August 25, 2025 • 45 mins
What happens when a decorated Navy commander and world-record holder for living underwater becomes a traumatic brain injury patient himself? Dr. Joe Dituri's extraordinary journey from elite military diver to pioneering hyperbaric medicine researcher offers groundbreaking insights into brain injury recovery that challenge everything we thought we knew.
Having spent 100 days living at pressure beneath the ocean's surface for Project Neptune 100, Dr. Dituri was already studying the effects of hyperbaric conditions on human physiology. Then life delivered a devastating blow – a car accident that left him with a severe TBI, unable to read, write, or control his emotions. Faced with suicidal thoughts, he tried everything to heal his broken brain. The result? A revolutionary understanding that effective brain recovery requires simultaneous physical, physiological, and psychological intervention.
Now part of a team leading the world's largest hyperbaric oxygen therapy study for veterans with TBI, Dr. Dituri reveals fascinating discoveries about how different pressure levels trigger distinct healing mechanisms. Want to reduce inflammation? Lower pressures around 1.3-1.4 atmospheres work best. Need to inhibit toxin production? Higher pressures up to 3.0 atmospheres are required. This nuanced understanding explains why personalized protocols matter tremendously.
What makes Dr. Dituri's research particularly groundbreaking is its comprehensive approach. His team isn't just measuring one or two outcomes – they're collecting blood, urine, saliva, EEGs, and advanced brain imaging before and after treatment. And unlike most medical studies, they've ensured nearly half the participants are women, acknowledging the importance of including females in brain injury research.
Whether you're struggling with concussion symptoms, supporting someone with TBI, or simply fascinated by cutting-edge neuroscience, this episode offers rare insight from someone who's lived the journey from both sides – as researcher and patient. Subscribe now to hear how underwater pressure might hold the key to healing our most complex organ.
Dr. Dituri:
Email: info@ibum.org
Website: https://drdeepsea.com/
Instagram: @drdeepsea
LinkedIn: Dr. Dituri
Get 20% off your first order of Puori protein with code LIFEAFTERIMPACT by following this link.
Dr. Wolf's book Concussion Breakthrough: Discover the Missing Pieces of Concussion Recovery is now available on Amazon!
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Website: lifeafterimpact.com
Medical disclaimer: this video or podcast is for general informational purposes only, and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and materials included is at the user's own risk. The content of this video or podcast is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice diagnosis or treatment. Consumers of this information should seek the advice of a medical professional for any and all health related issues.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Joe Dituri (00:00):
Right.
So I'm trying to bringawareness to the fact that you
can pressurize for a long periodof time and what the mechanisms
of action of hyperbaricmedicine are.
So we knew a whole bunch ofthem.
So we knew like decreasedinflammatory markers, decreased
neuroinflammation, you know,increased activity, increased
(00:20):
cognitive function, decreasedphase lag, that kind of stuff.
Those were all known mechanismof action that we knew were
going to come out of this.
But we wanted to kind ofhighlight them for the world so
that on the world stage we couldshow them.
Hey, look this does work.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (00:36):
Welcome to Life After Impact the concussion
recovery podcast.
I'm Dr Ayla Wolf and I will behosting today's episode, where
we help you navigate the oftenconfusing, frustrating and
overwhelming journey ofconcussion and brain injury
recovery.
This podcast is your go-toresource for actionable
information, whether you'redealing with a recent concussion
(00:57):
, struggling withpost-concussion syndrome or just
feeling stuck in your healingprocess.
In each episode, we dive deepinto the symptoms, testing,
treatments and neurologicalinsights that can help you move
forward with clarity andconfidence.
We bring you leading experts inthe world of brain health,
functional neurology andrehabilitation to share their
(01:19):
wisdom and strategies.
So if you're feeling lost,hopeless or like no one
understands what you're goingthrough, know that you are not
alone.
This podcast can be your guideand partner in recovery, helping
you build a better life afterimpact.
Today's guest on Life AfterImpact the Concussion Recovery
(01:41):
Podcast is someone who quiteliterally pushes the boundaries
of human potential underwater,in the lab and in the classroom.
Dr Joe Dituri is a retired usnavy commander with over 28
years of service in specialoperations, deep submergence and
undersea systems engineering.
He's a phd in biomedical, adecorated officer and a pioneer
(02:04):
in hyperbaric medicine and lifesupport technologies.
He also holds a Guinness WorldRecord as the man who lived
underwater for 100 days duringProject Neptune 100.
This was a worldrecord-breaking mission aimed at
studying human physiology underprolonged hyperbaric conditions
, raising ocean awareness andinspiring thousands of students
(02:27):
to pursue science andengineering.
With three decades of elitemilitary diving experience, Dr.
Dituri has helped developrescue systems for submariners,
designed dry submersibles forNavy SEALs and co-authored the
Navy Diving Manual and the Artand Science of Hyperbaric
Medicine, a go-to resource forclinicians in this emerging
(02:48):
field.
Currently, he serves asAssistant Vice President of
Veterans Clinical Research atthe University of South Florida,
where he leads clinical trialsfocused on treating traumatic
brain injury, teaches medicalengineering and continues to
advance the science ofhyperbaric oxygen therapy From
the depths of the ocean to thefrontiers of neuroscience.
(03:09):
Dr Dituri brings a rare blend ofoperational grit, scientific
rigor and humanitarian purpose,and we are honored to have him
on the show today.
Dr Joe Dituri, you are one ofthe most well-accomplished
people.
I know your background, yourbio, your experience is
(03:30):
incredible and the reason Iwanted to have you on the show
today is because, as an expertdeep sea diver and somebody who
holds a world record forspending 100 days in pressure
under the sea for spending 100days in pressure under the sea.
You're the best person to talkto about the effects of oxygen
on the brain, and so thank youso much for coming on the show
(03:54):
sharing your expertise.
You're currently leading thebiggest hyperbaric oxygen
therapy research study forveterans in the world right now.
Welcome to the show.
Dr. Joe Dituri (04:05):
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me on andI'm excited.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (04:10):
Wonderful.
Well, why don't we start out?
Give me your background.
You have spent so much timeunder the ocean doing some
probably pretty cool top secretwork All right real quick.
Dr. Joe Dituri (04:22):
So I spent 28 years in the United States Navy.
I got to hang out with reallycool people and do great things.
When I finished that, my bossat the time, bill McRaven, asked
me what I wanted to do I what Iwanted to do when I grew up,
basically.
And I says, look, I don't wantto come work for you, that's for
sure.
Want to come work for you,that's for sure.
(04:46):
So he asked me a favor Would Isit on the preservation of the
force and family?
And I said, yeah, sure, I will.
I did that for a little bit andI came back to him.
I said, bill, we're talking toour veterans with TBI, but we're
not doing anything.
Psychology and psychiatry has alimit.
And he looked me dead in theeye and goes permission, granted
, aquanaut, fix the problem.
And I went fuck, right now.
(05:11):
I'm like, what am I going to donow?
So I went back to school.
I got a PhD in biomedicalengineering and I said I'm going
to fix brains because I'msmartical, right, no, right.
Then I started fixing them thisway and then, when I did, you
know, the good Lord basicallysaid Joe, take a right.
And I said no, no, no, I got it, I'm fixing them with just this
.
And then he said, no, no, no,take a right.
I told you to take a right.
And then, finally, he threw a6,000 pound SUV at my head and
(05:35):
gave me a traumatic brain injury.
And now I'm like best thingthat ever happened to me.
That's amazing how life throwsus curve balls and you know
crazy that you were on the trackto studying TBI one way.
Then you get your own TBI andall of a sudden it's like oh, I
(05:57):
need to go this direction now.
Yeah, it's.
It's one of these, like holymackerel, the universe has got a
plan, this has got a plan foryou.
There is a plan.
I don't know what it is, but itunfolds before you.
You can worry about it all daylong or you can just ride this
freaking wave yeah, so tell meabout your recovery.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (06:18):
What are some of the things that you did to help
recover?
Dr. Joe Dituri (06:21):
it.
It was this easy and I'll goback and tell your listeners
real quick that the quick story,you know.
I came to the point where I wasdespondent, right, and I felt
that, okay, now I am hopeless.
Right here, I am a clinicalresearcher for traumatic brain
injury and I have a traumaticbrain injury.
(06:42):
I can't read, I can't write, Ican't think.
I'm crying all the time whenyou say unburdened anger, like I
want to rip the steering wheeloff the car.
All that happened to me.
So I was like, okay, I can't do.
The one thing that I'm here onthis planet for is to help
people and I can't do thatanymore.
I set a date for suicide.
(07:04):
Can't do that anymore.
I set a date for suicide.
So here I am setting the date.
It was on my birthday, december8th, and September 7th is when
the car hit me.
So I went through this realdeep lull and then I was like,
okay, but before I do that, I'mCatholic and I'm three daughters
.
I says I have to, I have to doeverything, because when I get
to the pearly gates I have to beable to tell him look, man, I
(07:26):
did freaking everything.
And when I did everything.
So you asked me what I did whenI did everything in combination
in a short period of time, holymackerel.
I started getting better andthen better, and then more
better and then more better.
And then all of a sudden, I'mbetter than I was before I
started and I said there'ssomething to this and I'm
(07:48):
steeped in science.
Right, science wins overbullshit.
So I'm like hold on, whichthing works best, right, which?
Okay, I have to get rid of allthe confounding variables and do
that one thing.
No, that is the wrong way toapproach science and we need to
change scientists' mindset.
It's not just one thing.
(08:08):
If you ask somebody hey, thisplant, what does it need?
You know, water, sunlight, food.
Well, we intuitively know itneeds water, sunlight and food.
So the human body, the humanbrain, needs to be fixed
physically, physiologically andpsychologically simultaneously.
(08:30):
If you leave one of those out,you're going to miss the boat on
fixing the person and you'renot going to do them justice.
Absolutely Everything.
Red light therapy, b-romanttherapy.
I faced east and watched thesunrise and got the red light in
my eyes.
