The neuroprotective effects of oxygen therapy in Alzheimer’s disease: a narrative review

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a degenerative neurological disease that primarily affects the elderly. Drug therapy is the main strategy for AD treatment, but current treatments suffer from poor efficacy and a number of side effects. Non-drug therapy is attracting more attention and may be a better strategy for treatment of AD. Hypoxia is one of the important factors that contribute to the pathogenesis of AD. Multiple cellular processes synergistically promote hypoxia, including aging, hypertension, diabetes, hypoxia/obstructive sleep apnea, obesity, and traumatic brain injury. Increasing evidence has shown that hypoxia may affect multiple pathological aspects of AD, such as amyloid-beta metabolism, tau phosphorylation, autophagy, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, endoplasmic reticulum stress, and mitochondrial and synaptic dysfunction. Treatments targeting hypoxia may delay or mitigate the progression of AD. Numerous studies have shown that oxygen therapy could improve the risk factors and clinical symptoms of AD. Increasing evidence also suggests that oxygen therapy may improve many pathological aspects of AD including amyloid-beta metabolism, tau phosphorylation, neuroinflammation, neuronal apoptosis, oxidative stress, neurotrophic factors, mitochondrial function, cerebral blood volume, and protein synthesis. In this review, we summarized the effects of oxygen therapy on AD pathogenesis and the mechanisms underlying these alterations. We expect that this review can benefit future clinical applications and therapy strategies on oxygen therapy for AD.