Health Farm

-- Scientists claim to have successfully reversed the biological aging process in a group of elderly adults

Could we be about to witness a pre-Christmas run on build-your-own hyperbaric oxygen chambers?

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have used a form of oxygen therapy to reverse two key indicators of biological aging: telomere length and senescent cells accumulation.

As we age our telomeres shorten, and old, malfunctioning senescent cells proliferate, leading to disease and early death.

The study placed 35 adults over the age of 64 in a pressurised (hyperbaric) chamber, where they breathed pure oxygen for 90 minutes a day, five days a week, for three months.

At the end of the trial, participants’ telomeres had increased in length by an average of 20%, while their senescent cells had been reduced by up to 37% - equivalent to how their bodies were at a cellular level 25 years earlier, researchers said.

Study participants did not undergo any lifestyle, diet, or medication adjustments, which have previously been found to have moderate effects on a person’s biological age.

Scientists credited the results to the pressurised chamber inducing a state of hypoxia, or oxygen shortage, which stimulated cell regeneration.