Plagas de importancia primaria

In Chapter 4 we described the chemical process through which mitochondria extract energy from food sources and store it in adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Oxygen is a key component in this function that powers each cell, every tissue, every organ, and every system in your body.

Because of oxygen's life-sustaining role for cells and indeed all life, scientists began to explore the use of oxygen as a therapeutic tool in the late 1700s. In 1798, Thomas Beddoes, an English physician, founded the Pneumatic Institution, where inhaled oxygen was offered as a treatment for a variety of diseases. But not until 150 years later did researchers realize that the real gift of oxygen therapy occurs when it is administered in a closed environment in which the pressure can be increased.

Administering oxygen in this fashion is called hyperbaric oxygen, and it first found its way into clinical medicine in 1956 when hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) began to be used quite effectively after heart surgery. Soon thereafter, the Western medical community explored the application of HBOT in a wide variety of clinical areas. They extolled the virtues of this new therapy, stating that it worked, fundamentally, by enhancing mitochondrial function.

Organizations formed to help clinicians study the new technology and share experiences. Divers benefitted substantially from HBOT because it alleviates injuries caused by a buildup of nitrogen in the blood after ascending from deep water too quickly. Soon, Cutting-Edge clinicians founded the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, which, in 1967, developed HBOT protocols for the treatment of numerous diseases from radiation injury to infected bones to diabetic skin ulcers.

But it has only been in the last decade that the depth of the potential for HBOT in enhancing brain function has started to become apparent. With the understanding that brain function is so highly dependent upon optimal mitochondrial function, the idea of implementing HBOT in

protocols has been seized upon by many forward-looking neuroscientists. Delivering life- sustaining and energy-producing oxygen under pressure has been described as "potentially the most powerful brain enhancing technology of the 21st century."11 recall the late Richard Neubauer, who pioneered the use of hyperbaric medicine in brain disorders, stating on many occasions that the future of neurology is hyperbaric medicine, and the future of hyperbaric medicine is neurology.

Clearly, Dr. Neubauer was prescient. Studies from around the globe demonstrate that indeed the brain responds favorably to HBOT: benefits are now documented for patients with Parkinson's, stroke, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, carbon monoxide poisoning, traumatic brain injuries, and many more brain disorders.

HBOT is on the leading edge of 21st-century medical technology. And, yet, it provides the perfect complement to ancient spiritual practices developed by shamans centuries ago. To emphasize again, hyperbaric oxygen therapy empowers mitochondria to energize the brain. It is as if a light switch inside the brain is suddenly flipped to the on position. This is why we employ HBOT, along with specific neuronutrients and fasting, as an integral part of our intensive prevention and recovery programs—with great success.

When mitochondrial function is enhanced, the brain immediately transforms itself into a far more perceptive system, opening the door for you to benefit from a far deeper experience when you immerse yourself in spiritual practices.

Alberto: 20 Feet Under

When I was young, I used to go diving frequently. Having been born and raised on a Caribbean island (Cuba), I was often in the ocean and felt as comfortable in the weightless underwater environment as I did on dry land. So when David first invited me to try out the HBOT chamber, I was certain I would feel at ease in the pressurized environment. I knew that under 1.5 atmospheres of pressure (equivalent to being 17 feet under water) cells receive as much as 20 times more oxygen than is normally available to them. This is because the normal oxygen transport system in the blood, hemoglobin, is easily saturated. But under 1.5 atmospheres, blood plasma becomes an oxygen transporter.

David's invitation came at a perfect time because I had been under a tremendous amount of stress. In the last seven weeks, I had been lecturing in Australia, Germany, and several U.S. cities. My body wasn't sure anymore whether it wanted to eat or sleep, and I could literally use a "breath of fresh air."

The HBOT chamber is an acrylic plastic tube with a narrow bed inside. As the nurse helped me onto the gurney and pushed me into the chamber, the thought crossed my mind that I was entering a fishbowl. Soon, with a whoosh, oxygen filled the chamber, and along with it came the familiar feeling of descending into the depths. Yet unlike scuba diving, where you breathe compressed air, I would be breathing 100 percent oxygen for the next hour. I focused on taking deep, rhythmic breaths, even though my system demanded very little oxygen because I was at rest. I wanted to make sure to get as much oxygen into every one of my brain cells as I could!

While David had a thriving practice and an international reputation for his work with patients suffering from degenerative brain disorders, I was interested in exploring optimal brain function. I knew that David had a strong interest in prevention and that a number of his patients with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's in their families actually came once or twice yearly for HBOT as a preventive measure.

After a few minutes, I began to practice mental gymnastics. I have never been very good at math and tried to do some complex arithmetic, to no avail. Definitely the "math centers" in my brain were not getting any benefit from the enriched atmosphere. But after a few more

minutes, I noticed that I was able to recall the telephone numbers my family had when I was six years old, as well as our street address, even though I had not thought of these facts in many years. Long-term memory recall seemed great. I could imagine neurons that had lain dormant for decades beginning to fire, awash in life-sustaining oxygen. Yet, long-term memory is not lost as a result of aging. What is lost most commonly is short-term recall. I have a notoriously bad memory for names, but I never forget a face or the stories that people tell me. Yet, with all my recent traveling, I was having a difficult time sorting out whom I had met in which of the cities I had been in over the last few weeks. So I began to reconstruct my itinerary city by city, meeting by meeting, talk by talk, and I found that I recalled them effortlessly, picturing them in great detail that even included the smell of rain in London. This was beginning to get interesting.

I had to consciously focus on taking deep, regular breaths because my oxygen-saturated body hardly needed any of this stuff to perform its survival functions. Next, I wanted to test episodic memory recall. Episodic memory refers to recalling a time, a place, and the feelings experienced; it is, in a sense, like traveling back in time and reexperiencing events. I knew that it was easy to do this with emotionally charged memories, as I remembered many of my patients reminiscing about all the times when they wished they had done things differently in the past, as well as a few times I would like to have done things differently myself. While all of these emotionally charged memories were readily available to me, I chose to focus on my childhood. I could easily revisit events of my past and recall feelings of that moment—when my dog was hit by a car, or when I went swimming in the ocean at the age of five and my cousin cried, "Shark!" and I breathlessly got out of the water.

Yet, there was a period of my childhood, between the years of eight and ten, of which I had very little recall. Because I had lucid recall of most other times, I suspected that I must have suffered some kind of trauma for my mind to block out these years. I could feel my heart racing as I decided to try to pry open these gates of memory that lay locked in my subconscious.

I recalled my grandmother and imagined myself with her. My grandmother had always been a solid presence in our home, even during the tumultuous times of the Cuban Revolution, when there was fighting in the streets and a great deal of family bloodshed. Soon, to my surprise, I felt tears running down my cheek. I recalled the fear I had felt as a child, knowing that militiamen could come at any time and take my parents away. Yet, I was witnessing that time as a grown man, observing the frightened child sitting on his grandmother's lap. Both of us were there, and I spoke softly to the boy and told him that he would be okay, that nothing would happen to him or his loved ones.

At the end of my HBOT session, I mentioned to David how important it was for me to remain alert and breathing deeply in that oxygen-rich atmosphere, instead of watching a movie or going to sleep, as many other patients did, which would reduce the amount of oxygen intake into the system. And I decided that, for the next session, I would attempt even more complex tasks under the influence of pure oxygen.