the news blog of HyperbaricLink, the independent web guide to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Gout: "Disease Of Kings" Gaining Prevalence In US

A new analysis shows that gout today afflicts 8.3 million American adults. The prevalence of this painful disease, which affects far more men (6.1 million) than women (2.2 million), has skyrocketed by 44% in the last two decades. Researchers attribute much of this growth to epidemic rates of obesity (body mass index) and high blood pressure (hypertension). The study was published July 28 in Arthritis & Rheumatism, the journal of the American College of Rheumatology. You will find excellent reports on the Scientific American website and in text and audio on the NPR Shots health blog. In our Diseases and Conditions section we file gout under arthritis, as does the Arthritis Foundation. People with gout usually find relief with common antiinflammation medications that reduce levels of uric acid in the joints. We find no good evidence to recommend hyperbaric oxygen.

[Illustration: 1910 Spanish advertisement, NPR Picture Show blog]

O2.0 is the news blog of HyperbaricLink, the independent web guide to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.