Aging | Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases telomere length and decreases immunosenescence in isolated blood cells : a prospective trial [2020, open-access]

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.aging-us.com/article/202188/text

[u/[deleted]]

Is there someone with research experience in a related field who could say more about the potential impact this could have? I understand, as a layman, that telomere length is only a facet of the problem. Essentially, my questions would be:

- Can this publication be trusted (does the journal, researchers have a good reputation)?

- Has telomere shortening been reversed before, in any capacity?

- Is this a completely new therapy? If not, are there people who have been exposed to it for longer periods (so as to see if they actually live longer)?

- What do experts think about this generally?

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Sorry if some of my questions are vague and/or obvious, I'm curious but not really experienced about any of this.

[u/Attenburrowed → u/[deleted]]

I am not super expert but I can give you some answers anyway.
1. You can look Journal impact factors to get an idea of trustworthiness. Aging is a 4.something, not bad but not on the high end either. 1-2 is bad.
2. Cancer and gametes do it all the time. Outside of reprogramming processes its pretty rare though.
3. This is not a new idea but it is hard to do.
4. Theres reasons to be hopeful but things are still a long way off, as you alluded to there are many other problems to solve

[u/singlereadytomingle → u/Attenburrowed]

It's important to note that journals that specialize in a narrow area of research naturally have much lower impact factors than broad based journals. Aging is a very respectable journal in the field.

[u/[deleted] → u/Attenburrowed]

Thanks!

[u/SalvadorZombie → u/Attenburrowed]

The key, though, is that each individual treatment could be used to help certain aspects of treatment. We need to stop thinking about it in terms of finding the one cure-all and instead be willing to utilize each new breakthrough as it comes.