I don’t really have much of a problem with skin… yet. (And us guys tend to have thicker skin than women do, so it lasts a little longer.) But I was wondering the other day about a few things to improve skin. One that I was wondering about was hyperbaric oxygen. It apparently speeds up skin turnover, and I had read it also increases collagen and elastin production. It’s especially useful for speeding up wound healing:
It heals damaged tissue by helping your body grow new skin, blood vessels and connective tissues.
Also:
In contrast, the collagen type III volume fraction was ~120 % higher in HBOT wounds (1.41+/-0.81 %) than in CONT ones (0.63+/-0.37 %; p=0.046). In addition, the ratio of the volume fraction of both collagens in the wound ((I+III)w) to the volume fraction of both collagens in the adjacent healthy skin ((I+III)h) was ~65 % higher in rats subjected to HBOT (8.9+/-3.07 vs. 5.38+/-1.86 %, HBOT and CONT, respectively; p=0.028). Vessels density (number per 1 mm2) was found to be higher in CONT vs. HBOT (206.5+/-41.8 and 124+/-28.2, respectively, p<0.001). Our study suggests that HBOT promotes collagen III formation and decreases the number of newly formed vessels at the early phases of healing.
So it seems to have a huge effect, in rats at least, given a lot of HBOT over a short period of time (18 days). Perhaps it would have noticeable effects in humans if they were to try less than an hour dose for a small number of days.