The latest newsletter from the Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment Trust is now available and can be downloaded from our website at the above link.
The latest newsletter includes information on the benefits of Oxygen Therapyfor cluster headaches. A segment of the newsletter which details how oxygen therapy increases the flow of oxygen through the body’s blood supply can be found below…
“Does giving more oxygen at increased pressure increase blood pressure?
Although oxygen controls blood flow by constricting blood vessels – which would suggest that BP would rise breathing a higher concentration, it also controls cardiac output which falls with the increased oxygen level.
At 2 ATA breathing 100% oxygen cardiac output falls by 20% and this, of course, applies both to the right and left sides of the circulation – the right ventricle pumping into the lungs and the left everywhere else.
However, because of the increase of oxygen dissolved in plasma – typically from 100 mm Hg breathing air to 1000 mm Hg at 2 ATA breathing 100% oxygen, the gradient for the transfer of oxygen from blood into the tissues is improved – obviously by a factor of 10.
So giving more oxygen is the only way to reduce blood flow and yet improve oxygen delivery because the gradient for oxygen transport to cells increases in direct proportion to the dissolved oxygen concentration.
Apprehension does increase blood pressure – and of course many people are initially afraid of “Going Under Pressure” because they – and this includes doctors – do not realise we live “under pressure” from gravity pulling the gases of the atmosphere on to the surface of the Earth.”