The secret to anti-ageing | Alice Smellie’s story
“Now only five women out of 100 have fewer wrinkles than me.”
Alice Smellie, a writer for the Daily Mail, wanted to see if the rumours she had heard about the effects hyperbaric oxygen therapy had on the body’s natural ageing process were true. Her interest was first roused when she heard it was the latest trend among billionaires, who were all investing in hyperbaric oxygen chambers for smoother skin and younger cells.
Alice borrowed a chamber from us and set it up in her own home, but before she started treatment, she had pictures taken of her skin at a clinic using Visia imaging to measure wrinkle depth, redness and pigmentation. For the sake of her wellbeing alongside her beauty, Alice also had a comprehensive BUPA health assessment, checking her heart and blood pressure.
"At 50, I have plenty of minor, middle-aged ailments. There's the start of a frozen left shoulder, I creak in the mornings and I don't sleep brilliantly. In addition, my skin is lacklustre and the wrinkles around my eyes are deepening."
For maximum benefit, we recommended Alice use the chamber for an hour once a day for five days with two days off.
By the end of the first week, Alice’s frozen shoulder mobility had greatly improved, and after three weeks she noticed greater cardiovascular improvement, being able to both swim and run faster than usual, whilst also feeling much more relaxed and energetic.
"Thanks to a tight work deadline, I am highly stressed, but amazingly, I find myself sleeping well and full of energy."
It took just a couple of weeks for Alice to see improvements in her skin which she said had come solely from the hyperbaric treatment, having changed nothing else in her life to contribute towards a better complexion. Her friends had even started to comment on how fresh she looked and asked what work she’d had done.
Alice returned for her second BUPA assessment following her phase of hyperbaric oxygen treatment and discovered her risk of having a cardiovascular event had slightly reduced, her risk score for diabetes had dropped, and her cholesterol had been lowered quite considerably (her cholesterol/HDL ratio had gone from 3.2 to 2.8). However, it’s the Visia scan that impressed Alice the most:
"Aesthetic expert Dr John Quinn reveals my wrinkles have gone from the 56th centile (which is to say out of 100 women the same age as me, 44 have fewer wrinkles) to the 95th centile, so now only five out of 100 have fewer wrinkles. This confirms what I can see in the mirror."
