Following is the body of a letter sent to Dr. Harch describing our experience with ‘short cycle’ HBOT and its effect on stem cell therapy. There are open questions about the therapeutic benefit from higher numbers of stem cells but the raw numbers are interesting. I have edited the original letter for clarity and brevity.

Dr. Harch:

Remember the discussion we had about doing three short dives in the time taken for a single 45 minute dive, reproducing the Russian experience?  Beverly mentioned our conversation to a friend in one of the brain injury groups and, unknown to us, they tried it.  They would pressure up to 1.3ATA for 10-12 minutes then vent to ~1.1ATA then pressure up again.  Sometimes they did three cycles (~45 minutes) sometimes four cycles (~1 hour).

They have been for stem cells three times.  Same doctor.  Same protocol.  Very different results –

1)            HBOT before stem cells – 40 dives/1.5ATA/100% O2/45 min –  400-500 million adipose tissue stem cells.

2)            No HBOT before stem cells – 280 million adipose tissue stem cells.

3)            HBOT before stem cells – 40dives/1.3ATA/Room Air/Modified ‘quick cycle’ protocol described above – 800 million adipose tissue stem cells.

With Robert we have the following results.  Same doctor.  Same protocol. –

1)            HBOT before stem cells – 26 dives/1.3ATA/Room Air/45 min – 44 million bone marrow stem cells.

2)            HBOT before stem cells – 8 dives/1.3ATA/Room Air/45 min – 25 million bone marrow stem cells.

3)            HBOT before stem cells – 29 dives/1.3ATA/Room Air +/’Quick Cycle’ 0.0-1.3ATA, Hold at 1.3ATA for 10min, 3 cycles per dive – 53 million bone marrow stem cells.