I grounded every morning.
I hopped up and down on a peg,I did ice bath, I did saunas, I
(08:51):
did when I say, everything if Ididn't think it was going to
hurt me and I applied a littlebit of you know science to it,
like hey, that's not going towork or there's nothing to that.
You know that.
And no drugs.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (09:04):
And so talk a little bit.
So you didn't just spend 100days underwater for funsies and
to break world records.
You actually did this to provethat it is safe to be under
pressure in that sense.
So talk a little bit about youknow, when people think about
diving, obviously they envisionscuba divers and you're talking
(09:24):
about something completelydifferent.
So describe the differencebetween the type of situation
you're in versus what peoplemight envision when they think
diving.
Dr. Joe Dituri (09:33):
Sure.
So when you go scuba divingyou're under what we call
hyperbaric pressure.
Hyper means more than baricmeans pressure.
So if you're in a hyperbaricpressure environment, you're at
an elevated pressure.
While I was underneath the waterfor 100 days, I did it for
three basic reasons.
The first was to do science,technology, engineering and
(09:56):
mathematics to kids, to let themknow that you can.
You know, science is not justabout white lab coats and
beakers and microscopes andthey're on board already right,
it's more than that and you cando science in a cool environment
.
The second thing was I'm abiomedical engineer, so I wanted
to do blood, urine, saliva,electrocardiograms,
electroencephalograms, pulmonaryfunction tests, all that
(10:18):
science-y stuff.
And the third thing that Iwanted to do was talk to all of
the people about reaching out toall the experts in the industry
about saving our marineenvironment.
So those are the three mainthings that we did.
But the fourth thing, on a sidetangential note, was I stayed
underwater at the exact pressurehyperbaric medicine that we
(10:43):
treat traumatic brain injuryright now 1.7 PO2, 1.7 ATA, 1.7
PO2 if you're using 100%peroxide, right.
So I'm trying to bring awarenessto the fact that you can
pressurize for a long period oftime and what the mechanisms of
action of hyperbaric medicineare.
(11:03):
So we knew a whole bunch ofthem.
So we knew like decreasedinflammatory markers, decreased
neuroinflammation, uh, you know,in increased activity,
increased cognitive function, uh, decreased phase, like that
kind of stuff.
Those were all known mechanismof action that we knew were
going to come out of this.
But we wanted to kind ofhighlight them for the world so
(11:23):
that the on the world stage wecould show them hey look, this
does work.
And they're like oh, thatnewfangled thing called
hyperbarics.
I'm like, okay, hyperbarics hasbeen around since the 1600s,
almost 400 years, you know, 1664, I think it's not right it's
not at all right.
(11:43):
So, but it fell off because weweren't able to describe the
mechanisms of action right.
Every single drug that comesout has a mechanism of action a
non-steroidal anti-inflammatoryand NSAID.
It decreases inflammation.
That's its mechanism of action,right?
Cardiac drugs, everything youknow vasoconstriction,
(12:05):
vasodilation, all that stuff isstuff that we're looking for as
a mechanism of action for thedrug.
So this is where I go to medschool and I'm teaching med
school and I'm telling the kidslook, you have to focus on the
mechanism of action.
If you want a powerfulanti-inflammatory, you can
either A do hyperbarics, or B doa non-steroidal
(12:26):
anti-inflammatory, or C do likea medro-dose pack or something
like that steroid type thingthat can reduce inflammation.
All three of those will do thesame job.
However, comma one is two or apill and one is a lifestyle
change.
Do you want to change yourpatient's lifestyle?
That's the difference.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (12:46):
Well, and there are side effects to taking
non-steroidalanti-inflammatories and I mean I
can't.
I've had a number of patientsdevelop diabetes as a result of
being put on prednisone for longperiods of time.
Dr. Joe Dituri (13:00):
And 15 pounds right on the waistline.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (13:04):
Yeah, that too, that too, yeah.
So when it comes to chronicsituations, it's like okay,
maybe we need to look at this alittle bit differently.
Dr. Joe Dituri (13:13):
That's exactly it.
And to go back to the veteranside of the house, here we are
busting these people up and youknow, okay, so it's not even
just veterans.
So veterans get exposed to TBIs.
But, as you know, okay, so it'snot even just veterans.
So veterans get exposed to TBIs.
But, as you see, I was in amotor vehicle accident.
I spent 28 years in the Navy,didn't have a knockout.
(13:34):
You know, I got hurt but nevergot knocked out.
I got knocked unconscious in my47 Chevy right, holy mackerel,
mbas can do it.
Domestic abuse, third leadingcause of traumatic brain injury.
I was shocked at that.
Shocked, right.
So we have to start thinkingthat TBIs can come from a lot of
different places, not just themilitary kit.
(13:56):
But when you approach this, theblast and the radius and all
that stuff, that seems like it'sa compelling factor.
But I don't want to leaveanybody out of this discussion
because there are millions oftraumatic brain injuries.
Incidentally, you probablyalready know this I don't know
if your listeners do buttraumatic brain injury has been
(14:17):
on the books since 1600 BC.
Mm-hmm, yeah, 1600 BC, 1600 BC.
For millennia we have beendifferentiating this and kind of
figuring you got hit in thehead.
You're bad off right.
(14:38):
Only in about 1000 AD did wefirst make our determination the
difference between concussionand traumatic brain injury.
I think that was actually 1300,right?
So FDA medicine, regularmedicine, big pharma, you've had
this problem for thousands ofyears.
How you doing, how's it going?
(14:58):
Oh, there is no end point.
I'm running the largestclinical trial, I'm helping with
the largest clinical trial inhyperbaric medicine history ever
, ever done in the whole world.
Right, and here this thing isdoesn't have a satisfactory
endpoint because the FDA has nosatisfactory endpoint for cured
(15:18):
traumatic brain injury afterthousands of years.
And I said well, I suggestmaybe we're doing it wrong If
you don't have an answer yet.
We're doing it wrong.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (15:31):
Yeah Well, and you know, within medicine we
have standardized protocols orstandard of care for various
disorders, diseases, events.
We have a, you know, anemergency standard of care when
somebody gets a concussion.
But when somebody is a year outand they're still struggling,
there's no standard of care, forwhat do you do with the person
who didn't recover in thestandard window?
(15:53):
And so that's part of theproblem as well.
Now I'm curious.
So your study has over 460participants.
It's a huge study 420, yeah,okay.
And what are your objectivemarkers?
What are you measuring beforeand after the HBOT sessions?
Dr. Joe Dituri (16:11):
So, interestingly enough, the same
stuff or similar stuff to what Idid while I was underwater
blood, urine, saliva,electrocardiograms,
electroencephalograms, pulmonaryfunction tests, thesis sampling
, diffuse tensor imaging, mris,like the whole gamut of
everything.
And like we cast a really widenet because there are zero
(16:35):
approved biomarkers forlong-term traumatic brain injury
, zero approved biomarkerchanges None.
So we're just testingeverything, every kind of blood.
We're doing interleukin testing, all these myokins like crazy
amount of blood testing that youwould never even suspect.
And the diffuse tensor imagingis second to none and we're
(16:58):
using all the great places toanalyze this, Like our blood is
going to Duke to be analyzedbecause they're blood experts.
Our diffuse tensor imaging MRIbecause they're blood experts.
Our diffuse tensor imaging MRIthat's being shipped out to
Australia because they have anAI component that is reading
them and trending the imagingright.
(17:18):
So we took all the greatestthings in the world and I'm not
the leader of that study by anywild stretch, I'm just one of
the cats that's helping on it.
So but we did get a grade Ateam together.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (17:30):
It really sounds like it and I will say I don't
think I have ever seen a studywith 420 people in it where
they're doing DTI on everysingle person before and after
the intervention.
That's going to be astoundingand I'm so excited to see the
outcome of that information.
Dr. Joe Dituri (17:46):
You and me both right, but this is the thing
Science takes a long time.
I got three more years of datacollection and then probably a
year to write it up.
Yeah, took a full more years.
Everybody's like we need a curenow and I'm like, look, I get
it.
I get it because I wanted acure instantly.
And there is no instant cure,right, what do you have to do
(18:08):
Everything?
How long do you have to do it?
For as long as it takes, right,just keep trying.
Right, because I guarantee you,if you do nothing, nothing's
going to happen, or the samething is going to happen.
But you have to be able toaffect change in your body.
You have to be able to try andchange things.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (18:26):
Yeah, yeah.
So a couple of questions I wantto ask you.
I have heard of people talkingabout pulsing the oxygen when
somebody is in the HBOT, becausewhen you're, when you're in a
high pressure oxygen situation,some you know different
physiological changes happen.
Then when you come out of thathigh oxygen situation, your body
(18:49):
has a reflexive response to thechange in oxygen, and some
people are saying that thatreflexive response is also part
of the healing that occurs, andso some people are now kind of
pulsing the oxygen throughout anHBOT session.
So talk to me a little bitabout have you looked into that
or you know, what are yourthoughts on that?
Dr. Joe Dituri (19:07):
Yeah, that's preclinical research at this
point, right, so we're doing aclinical trial, we are staying
here at one pressure, right?
But in preclinical research, wehave found that when you
decrease the oxygenconcentration and then give the
oxygen concentration back andthen decrease it again and then
give it back again, decreasesagain, what you do is you
(19:29):
upregulate something calledHIF-1-alpha or hypoxic inducing
factor.
They won the Nobel Prize in2019 for this, so it's not like
it's old, right, this is brandnew stuff.
Nobody's ever had it before,right?
So when you upregulateHIF-1-alpha, you upregulate
brain derivedderived neurotropicfact.
And if you upregulate BDNF,that's similar to the lawn seed
(19:53):
for the brain.
And then, if I give you moreoxygen, oxygen is like watering
the lawn seed on the brain,right?
So it's like you give it, yougive it water.
You give it, you give it water,right?
So you know sunlight, water,food, right?
You're trying to do this alltogether.
But that's preclinical research.
It's not there yet.
