Professional athletes, Olympic athletes and those serious-minded athletes who seek to enhance their operation often train at mountain resorts where thin air, less oxygen, demands strenuous training to attain desired results. Indeed, high altitude visits has established its prominence in farranging conditioning and durability but also has applications for asthmatic patients and those individuals with illnesses having an basal allergic component as well as disorders unrelated to allergy. While trips to high altitude resorts for extended periods may be impractical for most people, simulated exposures to the low pressure of high altitude in an altitude chamber merits serious notice and the availability of these chambers is thinkable, to growth over the next decade.
A brief review of the history of simulated high altitude as a therapy and for conditioning is in order. In the early 1950s the scientist Solco W. Tromp, Ph.D., a Dutch geologist by training and co-founder of the prestigious International society of Biometeorology (biometeorology.org - 1956), made a consuming observation. He noted that children with asthma were relieved of their symptoms whenever they skied downhill but not cross country. As a scientist he wondered if this simple notice could be verified under controlled clinical conditions. For this purpose he retrofitted altitude chambers imported from Germany and in cooperation with the medical school and hospital in Leiden, The Netherlands conducted explore that lasted more than 30 years and is today documented with 41 papers by Tromp in the Medline index of the PubMed archives of the National Library of Medicine. A link with reference to Tromp's basic protocol is in case,granted below. This does not take into catalogue the numerous out of print books and texts Tromp authored on the pioneering science of Biometeorology. His prolific contributions to the literature of condition and science are best appreciated by entering his name, as S.W. Tromp, in amazon.com (books), used.addall.com and the Google search engine. Nevertheless, as with many non-medical, non-surgical therapeutic modalities Tromp's work went largely ignored by preparation treatment which advocated then as now pharmacological-researched therapy.
Although ordinarily known as altitude chambers they are more appropriately called hypobaric (low pressure) chambers. Hypobaric chambers should not be confused with the more widely utilized hyperbaric (high pressure) chambers. When compared, hypobaric exposure simulates ascending in an airplane while hyperbaric exposure simulates descending in a submarine requiring oxygen administration and both chambers have similar yet distinct physiologic benefits for users. The late F. Joseph Whelan, M.D., a clinician connected with the hypobaric technology, coined the term "cellular calisthenics" to review the effects of controlled pressure exposures on cells. As a result of the general aging process, disease or injury some cellular workings diminish while adjacent cells function sufficiently to retain life. When all cells are simultaneously stressed by prescribed pressure and/or climatic characteristic changes they respond or enhance their roles by re-establishing general expansion-contraction of their membranous cell walls to inaugurate and enhance metabolic functions that comprise respiration, circulation, digestion, assimilation, reproduction, urination etc. This process is concept common to both the hypobaric and hyperbaric chamber sojourns and since cellular improvement results from prescribed pressure changes the conditioning and therapeutic applications are theoretically far reaching.
This writer has no experience with hyperbaric chambers or hyperbaric oxygenation protocols and nothing written added should be construed to pertain to its uses.
Whelan's law of "cellular calisthenics," in collaboration with this writer, takes on its most significance with the fact that the human body is composed of 75 trillion cells fluctuating from the simplest epithelial cells to very specialized organ cells. While each cell performs its metabolic functions the cell's most prominent process is the output of adenosine triphosphate (Atp) that immediately breaks down to adenosine diphosphate (Adp) to release power which is defined as "The quality to do work." As cells enhance their function "to do work" the realization becomes apparent that cells collectively comprise tissues which make up organs that in turn comprise systems and finally systems that function to capacity in fact enhance their "interface of interdependence" for maximum efficiency. It follows that immunologic function improves as does the administration of stressful demands. Whelan added believed that with principal objective improvement (based on the PubMed archived Tromp protocol expressed in the paper, "Influence of weather and climate on asthma and bronchitis," http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5702098 ) a trial of antibiotic therapy would help the metabolic function of urination (bacteria reduction) and Applied Kinesiology (Ak) testing and techniques could accurately monitor the efficacy of this trial.
The effects on human physiology at high altitude are unique since wholesome athletes and individuals with varying conditions advantage from its exposure either simulated or natural. As an example, the natural parallel to hypobaric usage would occur on the Hawaiian island of Maui where an personel would start at sea level then drive up the inactive volcano Mt. Haleakala (a tourist attraction), remain at its summit of 10,000 feet (3048 meters) for one full hour then drive back down to sea level. This is a very safe policy that has no harmful effects for most tourists who tour this journey daily. The first observable physiological change occurs pre and post sojourn measurements of urinary pH with a post shift to the alkaline right. personel diets can occasionally affect this finding.
