scubadoc Ten Foot Stop

After 5 highly successful events in previous years, Los Angeles will host HBOT2008 and this years’ event promises to be the best ever!

We are making early contact in order to allow you every opportunity to participate and showcase your organization.

In July, we have organized a perfect venue in the right location where there will be the greatest gathering of the world’s most highly respected and open-minded doctors of HBOT who continually seek innovative treatment for their patients. Over 3 days, several topics will be discussed including cerebral palsy, Lyme Disease, Spinal Cord Injury, Autism, Alzheimer, Stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, Near Drowning, Traumatic Brain Injury, Coma and Anoxic Encephalopathy.

There will be a vast number of influential and decision making delegates from specialist centers in attendance including neurologists, pediatricians, neonatologists, perinatologists, physical therapists, physiastricts, orthapedic surgeons, care takers, coma recovery and all other disability groups. Any exhibitor involved in helping patients during any rehabilitation or ongoing treatment should consider showcasing their products at HBOT2008.

As an exhibitor, the following options are currently available.

i) Table top ($1,000) ii) Deluxe Booth 10 x 10 ($1,800) iii) Super Deluxe Booth 10 x 20 ($3,600)

We also have a comprehensive range of sponsorship opportunities available, as there are numerous activities occurring in between the conference speaking times during the 3 day event. These can be checked out at http://www.hbot2008.com/sponsorship_opportunities.php

The event web site has just been posted, so please check it out at www.hbot2008.com for more detailed information.

I will follow up soon to qualify your interest and answer any questions.

Regards,

Sharon Phillips

I occasionally get requests for a download of my web site, Diving Medicine Online. This is a very large amount of material to download - so I’ve condensed the web site into an outline in PDF form that is clickable and will send you to the updated web pages. This is called Diving Medicine Online Sitebook and can be accessed at http://scuba-doc.com/DMSitebook.pdf .

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ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2007) — No human can survive longer than a few minutes underwater, and even a well-trained Olympic swimmer needs frequent gulps of air. Our brains need a constant supply of oxygen, particularly during exercise.

Contrast that with Weddell seals, animals that dive and hunt under the Antarctic sea ice. They hold their breath for as long as 90 minutes, and remain active and mentally alert the whole time. The seals aren’t fazed at all by low levels of oxygen that would cause humans to black out. What’s their secret?

Certain animals–including dolphins, whales and sea otters–appear to be protected by elevated levels of oxygen-carrying proteins in their brains, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, led by Terrie Williams, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. The team measured and compared the amounts of these complex oxygen-carrying proteins–called globins–in the cerebral cortex of 16 different mammalian species. The results suggest that some species have evolved the capacity to protect their brains from conditions of low oxygen, also called hypoxia.
“What was remarkable was the level of variability we found,” said Williams. “Some animals had three to 10 times more neuroprotecting type globins than others. These wild species may hold many clues about how to turn on protective mechanisms in the mammalian brain.”

The discovery could have important implications for understanding stroke and aging in humans, according to Williams. It’s not yet clear whether animals of a particular species are born with high amounts of brain globins, or whether their behavior and environment stimulate the production of globins. But in either case, the amounts appear to be malleable. That’s promising, she said, because if globin production could be boosted in humans, then brain damage due to disease or aging could potentially be minimized.

For more about this go to
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071218192033.htm
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2007) — It may not rank among the top 10 causes of death, but decompression sickness can be fatal. Instead of waiting for symptoms to appear, a University of Houston professor is developing a laser-based system that can diagnose the sickness in a matter of seconds.

Kirill Larin, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering, is using a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Navy to develop the first optical non-invasive tool to test those most likely to suffer from decompression sickness, such as scuba divers, submariners and airplane pilots. Decompression sickness affects those who experience sudden, drastic changes in the air or water pressure surrounding their bodies. It can cause anything from joint pain – known as the bends – to seizure, stroke, coma and, in the most extreme cases, death.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071112163613.htm

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ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2007) — Swimmers and scuba divers can improve their swimming endurance and breathing capacity through targeted training of the respiratory muscles, researchers at the University at Buffalo have shown.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070118094155.htm

In this pioneering work, subjects who followed a resistance-breathing training protocol (breathing load) improved their respiratory muscle strength and their snorkel swimming time by 33 percent and underwater scuba swimming time by 66 percent, compared to their baseline values. Participants randomized to a similar protocol requiring high respiratory flow rates (endurance) improved their respiratory endurance and surface and underwater swimming times by 38 percent and 26 percent, respectively.