I know that those things happen, but that doesn't mean this,
(20:16):
right?
Causation, not correlation.
Correlation, not causation, youknow.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (20:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Still a lot of research thatneeds to be done.
Okay, next question.
Some people have soft shellHBOT machines in their office.
Other people have hard shell.
Talk to me about the differencein terms of the devices that
currently exist clinically.
Dr. Joe Dituri (20:37):
Yeah, so most of the current research that has
been done has been done at 2.0or higher.
So there's a small window rangefrom 2.0 to 3.0.
But remember, hyper means morethan baric, means pressure.
So we have found, and we havedone research on this at the
(20:58):
lower pressures and we havefound that if you just go to 1.3
ATA, it's all about thepressure that you go to.
What do you need?
Different pressures affectdifferent mechanisms of action.
One mechanism of action forhyperbaric medicine is toxin
inhibition.
Toxin inhibition needs to be uphere, needs to be up at the 2.8
(21:19):
, 3.0 level.
That's where we see the toxininhibition working its best.
Does it work down here?
Sure it does.
It works down here to lowerpressure.
It just works less right.
Inflammation decrease ininflammation, like a decrease in
interleukin-6, increase ininterleukin-23, pro-inflammatory
, anti-inflammatory cytokines.
(21:40):
That works best at about 1.3,1.4.
That's the lower pressure.
When you go higher, does itstill decrease inflammation?
Yes, just not as well.
But the range is from about 1.0, that you're trying to treat
Doctors.
You need to know all thesemechanisms of action and where
(22:13):
they're best portrayed in thefigure and match the person with
that and then practice medicinewhile you're doing it, by
evaluating your patient andlooking for objective quality
measure changes, just like wewere talking about before we
started.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (22:34):
Okay, so when you're talking about toxin
inhibition, then you'reimmediately thinking what
somebody that has say like Lymedisease, or somebody that has
these infections that theirbody's trying to combat.
Dr. Joe Dituri (22:42):
Yeah.
So toxin inhibition, like mold,is a toxin, right?
So we use it for gaseousgangrene.
Gaseous gangrene, you know, wewant to inhibit those toxins.
We want to get your body tostop allowing toxins to
reproduce, right?
Or to get the toxins out ofyour body in some way, shape or
(23:05):
form.
We realize, and we see throughlots of objective testing and
measurement, that if you get theoxygen concentration right here
, right?
So this is 35 millimeters ofmercury.
You know, when you put thatstupid little light on your
finger, that's about 35millimeters of mercury, of
oxygen.
Well, we're at 760 millimetersof mercury pressure right now
(23:28):
and you're only getting 35 inyour finger.
What we have found is thattoxin production stops at 450
millimeters of mercury.
Give or take Stops, it cannotreproduce.
You know alpha toxins, you knowgaseous gangrene, all of those
C proteins, all of that kind ofstuff stops reproducing at 450
(23:52):
millimeters of mercury.
So if you get the oxygen tohere, to 450 millimeters of
mercury, you can stop oxygenproduction or you can stop toxin
production, right.
But that's a slippery slopebecause when you get up to 3.0,
that's human tolerance.
Humans cannot tolerate anyhigher than 3.0, right.
(24:12):
So you really don't have muchof a band to work with, right,
you get to hear minimumeffective dose, and that's the
problem.
Who funds hyperbaric oxygenresearch?
Well, the drug companies do.
Oh, there are no drug companies.
Who are the drug companies whenit comes to hyperbaric oxygen
therapy?
In my opinion, it is thehyperbaric chamber manufacturers
(24:35):
.
Right, Because they're kind ofpeddling the drug, if you will,
whatever.
But otherwise nobody's makingmoney off this.
There's no like oh, we're goingto make a billion dollars off
this.
Trust me, anybody in thehyperbaric business is not
making a million dollars,they're not making a billion
dollars.
Nobody's getting rich here.
But it's basically compressingthe oxygen that we have on the
(24:57):
planet, naturally produced, bythe way, uh, by trees, and you
know plants and stuff.
So you know, we compress thatdown and then we use a hall to
hold that pressure in, and we'vebeen doing this for, you know,
42 forevers, you know.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So different pressures havedifferent mechanistic effects on
the body and so, based on kindof what somebody is coming in
for, that would determine whatthe best pressure is for that
person.
Or maybe they need multiplepressures If there's different
things happening at differentpressure.
Dr. Joe Dituri (25:31):
Yep, this is why the doctors need to take a
class, right?
Like?
Doctors are smart people, I getit, but but you have to know
the mechanism of action andwhere you want to put them on
this number line, from, you know, 1.0 to 3.0.
When you put them here, it doessomething different than when
you put them here.
Right, it's wonky, but that'sthe way it is.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (25:52):
Yeah, yeah, and so you teach this class.
It sounds.
Dr. Joe Dituri (25:55):
Well, I teach that class at med school.
But find an instructor from,like, the International Board of
Undersea Medicine or somethinglike that.
Right, this is one of theselike go find a good instructor
near you and get them to teachyou.
It'll be good.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (26:09):
Yeah, excellent.
And then my next question somepeople are combining we talked
about, I mean, with research.
You have to look at one thingHBOT by itself, same pressure
whole time.
But in clinical practice, inreal world, we like to stack
different therapies, and so Iknow some people when they're
using HBOT, they're alsoencouraging the person to be
(26:30):
doing cognitive exercises ordifferent things to stimulate
their brain while they're in theHBOT or immediately after.
So what are your thoughts on,you know, and even maybe your
personal experience on trying tolike stack therapies with HBOT
clinically?
Dr. Joe Dituri (26:47):
Stacking therapies is always a better
concept, right, because thewhole is better than the sum of
its parts, right?
I mean, you know it's not goingto work.
The onesies, twosies, are nolonger going to work as
effectively as multipletherapies.
However, caution, warning,warning, warning, right?
(27:08):
Please, don't stack things thatdon't go together in the
hyperbaric chamber.
I'll give you a perfect, forinstance, red light therapy.
Wonderful on its own.
However, red light therapyrequires, in my estimation, a
varying wavelength, requiring atleast 110 volts, if not 220,
(27:30):
right, with a varying intensityand magnification and a heat
generating source.
And we already know that heatand power do not go well inside
a hyperbaric chamber.
So, please, please, please,please, please, don't stack
those modalities, right?
Like, don't?
You know?
I see people wanting to work outin a hyperbaric chamber.
You can absolutely exercise ina hyperbaric chamber.
(27:53):
Exercise lowers your oxygentoxicity threshold.
It used to be 3.0 when you'relaying there doing nothing, but
if you're in there working out,do you think 2.0 is safe?
We don't know, nobody knows,right?
So here you are working out.
Maybe 1.3 is safe enough.
No, no, no, it's fine, right?
(28:14):
I'm on my rowing machine, it'sfine?
Wait, wait, wait.
Rowing machines have metalwheels on metal rails which
create friction.
Friction rubs together,friction creates heat, heat and
oxygen account to be stopped,right.
So, like, don't stack themodalities.
Or if you're going to getsomebody smart to make sure that
(28:35):
whatever you're doing iscorrect, right, is it good to do
breathing exercises whileyou're in a hyperbaric chamber?
I do them all the time.
Right, I do a quad, you know,four count, four count, four
count.
You know, four count, fourcount, four count.
Uh, you know, we've done thatin the military for years to
reduce our parasympathetic relax, calm down a little bit, right?
(28:56):
So that's the kind of thingthat's great.
Can you do eye exercises?
Oh boy, yes, those are great,like those functioning visual
things.
Can you, um, you know, can youlisten to meditation?
Absolutely, if you have anapproved device that's inside
that's giving you sound.
Yeah, sure, why not do ameditation?
(29:17):
Right?
Should I do a hallucinogenicinside a hyperbaric oxygen
chamber?
Oh, my God, I'm a little bitafraid, right, like?
You know what I'm saying.
So, uh, you know what I'msaying.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (29:31):
So you got it.
I was thinking more along thelines of like eye exercises or
cognitive exercises.
Dr. Joe Dituri (29:37):
You just opened a whole nother level of like no,
I'm sorry but like you see allthis craziness happening on the
internet, I literally saw avideo of a girl inside a
hyperbaric chamber with her redlight mask on and an oxygen mask
over the red light mask,pushing the oxygen through the
red light mask.
(29:58):
Oh, please, don't do that.
Oh, please stop, please, stop,right.
So this is the kind of thingthat we're dealing with, right?
You know, people like I can'tget away from my cell phone.
I have to have my cell phone onme 24-7.
It needs to be in the chamber.
No, first of all, you, me,everybody we need a break from
this damn cell phone.
Mine sits over here on thecharger over there.
(30:20):
It doesn't sit in my pocket.
I try and get away from it.
I try, I'm addicted, just likeeverybody else, but we got to
try and get away from that.
So don't bring the cell phonein there.
But, yeah, if you have a way todo eye exercises and breathing
techniques and you can listen toa meditation, sure, that's
great stacking of modalities atthis point.
But yeah, any of the craziness,yeah, let's not do that.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (30:42):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I wasn't even thinking ofthe craziness, but honestly,
you're right, people are doingcrazy things.
So it probably absolutely needsto be said Like these are the
things that you cannot do whenyou're in the HBOT.
Dr. Joe Dituri (31:17):
So people are kind of not maybe stacking at
the same time, but stackingright after they're doing this.
So I've done ice bath beforeand ice bath after I've done
sauna before.
I've done sauna after.
I can't see much of ameasurable distance.
I am freezing after I do my icebath so it's really
uncomfortable.
So it's better for me after andthe sauna is better before.
But I don't know that kind ofstuff.
(31:39):
Yeah, I get it, you know, ewottraining, stuff like that
afterwards is always, you know,it's always beneficial.
But yeah, that kind of stuff.
We're actually getting to apoint where I just ordered a new
type of hyperbaric chamber.
It's called a hypo, goes toaltitude, like it goes to the
top of Mount Everest and thenpressurizes all the way down to
(32:03):
3.0.