In high altitude physiology, either simulated or natural, oxygen availability decreases. This decrease in oxygen reflexively stimulates the kidneys to growth their general output of the human growth hormone erythropoeitin, Epo. Artificial Epo is an invaluable therapy for the dialysis patient but Epo has been unscrupulously administered by prescribing physicians in what is now ordinarily known as "blood doping" to maximize athletic performance.
Overall conditioning and durability enhance when raised Epo levels migrate to the long bones (arms and legs) to stimulate added output of red blood cells (Rbcs) from bone marrow. These Rbcs then circulate to the lungs to enhance pulmonary function thus resulting in chest wall expansion and an increased transport of Rbcs throughout the body. This phenomenon has such therapeutic and conditioning implications that it is nothing short of being termed a "biological classic" that has yet to be fully realized and appreciated. It is fine that Epo output is increased naturally up to 50 times with chamber usage and more than a thousand times by its Artificial administration.
The major difference between visits to a high altitude resort and hypobaric chamber exposures is that with the old after a short duration of time the body only acclimates to the atmospheric altitude pressure change while with chamber exposures "cellular calisthenics" occurs manufacture it analogous to a regimented exercise routine. By a series of innovative experiments Tromp proved that these repeated exposures resulted in principal corrections and what appeared to be cures in some patients.
During his lifetime of explore Tromp finished that hypobaric exposures became optimally therapeutic with a prescribed pressure simulating 8200 feet (2500 meters) for one full hour duration three or four times a week until a minimum of 50 sojourns to an optimal 100 sojourns was accomplished. For those rare patients unable to tolerate this pressure or where otherwise contraindicated Tromp realized that pressure simulating 5000 feet (1524 meters) in case,granted a minimal therapeutic threshold. Pressure below 5000 feet was of no conditioning or therapeutic value while that above 8200 feet prepared mountain climbers and personnel complicated in aerospace programs to tolerate the significantly lower pressure of higher altitudes.
The noted scientist and philanthropist Mr. Shelley Krasnow, founder and president of Georator Corporation, is singlehandedly credited for importing this technology to the United States. His second medical paper indexed in PubMed entitled, "Geographic patterns of large intestine and rectal malignancy mortality in Virginia," ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5528099 ) was preceded by his equally consuming analysis in the explore paper, "Physiological chilling as a potential factor in mortality from neoplasia" that paralleled the work of Tromp and resulted in a close personal friendship that lasted until Tromp's passing. This writer is honored and privileged to have worked closely with Shelley Krasnow from 1982 until his untimely death in 1989 and still maintains the protocols established by Tromp.
As a final concept the cases of my first two patients who completed and in fact exceeded the chamber protocol is offered to elaborate the diversity of patients/clients who can be helped with this conditioning procedure. The first complicated a divorced 28 year old female without children whose chief complaint was progressive unilateral upper and lower extremity weakness. Objective test confirmed her complaint which failed to respond to conservative chiropractic management. A neurological consult was ordered with a suspected impression of potential demyelenating disease as the cause for her symptoms. As neither Cat nor Mri scans were effortlessly ready (1982) she elected to decline any invasive confirmatory policy instead opting to try the chamber conditioning protocol. As the sessions increased in whole her symptoms very moderately improved which inspired her to seek added complementary therapies. These included acupuncture, Applied Kinesiology (Ak), homeopathy and lifestyle changes that when integrated continued to enhance her condition. Today she is fully functional, gainfully employed, but on occasion experiences minimal to moderate discomforts.
In the second case a young man who served in the navy as an aircraft carrier jet mechanic continued this vocation into civilian life. It was while working for a major airline in Chicago years later that he and a colleague serviced an aircraft on the tarmac at night in subzero weather. Both men collapsed on the job and were rushed to the Er for estimate where a analysis of sudden onset of asthma was established. They were treated accordingly. When this personel became my patient for non-related musculoskeletal complaints I recommend a trial in the chamber which he effortlessly agreed to pursue. Within a short duration subjective and objective pulmonary improvements became evident. He had always maintained consultation with his pulmonologist until he ultimately relocated to Hawaii where I'm sure he's a regular and frequent visitor to Mt. Haleakala.
Not unlike my predecessors I have often tried and failed to originate interest within the medical arts society to this simple technology. But it seems that well meaning docs are more concerned in maintaining their own specialized turf than referring patients to trial a new but safe procedure. And so I'm left to fantasize if victims of such catastrophes as Gulf War Syndrome, Legionnaires' Disease or respiratory disorders afflicting first responders to the 9/11 horrors could have been saved by a technology that succeeds with clinically verifiable outcomes. I surmise expert athletes in their quest to legally attain the competing edge will be first on line to embrace hypobaric chamber conditioning.
do you agree An Overlooked Conditioning Technique May benefit Asthmatic Sufferers do you agree
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