Yes, not as powerful and more of a time commitment to achieve what a hard shell can (if even possible), but soft shell is great for me. I think it depends on your goals.
As to what John mentioned, I know very little about IHT but it sounds interesting and logical.
I have posted my webpage looking at HIF 1 alpha.
A word of caution for people that are thinking of using HBOT regularly.
That said. HBOT is very useful for certain conditions, such as healing of various types of injuries. But for those purposes it’s used short term. There is no good evidence that long term use over years in otherwise healthy adults is beneficial. I personally wouldn’t use HBOT therapy regularly even if I had a device at home so it would cost me nothing. I would only consider it as needed short term for specific conditions. If much longer term studies on humans show no harm, and lifespan studies are done on rodents showing benefits or at least no significant harm, only then would I consider using it regularly over the long run.
Be careful people.
Good point, thanks! I’m still doing more research. If I decide to buy one, I will follow Efrati’s protocol. After completing 60 sessions within 90 days, I’ll continue with maybe two sessions per week and see how it goes. I think this is a well-balanced approach.
That sounds like a decent strategy. The protocol Efrati did sounds good. Just realize that in that protocol he incorporated short breaks (where they remove the oxygen mask for brief periods while in the chamber) and that’s not something you can replicate with some of the small at-home chambers that do not have oxygen masks but instead have high oxygen concentrations in the whole chamber.
The one I will buy has proper oxygen masks 
The manufacturer fully complies with the protocol from Efrati. It has it’s price, but I am bullish that it will support me and family members now or in the future
I believe most if not all at home chambers have a mask. It’d honestly be kind of insane not to, serious fire hazard.
I doubt it. Pretty much all the at home chambers I’ve seen people post pictures of in hyperbaric discussion groups do not have a mask. They do instruct you to wear only cotton and not use electronics inside it and things like that to minimize the fire hazard.
I’m not sure where you’re getting your information but this is simply incorrect. People are free to not use oxygen masks at all and just use pressure, perhaps this is what you’re seeing.
A cursory search of FB mHBOT groups shows no reference to discussions of using no mask at all and pumping oxygen directly into the chamber. Instead there are many discussions of the pros/cons of cannula vs mask vs non-rebreather mask vs no oxygen at all.
I’m not even sure how it would work to pump oxygen directly into the chamber. The chamber is constantly venting significant amounts of air at pressure, so the concentration within would never rise above room concentration,
Finally, from personal experience there’s barely enough pressure from the oxygen concentrator to fulfill 100% oxygen via a non-rebreather mask. Ie literally breathing in almost all of the output of the concentrator. Given that, it’s hard to imagine how the concentration within the chamber would rise any appreciable amount.
I have not researched this subject and have little knowledge, but if their primary purpose is to increase oxygen intake, while it may be beneficial for a specific condition, I would think the net result would be negative for longevity.
There was a guy on these boards that mentioned (few times) living in high altitudes of 6400 feet and up above sea level is beneficial for health. Maybe he can chime in, but again if these machines increase the oxygen intake, it would be a HUGE red flag for me. Doctors in my old town used to prescribe (literally) living for one month in the summer in altitudes of higher than 7000 (people with weak immune system). The only differentiating factor from what i can tell is that in high altitudes there is less concentration of oxygen in the air than in lower altitudes, and if that (lower oxygen concentration) is good for health, then higher oxygen has to be bad.
Then there is the story of the Bulgarian shepherds in high up mountains living like 10 years (in average) longer than their counterparts in lowlands nearby.
Again, I don’t know much about these machines, but I would not try one if its primary purpose is to increase oxygen (unless prescribed by a doc for a certain condition).
The Remarkable Health Benefits of Altitude | Elevation - ENDALLDISEASE
The partial pressure of oxygen comes from the total pressure and the proportion of that which is oxygen.
So at normal pressures 21% normal Oxygen the partial pressure of Oxygen is 0.21 bar.
If you double the pressure you get 0.42 bar of Oxygen
If you wear an oxygen concentrator mask at normal pressures (not in a tank) you get 0.4-0.9 bar of oxygen its a bit complex as to how much you actually manage to increase the partial pressure of oxygen.
You’re right. I haven’t looked into at home HBOT chambers but assumed most didn’t have masks because almost all the pictures I recall seeing on a HBOT discussion group I’ve checked briefly show people in it without a mask and the only small single person chamber I’ve seen in person also didn’t have a mask. Maybe the people just aren’t showing the masks in the photos I happened to have seen.
In any case, it’s good that most of them have a mask. That should help reduce damage to the eyes a little.
Yes, that’s an interesting observation. The benefits of high altitudes may be caused by activation of hypoxia responses. The comparison to HBOT treatment is a bit more complicated. HBOT treatments do not just result in increased oxygen uptake by the normal mechanisms of hemoglobin carrying oxygen, but the high pressure during HBOT also results in oxygen dissolving in tissues and consequently reaching areas in high concentrations that you do not reach even if you were to breath in 100% oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure. That can result in exchaustion of the antioxidant defences causing oxidative stress.
Regarding hypoxic responses. HBOT aren’t all the same. There are different protocols. If you use the protocol Efrati used in his Israeli studies, that protocol involves short breaks where you take off the oxygen mask for a few minutes several times during the session. Even though your body is still somewhat saturated with oxygen during these breaks, because it is suddenly a little less saturated than when you had the mask on the body senses it as a reduction in oxygen concentration and activates hypoxia responses. So you do most likely get some hypoxia pathway activation during HBOT if it involves breaks. That is likely a part of what causes the benefits.
Please read this. Anyone interested must understand that a very specific protocol must be followed to avoid negative consequences.
Long discussion that includes some details on HBOT mechanisms re: hyperoxia-hypoxia paradox here Oxygen, hypoxia and hyperoxia
IIRC the consensus in that thread was that HIF was likely not induced with typical (m)HBOT protocols and the benefits must be due to some other mechanism. Eg hyperoxia/hyperpenetration of low oxygen/injured tissues. HIF seems to have a fairly narrow window of activation
If that were the consensus, it is not a consensus I agree with.
I think the positive effects from HBOT relate mainly to the stimulation of HIF 1 α
Fair. Here is one of the posts I was referring to.
I looked at a lot of papers a few years ago and wrote this
I haven’t looked into whether or how much of the benefits of HBOT therapy would be explained by hypoxia, but we know from a lot of studies that do not use oxygen breaks that hypoxia is unlikely to be necessary for majority of the benefits. I guess people interested in aging benefits and looking at the Efrati studies are just wanting oxygen breaks to copy his protocol exactly, just in case the oxygen breaks are required for the benefits.
There is obviously an oxygen break at the end of the hyperbaric session.
Good point. That would be one long break at the end of the session compared to 3 short breaks and one long one during a 90 minute session using the Efrati protocol. So four times fewer breaks. is that enough to get close to the hypoxic benefits of the Efrati protocol? I don’t know.