So it's a hypo hyperbaricchamber.
It can do both.
And what we're going to do is astudy on increasing
brain-derived neurotropic factorby going all the way up to
altitude and giving you hypoxiaand then coming back down and
watering it on a severe jump updown.
So we're going to see how thatworks.
(32:24):
Crazy, it's fun, it's science,right.
This is what keeps me awake atnight.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (32:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
The other thing that I think isone of the biggest barriers to
HBOT is the amount of sessionspeople have to do.
So talk about minimum,effective dose, ideal dose and
how this is structured forpeople who may not be familiar.
Dr. Joe Dituri (32:46):
I'll give you a very sad answer and the truth
right up front we don't know,right, minimum effective dose.
We have no idea, right?
I can tell you that if you wantto decrease inflammatory
markers, I have had really goodresults with 10 to 12 treatments
reduces the interleukin-6enough in 10 to 12 treatments.
(33:06):
However, if you're treatingtraumatic brain injury, it seems
to be more like 25 to 40.
Nobody really knows and that'sbecause there is no drug company
funding these studies.
The study that I'm doing rightnow at the University of South
Florida right, usf is doing thisstudy because the governor of
the state of Florida and thespeaker of the house said listen
(33:27):
, we want to help our veteransand we want to figure out the
science behind hyperbaricmedicine, so we're going to fund
this.
So he funded us.
That's the only funding thatpeople get in hyperbaric
medicine.
There is no like $20 million togo do this study, or $50
million or $100 million to go doa phase two clinical trial.
(33:49):
There's none of that kind ofmoney rolling around.
So unfortunately we don't havethose answers of minimum
effective dose just yet.
But there's people that arefunding it out of their own
pocket, right?
So the International Bank ofJoe is looking to do some more
research.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (34:05):
Excellent, excellent.
And how many women are in yourstudy?
Half.
Dr. Joe Dituri (34:11):
No, and this is the thing, and female veterans
are hard to come by.
But I'm like girls, get in here, get in here.
I'm done having this like it'sonly guys.
So about half it's a 40something percent right now, but
about half of the people arecoming in are female, which is
great, right, because we arelike we were talking about
(34:33):
earlier.
We are woefully inadequate indoing research on females
because, man, you're sodifferent.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (34:41):
Well, and I think one of the problems, too, is
that even when females areincluded in the study, that
doesn't necessarily mean that,when all the data is being
sifted through and all thestatistics are being run, that
people are even asking thequestion like okay, we now have
420 before and after DTIs.
Is there a difference in thefemale brains versus the male
brains?
(35:01):
That's the question that Iwould want to know.
But do you know?
Is that one of the aims of yourstudy?
Dr. Joe Dituri (35:06):
Absolutely it's one of the sub aims, right,
Cause you have to have a primaryand a secondary and then you
have to have subs.
So yeah, it's one of the subaims.
But yes, absolutely the thestratification of female to male
and how their blood biomarkersdiffer, how their theses differ,
how the urine differs,everything right, Like how their
EEG scores differ, Cause y'all,y'all brains work totally
(35:30):
differently than ours do.
I mean, that's just the waythat it is, and if a guy you
don't believe that, trust me,that's the way it is.
I do a lot of EEGs on people,and women are just wired
differently.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (35:41):
Absolutely.
Yeah, well, that makes me sohappy that that is actually part
of your study.
I mean, this is going to be soexciting when all this data
comes out and, like you said,it's probably going to take you
a year to sift through it all.
Dr. Joe Dituri (35:54):
Three and a half more years or so we'll have
something.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (35:56):
Yeah, incredible, Amazing.
So right now you're alsowriting a book on your personal
journey.
So talk a little bit about thebook you're writing.
Dr. Joe Dituri (36:06):
So it's why my Traumatic Brain Injury is the
Best best Thing that EverHappened to Me.
Is the working title Right?
And I'll give you just a realquick.
For instance, I was engaged toa beautiful, you know, 40 year
old Bulgarian fitness model.
Like she was just fabulous.
But when I got hit by the carshe couldn't find her way to the
(36:30):
hospital.
But two of the seven days thatI was in the hospital I was like
this is not cool, right.
So that's just one of thethings that happened to me where
it was like okay, that made merealize that that support system
wasn't there, that personwasn't the right person for me.
And after a couple of months wewere like okay, we're done,
right.
And the changes that I had.
Also here, I am a person fromthe military 28 years of active
(36:53):
duty service and then I didn'treally have a lot of empathy.
Now, being a traumatic braininjury survivor, I have more
empathy.
So when that kid was in mychamber with a traumatic brain
injury and reached up and rippedthe speakers off the wall
because he had to go to thebathroom so badly, he's like I
(37:14):
have to shit, I have to shit.
And that was literally the tonethat he took and he ripped the
speakers off the wall.
I was totally empathetic to himand his mom when his mom was
pulling him out and trying toclean him up and then get him to
the bathroom.
And then she looks at me andgoes, what's that going to cost
me to repair?
And I said, come here you.
I said, mom, you're doing agreat job.
(37:37):
I didn't have that empathybefore.
God gave that empathy to methrough my traumatic brain
injury right.
So I needed this to be able tohelp people.
This is I mean that among youknow a hopeful cure for
traumatic brain injury and many,many, many other modalities and
just giving people hope when itcomes to fixing traumatic brain
(37:58):
injury.
It's going to be great.
Like I said, that's the workingtitle.
We'll see how it goes.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (38:03):
Yeah Well, I can't wait to read it and I'm so
excited that you, you know, youshare your story with everybody
, because people do need to hear, and I think especially from
doctors, from people that are inpositions of power, to also say
and I have empathy and I havelived through this and I'm now
devoting my entire life toresearching it to help you.
(38:24):
I mean, that is so powerful.
Dr. Joe Dituri (38:26):
Yeah, and this is where I kind of talk about
you finding your purpose in life.
You know now that I have apurpose, you know I, I did the
military thing, I did theteaching, I did this.
I did that.
Now it's like I want to help.
Right now I just want to giveback, I want, and that's my,
that's my currency.
So when you have that kind ofcurrency, you get to do the
(38:48):
things that you want to do andeverything else falls away.
It's like all those littlethings fall away.
How are we going to get themoney?
We'll figure it out.
I don't know.
We'll figure it out.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (38:56):
We'll keep trying .
Yeah, amazing, well, and yougot the money.
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Dituri (39:01):
They ain't paying me that money.
I'm just a researcher and acollege professor.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (39:13):
So you know I don't have a pot to pee in.
Yeah, the money's going to theAI lab in Australia.
It sounds like Wow, wow.
Well, you know, one time I hadsomebody on my podcast and I
said you know, if there wasfuture research you would want
to see.
I go, what type of researchwould you want?
He goes.
Honestly, it's the kitchen sinkstudies that I think are the
most fabulous, the ones whereyou can just like throw all
(39:33):
these different things at peopleand then see, did they get
better?
And sadly, those kitchen sinkstudies aren't really what we
consider the gold standard,which is why we're left with
having to do one thing by itself, in isolation at a time, first
to say here's how this thingworks and then go from there.
But whose model is that?
Dr. Joe Dituri (39:54):
That's the drug company model.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (39:56):
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Dituri (39:57):
Yeah, that's the drug company model, because
they want to just see the redpill, the blue pill, the red
pill, the blue pill and that'sit.
And they have the ability to dothat.
All things remain the same.
I just give you a pill.
That's not real life.
That is not real life.
Now, you and I were talkingbefore we even started.
Is it beneficial for you to goto the gym to spell gym with a G
(40:21):
right?
Is it beneficial for you todrink a lot of water?
Is it beneficial for you tohave breath work and believe in
some kind of faith in some way,shape or form, that this is all
going to work out?
All those things we know arebeneficial?
Now, is there a double-blind,randomized, placebo-controlled
study that proves that?
No, but I'll give you a littlepiece of information.
(40:44):
There is no double-blind,randomized, placebo-controlled
study that cigarettes causecancer.
It's not ethical to do thatkind of a study.
So there is no proof.
So that bar of randomized,controlled clinical trials, it's
a drug company thing.
(41:05):
It really is.
There are things that areethical and unethical to do.
So when you give somebodyadvice like hey, have a better
diet than fricking Cheetos, hey,drink a lot of water.
And it has to be the right kindof water that's going to
nourish you and get out in thesun a little bit and catch that
early morning red light.
(41:26):
Good, none of that's bad andthat's the Hippocratic oath
right do no harm.
So that's where I push people.
I'm like, look, come on, thisis not going to do you any harm
and it might just help.
So, yeah, try that too yeah,yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (41:42):
I mean, I've been in practice for 20 years and I
still say on a regular basis areyou drinking enough water, like
I mean.
I mean it's like for 20 years Istill have to come back to are
you drinking enough water here?
Dr. Joe Dituri (41:55):
A hundred percent.
See, people think that I drinkcoffee all day long.
This is a cup of refillablewater that I take my water
bottle and I refill the water upand I drink water all day long.
Absolutely, you need it.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (42:10):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely Well.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show and I, like I said,
I'm excited about your book.
I'm excited about the outcomesof all this research.
Thank you for all the hard workyou're doing for this community
.
Thank you for including womenin your study.
Dr. Joe Dituri (42:26):
No, it's important, it really is, you
know?
Yeah, no, it's important, itreally is.
Look, they're over half thepeople on the planet.
For Christ's sake, can wefigure these people out, please?
Dr. Ayla Wolf (42:41):
Plus, I got a personal desire to figure them
out too, because I still am notgood at it.
Well, I don't know if you'reever going to figure us out, but
you can try, yeah.
Dr. Joe Dituri (42:49):
That's the plan.
That's the plan.
So, yeah, no, really excitingwork and thank you.
Thank you for having me, thankyou for the listeners.
If you want to get in touchwith me or look at, follow what
we're doing, it's Dr Deepsea.
Look up Dr Deepsea, google it.