The group randomized to a placebo training program, conducted with the same equipment and protocol, showed no significant improvement in respiratory or swimming performance.

Results of the study, conducted in UB’s Center for Research and Education in Special Environments (CRESE) appeared in the December online issue of the European Journal of Applied Physiology and will appear in print next month.

Undersea Hyperb Med. 2007 May-Jun;34(3):169-80.Links

Comment in:

Undersea Hyperb Med. 2007 May-Jun;34(3):145-6.

Resistive respiratory muscle training improves and maintains endurance swimming performance in divers.

Lindholm P, Wylegala J, Pendergast DR, Lundgren CE.

Center for Research and Education in Special Environments, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA.

Respiratory work is increased during exercise under water and may lead to respiratory muscle fatigue, which in turn can compromise swimming endurance. Previous studies have shown that respiratory muscle training, conducted five days per week for four weeks, improved both respiratory and fin swimming endurance. This training (RRMT-5) consisted of intermittent vital capacity breaths (twice/minute) against spring loaded breathing valves imposing static and resistive loads generating average inspiratory pressures of approximately 40 cmH2O and expiratory pressures of approximately 47 cmH2O. The purpose of the present study (n = 20) was to determine if RRMT 3 days per week (RRMT-3) would give similar improvements, and if continuing RRMT 2 days per week (RRMT-M) would maintain the benefits of RRMT-3 in fit SCUBA divers. Pulmonary function, maximal inspiratory (P(insp)) and expiratory pressures (P(exp)), respiratory endurance (RET), and surface and underwater (4 fsw) fin swimming endurance were determined prior to and after RRMT, and monthly for 3 months. Pulmonary function did not significantly improve after either RRMT-3 or RMMT-5; while P(insp) (20 and 15%) and P(exp) (25 and 11%), RET (73 and 217%), surface (50 and 33%) and underwater (88 and 66%) swim times improved. VO2, VE and breathing frequency decreased during the underwater endurance swims after both RRMT-3 and RRMT-5. During RRMT-M P(insp) and P(exp) and RET and swimming times were maintained at post RRMT-3 levels. RRMT 3 or 5 days per week can be recommended to divers to improve both respiratory and fin swimming endurance, effects which can be maintained with RRMT twice weekly.

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ScienceDaily (Jan. 5, 2008) — In America, helium is running out of gas.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080102093943.htm

The element that lifts things like balloons and provides us divers with a nitrogen narcosis safe diluent for deep diving (Heliox) is being depleted so rapidly in the world’s largest storage reserve, outside of Amarillo, Texas, that supplies are expected to be depleted there within the next eight years.

There is a larger impact on science and technology, reported by Science Daily, quoting Lee Sobotka, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Helium’s use in science is extremely broad, but its most important use is as a coolant,” said Sobotka, a specialist in nuclear chemistry and physics who collaborates with researchers at several national laboratories.

Generally the larger users of helium (He), such as the national laboratories, have the infrastructure to efficiently use and recycle helium, Sobotka said. The same cannot be said of many smaller scale users.

Helium plays a role in nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectroscopy, welding, fiber optics and computer microchip production, among other technological applications. NASA uses large amounts annually to pressurize space shuttle fuel tanks and divers use it as a safer choice for deep diving.

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HBOT has been known to cause visual changes, usually causing nearsightedness. Experimental studies using prolonged HBOT have been shown to cause cataracts - but the usual maximum number of treatments rarely is greater than 60-75 in the US. In the UHMS journal for 2007, Vol. 34, No. 6, there is a report from the University of Cincinnati by Gesell and Trott of the first case of a patient developing bilateral nuclear cataracts eight weeks after undergoing 48 treatments. Other causes of cataract formation were excluded. The authors state the case identifies the need to further investigate the ocular effects of HBOT as regards cataract formation and/or progression.

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Undercurrent — Consumer Reporting for
the Scuba Diving Community since 1975
www.undercurrent.org