“These findings confirm what we are seeing in clinical practice — that many children with autism may benefit with the use of this treatment,” Rossignol said.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves having a patient inhale oxygen pressurized to a level greater than atmospheric pressure. While anecdotal evidence has already led many physicians to begin experimenting with the therapy as a treatment for autism, the current study is the first large scale, double-blind controlled clinical trial into its effectiveness.

Rossignol randomly assigned 62 autistic children between the ages of two and seven to inhale either air that consisted of 24 percent oxygen at 1.3 atm or only slightly pressurized air (1.03 atm) consisting of 21 percent oxygen for 40 sessions of one hour each. The treatment took place at six different centers across the United States.

After 40 hours of treatment, children in the hyperbaric (1.3 atm) treatment group showed significantly improvement in measures of eye contact, sensory and cognitive awareness, social interaction, receptive language and overall functioning, compared to children in the control (1.03 atm) group.

“We’re not saying it’s a cure,” Rossignol said, “but … if you can improve understanding so a kid doesn’t run in front of a car, or improve sleep, that would be a benefit.”

Researchers do not know what mechanisms hyperbaric therapy might act through to improve the symptoms of autism, but Rossignol hypothesized that it might help reduce the inflammation that constricts blood flow to the speech centers of autistic children’s brains. It might also improve the brain’s overall ability to absorb oxygen, with similar effects.

“With autism on the rise, it is promising to see a study that has been conducted with the high standards endorsed by the medical community,” said Shannon Kenitz of the International Hyperbarics Association. “Having this scientifically controlled and analyzed study that shows the positive effects of hyperbarics is truly what this community has needed.”

Hidden from sight, our cells battle challenges such as their environment, bacteria, viruses, too much or too little oxygen, and physiological stressors. Molecular systems protect cells under assault, but those systems can break down, especially with age.

To better understand how cells are protected from stress and damage, a team led by Northwestern University researchers studied the effect of resveratrol, a beneficial chemical found in red wine, on human cells in tissue culture.

The findings may help explain what happens in neurodegenerative diseases, which are age-related, when cell protection fails, proteins misfold, lots of damage accumulates and the system falls apart.

The researchers discovered a new molecular relationship critical to keeping cells healthy across a long span of time: a protein called SIRT1, important for caloric restriction and lifespan and activated by resveratrol, regulates heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), keeping it active. HSF1 in turn senses the presence of damaged proteins in the cell and elevates the expression of molecular chaperones to keep a cell’s proteins in a folded, functional state. Regulation of this pathway has a direct beneficial effect to cells, the research shows.

This role of SIRT1 — a protein already of great interest to pharmaceutical companies — was not previously known. The results will be published in the Feb. 20 issue of the journal Science.

“When SIRT1 levels are high, you are in a high-protection mode,” said Richard I. Morimoto, Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He led the research team.

“Ironically, triggering the stress response and perhaps maintaining the cell in a protective state over a long period of time can keep cells healthy,” said Morimoto. “The cell is protected against an accumulation of damage when HSF1 is more active.”

SIRT1 levels decrease as humans age, Morimoto explains. Cells can’t respond to stress as well. This decrease in SIRT1 may help explain why protein misfolding diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and adult-onset diabetes, are diseases of aging.

“We now have a powerful way to think about addressing neurodegenerative diseases,” said Morimoto. “We have identified a pathway that can be manipulated to alter lifespan. Discovering this new basis for therapeutics is very exciting.”

Migraine headaches are severely painful and usually occur with other symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and painful sensitivity to light. Cluster headaches cause sharp, burning pain on one side of the head.

Physicians commonly rely on a number of drug therapies to both treat and prevent migraine and cluster headaches, but some also prescribe oxygen therapy. The aim of the systematic review — comprising nine small studies involving 201 participants — was to determine whether inhaling oxygen actually helps.

“We wanted to locate and assess any evidence from randomized trials that oxygen administration was a safe and effective treatment for migraine or cluster headaches,” said lead reviewer Michael Bennett, of Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney. “We hoped this would assist physicians to make effective treatment decisions in this area.”

The review appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates research in all aspects of health care. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing trials on a topic.

The Cochrane reviewers examined studies that evaluated normobaric oxygen therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Normobaric therapy consists of patients inhaling pure oxygen at normal room pressure, and hyperbaric therapy involves patients breathing oxygen at higher pressure in a specially designed chamber.

Five studies compared hyperbaric versus sham (placebo) therapy for migraine; two compared hyperbaric versus sham therapy for cluster headache; and two investigated the use of normobaric therapy for cluster headache. Length of treatment varied with each study.

Three studies reported the number of patients who had significant relief from their migraines within 40 to 45 minutes of hyperbaric therapy. Although the studies did not specify each patients’ response to treatment, they reported a significant increase in the proportion of patients who had relief with hyperbaric oxygen compared to sham therapy.

For cluster headaches, two studies (69 patients) found a significantly greater proportion of patients had relief of their headaches after 15 minutes of normobaric compared to sham therapy.

The reviewers concluded that hyperbaric treatment might give some relief for migraine headache and that normobaric therapy might provide similar relief for cluster headache, but there is no evidence that these therapies will prevent future attacks.

“We believe that hyperbaric oxygen is also a reasonable measure for migraineurs who have not responded to other measures to treat an acute attack,” Bennett said. “However, the poor availability of hyperbaric chambers makes this an option only in a minority of health facilities. Most physicians treating headaches will continue to rely on established and emerging pharmacological options for treating and preventing acute attacks.”

Estimates indicate that 6 percent to 7 percent of men and 15 percent to 18 percent of women suffer from severe migraine headaches, and cluster headaches effect about 0.2 percent of the population.

John Kirchner, M.D., of the Kirchner Headache Clinic in Omaha, Neb., has treated thousands of patients suffering from a variety of headaches, including migraine and cluster, and said he does not include oxygen therapy in his patients’ treatment plans.

“This [oxygen therapy] would not be practical as the headache comes on fast and does not last long,” he said. “So there would not be time to get the patient to the chamber.”

Kirchner’s treatment for migraine includes avoiding triggers, taking preventive and symptomatic medications and undergoing behavior modification.