That's usually the handle onmost of the things, but you know
.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (43:06):
Excellent.
I will share all that in theshow notes and then, when your
book comes out, maybe we'll haveyou back on the show.
That'd be fun, you can I wouldlove that.
Dr. Joe Dituri (43:14):
I would love that, yes, please, thank you,
thank you.
I appreciate you having me onit's.
It's great, and I love the thecompatibility of what you're
doing too.
Look, we got to do thisdifferently.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (43:37):
The drug company model is not working.
Let's figure out a differentway to help people.
Yeah, yep, absolutely,absolutely Well, thank you for
your service.
Thank you for everything you'redoing and we'll definitely have
you back on Hoorah Thanks.
Medical disclaimer.
This video or podcast is forgeneral informational purposes
only and does not constitute thepractice of medicine or other
professional healthcare services, including the giving of
(43:59):
medical advice.
No doctor patient relationshipis formed.
The use of this information andmaterials included is at the
user's own risk.
The content of this video orpodcast is not intended to be a
substitute for medical advice,diagnosis or treatment, and
consumers of this informationshould seek the advice of a
medical professional for any andall health-related issues.
(44:22):
A link to our full medicaldisclaimer is available in the
notes.
Right.
So I'm trying to bringawareness to the fact that you
can pressurize for a long periodof time and what the mechanisms
of action of hyperbaricmedicine are.
So we knew a whole bunch ofthem.
So we knew like decreasedinflammatory markers, decreased
neuroinflammation, you know,increased activity, increased
(00:20):
cognitive function, decreasedphase lag, that kind of stuff.
Those were all known mechanismof action that we knew were
going to come out of this.
But we wanted to kind ofhighlight them for the world so
that on the world stage we couldshow them.
Hey, look this does work.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (00:36):
Welcome to Life After Impact the concussion
recovery podcast.
I'm Dr Ayla Wolf and I will behosting today's episode, where
we help you navigate the oftenconfusing, frustrating and
overwhelming journey ofconcussion and brain injury
recovery.
This podcast is your go-toresource for actionable
information, whether you'redealing with a recent concussion
(00:57):
, struggling withpost-concussion syndrome or just
feeling stuck in your healingprocess.
In each episode, we dive deepinto the symptoms, testing,
treatments and neurologicalinsights that can help you move
forward with clarity andconfidence.
We bring you leading experts inthe world of brain health,
functional neurology andrehabilitation to share their
(01:19):
wisdom and strategies.
So if you're feeling lost,hopeless or like no one
understands what you're goingthrough, know that you are not
alone.
This podcast can be your guideand partner in recovery, helping
you build a better life afterimpact.
Today's guest on Life AfterImpact the Concussion Recovery
(01:41):
Podcast is someone who quiteliterally pushes the boundaries
of human potential underwater,in the lab and in the classroom.
Dr Joe Dituri is a retired usnavy commander with over 28
years of service in specialoperations, deep submergence and
undersea systems engineering.
He's a phd in biomedical, adecorated officer and a pioneer
(02:04):
in hyperbaric medicine and lifesupport technologies.
He also holds a Guinness WorldRecord as the man who lived
underwater for 100 days duringProject Neptune 100.
This was a worldrecord-breaking mission aimed at
studying human physiology underprolonged hyperbaric conditions
, raising ocean awareness andinspiring thousands of students
(02:27):
to pursue science andengineering.
With three decades of elitemilitary diving experience, Dr.
Dituri has helped developrescue systems for submariners,
designed dry submersibles forNavy SEALs and co-authored the
Navy Diving Manual and the Artand Science of Hyperbaric
Medicine, a go-to resource forclinicians in this emerging
(02:48):
field.
Currently, he serves asAssistant Vice President of
Veterans Clinical Research atthe University of South Florida,
where he leads clinical trialsfocused on treating traumatic
brain injury, teaches medicalengineering and continues to
advance the science ofhyperbaric oxygen therapy From
the depths of the ocean to thefrontiers of neuroscience.
(03:09):
Dr Dituri brings a rare blend ofoperational grit, scientific
rigor and humanitarian purpose,and we are honored to have him
on the show today.
Dr Joe Dituri, you are one ofthe most well-accomplished
people.
I know your background, yourbio, your experience is
(03:30):
incredible and the reason Iwanted to have you on the show
today is because, as an expertdeep sea diver and somebody who
holds a world record forspending 100 days in pressure
under the sea for spending 100days in pressure under the sea.
You're the best person to talkto about the effects of oxygen
on the brain, and so thank youso much for coming on the show
(03:54):
sharing your expertise.
You're currently leading thebiggest hyperbaric oxygen
therapy research study forveterans in the world right now.
Welcome to the show.
Dr. Joe Dituri (04:05):
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me on andI'm excited.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (04:10):
Wonderful.
Well, why don't we start out?
Give me your background.
You have spent so much timeunder the ocean doing some
probably pretty cool top secretwork All right real quick.
Dr. Joe Dituri (04:22):
So I spent 28 years in the United States Navy.
I got to hang out with reallycool people and do great things.
When I finished that, my bossat the time, bill McRaven, asked
me what I wanted to do I what Iwanted to do when I grew up,
basically.
And I says, look, I don't wantto come work for you, that's for
sure.
Want to come work for you,that's for sure.
(04:46):
So he asked me a favor Would Isit on the preservation of the
force and family?
And I said, yeah, sure, I will.
I did that for a little bit andI came back to him.
I said, bill, we're talking toour veterans with TBI, but we're
not doing anything.
Psychology and psychiatry has alimit.
And he looked me dead in theeye and goes permission, granted
, aquanaut, fix the problem.
And I went fuck, right now.
(05:11):
I'm like, what am I going to donow?
So I went back to school.
I got a PhD in biomedicalengineering and I said I'm going
to fix brains because I'msmartical, right, no, right.
Then I started fixing them thisway and then, when I did, you
know, the good Lord basicallysaid Joe, take a right.
And I said no, no, no, I got it, I'm fixing them with just this
.
And then he said, no, no, no,take a right.
I told you to take a right.
And then, finally, he threw a6,000 pound SUV at my head and
(05:35):
gave me a traumatic brain injury.
And now I'm like best thingthat ever happened to me.
That's amazing how life throwsus curve balls and you know
crazy that you were on the trackto studying TBI one way.
Then you get your own TBI andall of a sudden it's like oh, I
(05:57):
need to go this direction now.
Yeah, it's.
It's one of these, like holymackerel, the universe has got a
plan, this has got a plan foryou.
There is a plan.
I don't know what it is, but itunfolds before you.
You can worry about it all daylong or you can just ride this
freaking wave yeah, so tell meabout your recovery.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (06:18):
What are some of the things that you did to help
recover?
Dr. Joe Dituri (06:21):
it.
It was this easy and I'll goback and tell your listeners
real quick that the quick story,you know.
I came to the point where I wasdespondent, right, and I felt
that, okay, now I am hopeless.
Right here, I am a clinicalresearcher for traumatic brain
injury and I have a traumaticbrain injury.
(06:42):
I can't read, I can't write, Ican't think.
I'm crying all the time whenyou say unburdened anger, like I
want to rip the steering wheeloff the car.
All that happened to me.
So I was like, okay, I can't do.
The one thing that I'm here onthis planet for is to help
people and I can't do thatanymore.
I set a date for suicide.
(07:04):
Can't do that anymore.
I set a date for suicide.
So here I am setting the date.
It was on my birthday, december8th, and September 7th is when
the car hit me.
So I went through this realdeep lull and then I was like,
okay, but before I do that, I'mCatholic and I'm three daughters
.
I says I have to, I have to doeverything, because when I get
to the pearly gates I have to beable to tell him look, man, I
(07:26):
did freaking everything.
And when I did everything.
So you asked me what I did whenI did everything in combination
in a short period of time, holymackerel.
I started getting better andthen better, and then more
better and then more better.
And then all of a sudden, I'mbetter than I was before I
started and I said there'ssomething to this and I'm
(07:48):
steeped in science.
Right, science wins overbullshit.
So I'm like hold on, whichthing works best, right, which?
Okay, I have to get rid of allthe confounding variables and do
that one thing.
No, that is the wrong way toapproach science and we need to
change scientists' mindset.
It's not just one thing.
(08:08):
If you ask somebody hey, thisplant, what does it need?
You know, water, sunlight, food.
Well, we intuitively know itneeds water, sunlight and food.
So the human body, the humanbrain, needs to be fixed
physically, physiologically andpsychologically simultaneously.
(08:30):
If you leave one of those out,you're going to miss the boat on
fixing the person and you'renot going to do them justice.
Absolutely Everything.
Red light therapy, b-romanttherapy.
I faced east and watched thesunrise and got the red light in
my eyes.
I grounded every morning.
I hopped up and down on a peg,I did ice bath, I did saunas, I
(08:51):
did when I say, everything if Ididn't think it was going to
hurt me and I applied a littlebit of you know science to it,
like hey, that's not going towork or there's nothing to that.
You know that.
And no drugs.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (09:04):
And so talk a little bit.
So you didn't just spend 100days underwater for funsies and
to break world records.
You actually did this to provethat it is safe to be under
pressure in that sense.
So talk a little bit about youknow, when people think about
diving, obviously they envisionscuba divers and you're talking
(09:24):
about something completelydifferent.
So describe the differencebetween the type of situation
you're in versus what peoplemight envision when they think
diving.
Dr. Joe Dituri (09:33):
Sure.
So when you go scuba divingyou're under what we call
hyperbaric pressure.
Hyper means more than baricmeans pressure.
So if you're in a hyperbaricpressure environment, you're at
an elevated pressure.
While I was underneath the waterfor 100 days, I did it for
three basic reasons.
The first was to do science,technology, engineering and
(09:56):
mathematics to kids, to let themknow that you can.
You know, science is not justabout white lab coats and
beakers and microscopes andthey're on board already right,
it's more than that and you cando science in a cool environment
.
The second thing was I'm abiomedical engineer, so I wanted
to do blood, urine, saliva,electrocardiograms,
electroencephalograms, pulmonaryfunction tests, all that
(10:18):
science-y stuff.
And the third thing that Iwanted to do was talk to all of
the people about reaching out toall the experts in the industry
about saving our marineenvironment.
So those are the three mainthings that we did.
But the fourth thing, on a sidetangential note, was I stayed
underwater at the exact pressurehyperbaric medicine that we
(10:43):
treat traumatic brain injuryright now 1.7 PO2, 1.7 ATA, 1.7
PO2 if you're using 100%peroxide, right.
So I'm trying to bring awarenessto the fact that you can
pressurize for a long period oftime and what the mechanisms of
action of hyperbaric medicineare.
(11:03):
So we knew a whole bunch ofthem.
So we knew like decreasedinflammatory markers, decreased
neuroinflammation, uh, you know,in increased activity,
increased cognitive function, uh, decreased phase, like that
kind of stuff.
Those were all known mechanismof action that we knew were
going to come out of this.
But we wanted to kind ofhighlight them for the world so
(11:23):
that the on the world stage wecould show them hey look, this
does work.
And they're like oh, thatnewfangled thing called
hyperbarics.
I'm like, okay, hyperbarics hasbeen around since the 1600s,
almost 400 years, you know, 1664, I think it's not right it's
not at all right.
(11:43):
So, but it fell off because weweren't able to describe the
mechanisms of action right.
Every single drug that comesout has a mechanism of action a
non-steroidal anti-inflammatoryand NSAID.
It decreases inflammation.
That's its mechanism of action,right?
Cardiac drugs, everything youknow vasoconstriction,
(12:05):
vasodilation, all that stuff isstuff that we're looking for as
a mechanism of action for thedrug.
So this is where I go to medschool and I'm teaching med
school and I'm telling the kidslook, you have to focus on the
mechanism of action.
If you want a powerfulanti-inflammatory, you can
either A do hyperbarics, or B doa non-steroidal
(12:26):
anti-inflammatory, or C do likea medro-dose pack or something
like that steroid type thingthat can reduce inflammation.
All three of those will do thesame job.
However, comma one is two or apill and one is a lifestyle
change.
Do you want to change yourpatient's lifestyle?
That's the difference.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (12:46):
Well, and there are side effects to taking
non-steroidalanti-inflammatories and I mean I
can't.
I've had a number of patientsdevelop diabetes as a result of
being put on prednisone for longperiods of time.
Dr. Joe Dituri (13:00):
And 15 pounds right on the waistline.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (13:04):
Yeah, that too, that too, yeah.
So when it comes to chronicsituations, it's like okay,
maybe we need to look at this alittle bit differently.
Dr. Joe Dituri (13:13):
That's exactly it.
And to go back to the veteranside of the house, here we are
busting these people up and youknow, okay, so it's not even
just veterans.
So veterans get exposed to TBIs.
But, as you know, okay, so it'snot even just veterans.
So veterans get exposed to TBIs.
But, as you see, I was in amotor vehicle accident.
I spent 28 years in the Navy,didn't have a knockout.
(13:34):
You know, I got hurt but nevergot knocked out.
I got knocked unconscious in my47 Chevy right, holy mackerel,
mbas can do it.
Domestic abuse, third leadingcause of traumatic brain injury.
I was shocked at that.
Shocked, right.
So we have to start thinkingthat TBIs can come from a lot of
different places, not just themilitary kit.
(13:56):
But when you approach this, theblast and the radius and all
that stuff, that seems like it'sa compelling factor.
But I don't want to leaveanybody out of this discussion
because there are millions oftraumatic brain injuries.
Incidentally, you probablyalready know this I don't know
if your listeners do buttraumatic brain injury has been
(14:17):
on the books since 1600 BC.
Mm-hmm, yeah, 1600 BC, 1600 BC.
For millennia we have beendifferentiating this and kind of
figuring you got hit in thehead.
You're bad off right.
(14:38):
Only in about 1000 AD did wefirst make our determination the
difference between concussionand traumatic brain injury.
I think that was actually 1300,right?
So FDA medicine, regularmedicine, big pharma, you've had
this problem for thousands ofyears.
How you doing, how's it going?
(14:58):
Oh, there is no end point.
I'm running the largestclinical trial, I'm helping with
the largest clinical trial inhyperbaric medicine history ever
, ever done in the whole world.
Right, and here this thing isdoesn't have a satisfactory
endpoint because the FDA has nosatisfactory endpoint for cured
(15:18):
traumatic brain injury afterthousands of years.
And I said well, I suggestmaybe we're doing it wrong If
you don't have an answer yet.
We're doing it wrong.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (15:31):
Yeah Well, and you know, within medicine we
have standardized protocols orstandard of care for various
disorders, diseases, events.
We have a, you know, anemergency standard of care when
somebody gets a concussion.
But when somebody is a year outand they're still struggling,
there's no standard of care, forwhat do you do with the person
who didn't recover in thestandard window?
(15:53):
And so that's part of theproblem as well.
Now I'm curious.
So your study has over 460participants.
It's a huge study 420, yeah,okay.
And what are your objectivemarkers?
What are you measuring beforeand after the HBOT sessions?
Dr. Joe Dituri (16:11):
So, interestingly enough, the same
stuff or similar stuff to what Idid while I was underwater
blood, urine, saliva,electrocardiograms,
electroencephalograms, pulmonaryfunction tests, thesis sampling
, diffuse tensor imaging, mris,like the whole gamut of
everything.
And like we cast a really widenet because there are zero
(16:35):
approved biomarkers forlong-term traumatic brain injury
, zero approved biomarkerchanges None.
So we're just testingeverything, every kind of blood.
We're doing interleukin testing, all these myokins like crazy
amount of blood testing that youwould never even suspect.
And the diffuse tensor imagingis second to none and we're
(16:58):
using all the great places toanalyze this, Like our blood is
going to Duke to be analyzedbecause they're blood experts.
Our diffuse tensor imaging MRIbecause they're blood experts.
Our diffuse tensor imaging MRIthat's being shipped out to
Australia because they have anAI component that is reading
them and trending the imagingright.
(17:18):
So we took all the greatestthings in the world and I'm not
the leader of that study by anywild stretch, I'm just one of
the cats that's helping on it.
So but we did get a grade Ateam together.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (17:30):
It really sounds like it and I will say I don't
think I have ever seen a studywith 420 people in it where
they're doing DTI on everysingle person before and after
the intervention.
That's going to be astoundingand I'm so excited to see the
outcome of that information.
Dr. Joe Dituri (17:46):
You and me both right, but this is the thing
Science takes a long time.
I got three more years of datacollection and then probably a
year to write it up.
Yeah, took a full more years.
Everybody's like we need a curenow and I'm like, look, I get
it.
I get it because I wanted acure instantly.
And there is no instant cure,right, what do you have to do
(18:08):
Everything?
How long do you have to do it?
For as long as it takes, right,just keep trying.
Right, because I guarantee you,if you do nothing, nothing's
going to happen, or the samething is going to happen.
But you have to be able toaffect change in your body.
You have to be able to try andchange things.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (18:26):
Yeah, yeah.
So a couple of questions I wantto ask you.
I have heard of people talkingabout pulsing the oxygen when
somebody is in the HBOT, becausewhen you're, when you're in a
high pressure oxygen situation,some you know different
physiological changes happen.
Then when you come out of thathigh oxygen situation, your body
(18:49):
has a reflexive response to thechange in oxygen, and some
people are saying that thatreflexive response is also part
of the healing that occurs, andso some people are now kind of
pulsing the oxygen throughout anHBOT session.
So talk to me a little bitabout have you looked into that
or you know, what are yourthoughts on that?
Dr. Joe Dituri (19:07):
Yeah, that's preclinical research at this
point, right, so we're doing aclinical trial, we are staying
here at one pressure, right?
But in preclinical research, wehave found that when you
decrease the oxygenconcentration and then give the
oxygen concentration back andthen decrease it again and then
give it back again, decreasesagain, what you do is you
(19:29):
upregulate something calledHIF-1-alpha or hypoxic inducing
factor.
They won the Nobel Prize in2019 for this, so it's not like
it's old, right, this is brandnew stuff.
Nobody's ever had it before,right?
So when you upregulateHIF-1-alpha, you upregulate
brain derivedderived neurotropicfact.
And if you upregulate BDNF,that's similar to the lawn seed
(19:53):
for the brain.
And then, if I give you moreoxygen, oxygen is like watering
the lawn seed on the brain,right?
So it's like you give it, yougive it water.
You give it, you give it water,right?
So you know sunlight, water,food, right?
You're trying to do this alltogether.
But that's preclinical research.
It's not there yet.
I know that those things happen, but that doesn't mean this,
(20:16):
right?
Causation, not correlation.
Correlation, not causation, youknow.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (20:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Still a lot of research thatneeds to be done.
Okay, next question.
Some people have soft shellHBOT machines in their office.
Other people have hard shell.
Talk to me about the differencein terms of the devices that
currently exist clinically.
Dr. Joe Dituri (20:37):
Yeah, so most of the current research that has
been done has been done at 2.0or higher.
So there's a small window rangefrom 2.0 to 3.0.
But remember, hyper means morethan baric, means pressure.
So we have found, and we havedone research on this at the
(20:58):
lower pressures and we havefound that if you just go to 1.3
ATA, it's all about thepressure that you go to.
What do you need?
Different pressures affectdifferent mechanisms of action.
One mechanism of action forhyperbaric medicine is toxin
inhibition.
Toxin inhibition needs to be uphere, needs to be up at the 2.8
(21:19):
, 3.0 level.
That's where we see the toxininhibition working its best.
Does it work down here?
Sure it does.
It works down here to lowerpressure.
It just works less right.
Inflammation decrease ininflammation, like a decrease in
interleukin-6, increase ininterleukin-23, pro-inflammatory
, anti-inflammatory cytokines.
(21:40):
That works best at about 1.3,1.4.
That's the lower pressure.
When you go higher, does itstill decrease inflammation?
Yes, just not as well.
But the range is from about 1.0, that you're trying to treat
Doctors.
You need to know all thesemechanisms of action and where
(22:13):
they're best portrayed in thefigure and match the person with
that and then practice medicinewhile you're doing it, by
evaluating your patient andlooking for objective quality
measure changes, just like wewere talking about before we
started.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (22:34):
Okay, so when you're talking about toxin
inhibition, then you'reimmediately thinking what
somebody that has say like Lymedisease, or somebody that has
these infections that theirbody's trying to combat.
Dr. Joe Dituri (22:42):
Yeah.
So toxin inhibition, like mold,is a toxin, right?
So we use it for gaseousgangrene.
Gaseous gangrene, you know, wewant to inhibit those toxins.
We want to get your body tostop allowing toxins to
reproduce, right?
Or to get the toxins out ofyour body in some way, shape or
(23:05):
form.
We realize, and we see throughlots of objective testing and
measurement, that if you get theoxygen concentration right here
, right?
So this is 35 millimeters ofmercury.
You know, when you put thatstupid little light on your
finger, that's about 35millimeters of mercury, of
oxygen.
Well, we're at 760 millimetersof mercury pressure right now
(23:28):
and you're only getting 35 inyour finger.
What we have found is thattoxin production stops at 450
millimeters of mercury.
Give or take Stops, it cannotreproduce.
You know alpha toxins, you knowgaseous gangrene, all of those
C proteins, all of that kind ofstuff stops reproducing at 450
(23:52):
millimeters of mercury.
So if you get the oxygen tohere, to 450 millimeters of
mercury, you can stop oxygenproduction or you can stop toxin
production, right.
But that's a slippery slopebecause when you get up to 3.0,
that's human tolerance.
Humans cannot tolerate anyhigher than 3.0, right.
(24:12):
So you really don't have muchof a band to work with, right,
you get to hear minimumeffective dose, and that's the
problem.
Who funds hyperbaric oxygenresearch?
Well, the drug companies do.
Oh, there are no drug companies.
Who are the drug companies whenit comes to hyperbaric oxygen
therapy?
In my opinion, it is thehyperbaric chamber manufacturers
(24:35):
.
Right, Because they're kind ofpeddling the drug, if you will,
whatever.
But otherwise nobody's makingmoney off this.
There's no like oh, we're goingto make a billion dollars off
this.
Trust me, anybody in thehyperbaric business is not
making a million dollars,they're not making a billion
dollars.
Nobody's getting rich here.
But it's basically compressingthe oxygen that we have on the
(24:57):
planet, naturally produced, bythe way, uh, by trees, and you
know plants and stuff.
So you know, we compress thatdown and then we use a hall to
hold that pressure in, and we'vebeen doing this for, you know,
42 forevers, you know.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So different pressures havedifferent mechanistic effects on
the body and so, based on kindof what somebody is coming in
for, that would determine whatthe best pressure is for that
person.
Or maybe they need multiplepressures If there's different
things happening at differentpressure.
Dr. Joe Dituri (25:31):
Yep, this is why the doctors need to take a
class, right?
Like?
Doctors are smart people, I getit, but but you have to know
the mechanism of action andwhere you want to put them on
this number line, from, you know, 1.0 to 3.0.
When you put them here, it doessomething different than when
you put them here.
Right, it's wonky, but that'sthe way it is.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (25:52):
Yeah, yeah, and so you teach this class.
It sounds.
Dr. Joe Dituri (25:55):
Well, I teach that class at med school.
But find an instructor from,like, the International Board of
Undersea Medicine or somethinglike that.
Right, this is one of theselike go find a good instructor
near you and get them to teachyou.
It'll be good.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (26:09):
Yeah, excellent.
And then my next question somepeople are combining we talked
about, I mean, with research.
You have to look at one thingHBOT by itself, same pressure
whole time.
But in clinical practice, inreal world, we like to stack
different therapies, and so Iknow some people when they're
using HBOT, they're alsoencouraging the person to be
(26:30):
doing cognitive exercises ordifferent things to stimulate
their brain while they're in theHBOT or immediately after.
So what are your thoughts on,you know, and even maybe your
personal experience on trying tolike stack therapies with HBOT
clinically?
Dr. Joe Dituri (26:47):
Stacking therapies is always a better
concept, right, because thewhole is better than the sum of
its parts, right?
I mean, you know it's not goingto work.
The onesies, twosies, are nolonger going to work as
effectively as multipletherapies.
However, caution, warning,warning, warning, right?
(27:08):
Please, don't stack things thatdon't go together in the
hyperbaric chamber.
I'll give you a perfect, forinstance, red light therapy.
Wonderful on its own.
However, red light therapyrequires, in my estimation, a
varying wavelength, requiring atleast 110 volts, if not 220,
(27:30):
right, with a varying intensityand magnification and a heat
generating source.
And we already know that heatand power do not go well inside
a hyperbaric chamber.
So, please, please, please,please, please, don't stack
those modalities, right?
Like, don't?
You know?
I see people wanting to work outin a hyperbaric chamber.
You can absolutely exercise ina hyperbaric chamber.
(27:53):
Exercise lowers your oxygentoxicity threshold.
It used to be 3.0 when you'relaying there doing nothing, but
if you're in there working out,do you think 2.0 is safe?
We don't know, nobody knows,right?
So here you are working out.
Maybe 1.3 is safe enough.
No, no, no, it's fine, right?
(28:14):
I'm on my rowing machine, it'sfine?
Wait, wait, wait.
Rowing machines have metalwheels on metal rails which
create friction.
Friction rubs together,friction creates heat, heat and
oxygen account to be stopped,right.
So, like, don't stack themodalities.
Or if you're going to getsomebody smart to make sure that
(28:35):
whatever you're doing iscorrect, right, is it good to do
breathing exercises whileyou're in a hyperbaric chamber?
I do them all the time.
Right, I do a quad, you know,four count, four count, four
count.
You know, four count, fourcount, four count.
Uh, you know, we've done thatin the military for years to
reduce our parasympathetic relax, calm down a little bit, right?
(28:56):
So that's the kind of thingthat's great.
Can you do eye exercises?
Oh boy, yes, those are great,like those functioning visual
things.
Can you, um, you know, can youlisten to meditation?
Absolutely, if you have anapproved device that's inside
that's giving you sound.
Yeah, sure, why not do ameditation?
(29:17):
Right?
Should I do a hallucinogenicinside a hyperbaric oxygen
chamber?
Oh, my God, I'm a little bitafraid, right, like?
You know what I'm saying.
So, uh, you know what I'msaying.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (29:31):
So you got it.
I was thinking more along thelines of like eye exercises or
cognitive exercises.
Dr. Joe Dituri (29:37):
You just opened a whole nother level of like no,
I'm sorry but like you see allthis craziness happening on the
internet, I literally saw avideo of a girl inside a
hyperbaric chamber with her redlight mask on and an oxygen mask
over the red light mask,pushing the oxygen through the
red light mask.
(29:58):
Oh, please, don't do that.
Oh, please stop, please, stop,right.
So this is the kind of thingthat we're dealing with, right?
You know, people like I can'tget away from my cell phone.
I have to have my cell phone onme 24-7.
It needs to be in the chamber.
No, first of all, you, me,everybody we need a break from
this damn cell phone.
Mine sits over here on thecharger over there.
(30:20):
It doesn't sit in my pocket.
I try and get away from it.
I try, I'm addicted, just likeeverybody else, but we got to
try and get away from that.
So don't bring the cell phonein there.
But, yeah, if you have a way todo eye exercises and breathing
techniques and you can listen toa meditation, sure, that's
great stacking of modalities atthis point.
But yeah, any of the craziness,yeah, let's not do that.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (30:42):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I wasn't even thinking ofthe craziness, but honestly,
you're right, people are doingcrazy things.
So it probably absolutely needsto be said Like these are the
things that you cannot do whenyou're in the HBOT.
Dr. Joe Dituri (31:17):
So people are kind of not maybe stacking at
the same time, but stackingright after they're doing this.
So I've done ice bath beforeand ice bath after I've done
sauna before.
I've done sauna after.
I can't see much of ameasurable distance.
I am freezing after I do my icebath so it's really
uncomfortable.
So it's better for me after andthe sauna is better before.
But I don't know that kind ofstuff.
(31:39):
Yeah, I get it, you know, ewottraining, stuff like that
afterwards is always, you know,it's always beneficial.
But yeah, that kind of stuff.
We're actually getting to apoint where I just ordered a new
type of hyperbaric chamber.
It's called a hypo, goes toaltitude, like it goes to the
top of Mount Everest and thenpressurizes all the way down to
(32:03):
3.0.
So it's a hypo hyperbaricchamber.
It can do both.
And what we're going to do is astudy on increasing
brain-derived neurotropic factorby going all the way up to
altitude and giving you hypoxiaand then coming back down and
watering it on a severe jump updown.
So we're going to see how thatworks.
(32:24):
Crazy, it's fun, it's science,right.
This is what keeps me awake atnight.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (32:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
The other thing that I think isone of the biggest barriers to
HBOT is the amount of sessionspeople have to do.
So talk about minimum,effective dose, ideal dose and
how this is structured forpeople who may not be familiar.
Dr. Joe Dituri (32:46):
I'll give you a very sad answer and the truth
right up front we don't know,right, minimum effective dose.
We have no idea, right?
I can tell you that if you wantto decrease inflammatory
markers, I have had really goodresults with 10 to 12 treatments
reduces the interleukin-6enough in 10 to 12 treatments.
(33:06):
However, if you're treatingtraumatic brain injury, it seems
to be more like 25 to 40.
Nobody really knows and that'sbecause there is no drug company
funding these studies.
The study that I'm doing rightnow at the University of South
Florida right, usf is doing thisstudy because the governor of
the state of Florida and thespeaker of the house said listen
(33:27):
, we want to help our veteransand we want to figure out the
science behind hyperbaricmedicine, so we're going to fund
this.
So he funded us.
That's the only funding thatpeople get in hyperbaric
medicine.
There is no like $20 million togo do this study, or $50
million or $100 million to go doa phase two clinical trial.
(33:49):
There's none of that kind ofmoney rolling around.
So unfortunately we don't havethose answers of minimum
effective dose just yet.
But there's people that arefunding it out of their own
pocket, right?
So the International Bank ofJoe is looking to do some more
research.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (34:05):
Excellent, excellent.
And how many women are in yourstudy?
Half.
Dr. Joe Dituri (34:11):
No, and this is the thing, and female veterans
are hard to come by.
But I'm like girls, get in here, get in here.
I'm done having this like it'sonly guys.
So about half it's a 40something percent right now, but
about half of the people arecoming in are female, which is
great, right, because we arelike we were talking about
(34:33):
earlier.
We are woefully inadequate indoing research on females
because, man, you're sodifferent.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (34:41):
Well, and I think one of the problems, too, is
that even when females areincluded in the study, that
doesn't necessarily mean that,when all the data is being
sifted through and all thestatistics are being run, that
people are even asking thequestion like okay, we now have
420 before and after DTIs.
Is there a difference in thefemale brains versus the male
brains?
(35:01):
That's the question that Iwould want to know.
But do you know?
Is that one of the aims of yourstudy?
Dr. Joe Dituri (35:06):
Absolutely it's one of the sub aims, right,
Cause you have to have a primaryand a secondary and then you
have to have subs.
So yeah, it's one of the subaims.
But yes, absolutely the thestratification of female to male
and how their blood biomarkersdiffer, how their theses differ,
how the urine differs,everything right, Like how their
EEG scores differ, Cause y'all,y'all brains work totally
(35:30):
differently than ours do.
I mean, that's just the waythat it is, and if a guy you
don't believe that, trust me,that's the way it is.
I do a lot of EEGs on people,and women are just wired
differently.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (35:41):
Absolutely.
Yeah, well, that makes me sohappy that that is actually part
of your study.
I mean, this is going to be soexciting when all this data
comes out and, like you said,it's probably going to take you
a year to sift through it all.
Dr. Joe Dituri (35:54):
Three and a half more years or so we'll have
something.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (35:56):
Yeah, incredible, Amazing.
So right now you're alsowriting a book on your personal
journey.
So talk a little bit about thebook you're writing.
Dr. Joe Dituri (36:06):
So it's why my Traumatic Brain Injury is the
Best best Thing that EverHappened to Me.
Is the working title Right?
And I'll give you just a realquick.
For instance, I was engaged toa beautiful, you know, 40 year
old Bulgarian fitness model.
Like she was just fabulous.
But when I got hit by the carshe couldn't find her way to the
(36:30):
hospital.
But two of the seven days thatI was in the hospital I was like
this is not cool, right.
So that's just one of thethings that happened to me where
it was like okay, that made merealize that that support system
wasn't there, that personwasn't the right person for me.
And after a couple of months wewere like okay, we're done,
right.
And the changes that I had.
Also here, I am a person fromthe military 28 years of active
(36:53):
duty service and then I didn'treally have a lot of empathy.
Now, being a traumatic braininjury survivor, I have more
empathy.
So when that kid was in mychamber with a traumatic brain
injury and reached up and rippedthe speakers off the wall
because he had to go to thebathroom so badly, he's like I
(37:14):
have to shit, I have to shit.
And that was literally the tonethat he took and he ripped the
speakers off the wall.
I was totally empathetic to himand his mom when his mom was
pulling him out and trying toclean him up and then get him to
the bathroom.
And then she looks at me andgoes, what's that going to cost
me to repair?
And I said, come here you.
I said, mom, you're doing agreat job.
(37:37):
I didn't have that empathybefore.
God gave that empathy to methrough my traumatic brain
injury right.
So I needed this to be able tohelp people.
This is I mean that among youknow a hopeful cure for
traumatic brain injury and many,many, many other modalities and
just giving people hope when itcomes to fixing traumatic brain
(37:58):
injury.
It's going to be great.
Like I said, that's the workingtitle.
We'll see how it goes.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (38:03):
Yeah Well, I can't wait to read it and I'm so
excited that you, you know, youshare your story with everybody
, because people do need to hear, and I think especially from
doctors, from people that are inpositions of power, to also say
and I have empathy and I havelived through this and I'm now
devoting my entire life toresearching it to help you.
(38:24):
I mean, that is so powerful.
Dr. Joe Dituri (38:26):
Yeah, and this is where I kind of talk about
you finding your purpose in life.
You know now that I have apurpose, you know I, I did the
military thing, I did theteaching, I did this.
I did that.
Now it's like I want to help.
Right now I just want to giveback, I want, and that's my,
that's my currency.
So when you have that kind ofcurrency, you get to do the
(38:48):
things that you want to do andeverything else falls away.
It's like all those littlethings fall away.
How are we going to get themoney?
We'll figure it out.
I don't know.
We'll figure it out.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (38:56):
We'll keep trying .
Yeah, amazing, well, and yougot the money.
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Dituri (39:01):
They ain't paying me that money.
I'm just a researcher and acollege professor.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (39:13):
So you know I don't have a pot to pee in.
Yeah, the money's going to theAI lab in Australia.
It sounds like Wow, wow.
Well, you know, one time I hadsomebody on my podcast and I
said you know, if there wasfuture research you would want
to see.
I go, what type of researchwould you want?
He goes.
Honestly, it's the kitchen sinkstudies that I think are the
most fabulous, the ones whereyou can just like throw all
(39:33):
these different things at peopleand then see, did they get
better?
And sadly, those kitchen sinkstudies aren't really what we
consider the gold standard,which is why we're left with
having to do one thing by itself, in isolation at a time, first
to say here's how this thingworks and then go from there.
But whose model is that?
Dr. Joe Dituri (39:54):
That's the drug company model.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (39:56):
Yeah.
Dr. Joe Dituri (39:57):
Yeah, that's the drug company model, because
they want to just see the redpill, the blue pill, the red
pill, the blue pill and that'sit.
And they have the ability to dothat.
All things remain the same.
I just give you a pill.
That's not real life.
That is not real life.
Now, you and I were talkingbefore we even started.
Is it beneficial for you to goto the gym to spell gym with a G
(40:21):
right?
Is it beneficial for you todrink a lot of water?
Is it beneficial for you tohave breath work and believe in
some kind of faith in some way,shape or form, that this is all
going to work out?
All those things we know arebeneficial?
Now, is there a double-blind,randomized, placebo-controlled
study that proves that?
No, but I'll give you a littlepiece of information.
(40:44):
There is no double-blind,randomized, placebo-controlled
study that cigarettes causecancer.
It's not ethical to do thatkind of a study.
So there is no proof.
So that bar of randomized,controlled clinical trials, it's
a drug company thing.
(41:05):
It really is.
There are things that areethical and unethical to do.
So when you give somebodyadvice like hey, have a better
diet than fricking Cheetos, hey,drink a lot of water.
And it has to be the right kindof water that's going to
nourish you and get out in thesun a little bit and catch that
early morning red light.
(41:26):
Good, none of that's bad andthat's the Hippocratic oath
right do no harm.
So that's where I push people.
I'm like, look, come on, thisis not going to do you any harm
and it might just help.
So, yeah, try that too yeah,yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (41:42):
I mean, I've been in practice for 20 years and I
still say on a regular basis areyou drinking enough water, like
I mean.
I mean it's like for 20 years Istill have to come back to are
you drinking enough water here?
Dr. Joe Dituri (41:55):
A hundred percent.
See, people think that I drinkcoffee all day long.
This is a cup of refillablewater that I take my water
bottle and I refill the water upand I drink water all day long.
Absolutely, you need it.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (42:10):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely Well.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show and I, like I said,
I'm excited about your book.
I'm excited about the outcomesof all this research.
Thank you for all the hard workyou're doing for this community
.
Thank you for including womenin your study.
Dr. Joe Dituri (42:26):
No, it's important, it really is, you
know?
Yeah, no, it's important, itreally is.
Look, they're over half thepeople on the planet.
For Christ's sake, can wefigure these people out, please?
Dr. Ayla Wolf (42:41):
Plus, I got a personal desire to figure them
out too, because I still am notgood at it.
Well, I don't know if you'reever going to figure us out, but
you can try, yeah.
Dr. Joe Dituri (42:49):
That's the plan.
That's the plan.
So, yeah, no, really excitingwork and thank you.
Thank you for having me, thankyou for the listeners.
If you want to get in touchwith me or look at, follow what
we're doing, it's Dr Deepsea.
Look up Dr Deepsea, google it.
That's usually the handle onmost of the things, but you know
.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (43:06):
Excellent.
I will share all that in theshow notes and then, when your
book comes out, maybe we'll haveyou back on the show.
That'd be fun, you can I wouldlove that.
Dr. Joe Dituri (43:14):
I would love that, yes, please, thank you,
thank you.
I appreciate you having me onit's.
It's great, and I love the thecompatibility of what you're
doing too.
Look, we got to do thisdifferently.
Dr. Ayla Wolf (43:37):
The drug company model is not working.
Let's figure out a differentway to help people.
Yeah, yep, absolutely,absolutely Well, thank you for
your service.
Thank you for everything you'redoing and we'll definitely have
you back on Hoorah Thanks.
Medical disclaimer.
This video or podcast is forgeneral informational purposes
only and does not constitute thepractice of medicine or other
professional healthcare services, including the giving of
(43:59):
medical advice.
No doctor patient relationshipis formed.
The use of this information andmaterials included is at the
user's own risk.
The content of this video orpodcast is not intended to be a
substitute for medical advice,diagnosis or treatment, and
consumers of this informationshould seek the advice of a
medical professional for any andall health-related issues.
(44:22):
A link to our full medicaldisclaimer is available in the
notes.
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