I saw this while browsing through the SkyMall catalogue on a recent flight:
Drink To Your Health With The Big Pitcher!
Oxygen in the blood stream is a cleanser that helps rid your body of waste and toxins due to lifestyles that include lots of stress, processed food, impure air and over-treated water. The Big Pitcher helps to solve this problem by raising the level of oxygen in any water (tap or bottled) from the typical 2 parts per million to 11 parts per million, while improving taste and costing only about $5 per year to operate! Solids and gases (such as chlorine, radon and sulfur) are removed and harmful bacteria are neutralized, while health-improving oxygen is added to help provide the energy to help your digestive and immune systems operate at peak performance levels.
Health benefits include increased energy and metabolism, improved sleep patterns, reduction in circulation problems and healthier, younger-looking skin and hair. The 12″H clear non-leaching Pitcher/lid has a soft white base and holds 62 ounces of water. This counter-top appliance operates anywhere there is an electrical outlet, so it is perfect for home or office. You’ll love your water’s new fresh taste – so you’ll drink more of it! Just what the Doctor ordered!
Uhmmm, for those people out there who are unaware…. oxygen does not enter the bloodstream via the stomache.
Guess what the price-tag is on this pitcher of snake-oil.
$249.95
Again, I say ‘damn these scruples of mine.’ I could be making buckets o’ cash by scamming people with faux science. Why, why, why am I cursed with this desire to uphold the integrity of science?!
Oh, and 2 ppm to 11 ppm? Even if you were to increase the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream by this much, it would do a whole lot of nothing!
See that? That’s the Oxygen-dissociation curve for hemoglobin, which shows how saturated hemoglobin (the protein which carries Oxygen in our bloodstream) is as a function of the partial pressure of oxygen. At partial pressures around that of Oxygen in the lungs, hemoglobin is fully loaded with O2. Meaning: any increase in O2 above this pressure wont increase the amount of O2 that hemoglobin can absorb and carry through the bloodstream. It’s full; more O2 simply can’t fit on there. The decrease seen on the graph, keenly pointed out with the blue arrow labled “tissues” shows that hemoglobin retains the oxygen until it reaches tissues in our bodies which have lower concentrations of the oxygen than the blood surrounding them. At this point, the oxygen begins to dissociate from hemoglobin and goes into our body tissues.
Oh, and oxygen bars? Total scam. TOTAL. Scam. Your lungs are perfectly capable of saturating your hemoglobin on their own. It would take a significant amount of lung damage, like COPD, to cause the hemoglobin saturation levels at the lungs to fall below %100. Those who claim that they feel a sense of euphoria, or whatever, from going to oxygen bars, are experiencing either a psychosomatic effect, or, more likely, they’re taking big ‘ol gasping deep breaths of air which leads to a feeling of light-headedness – which is why our mothers told us not to do that.
You know how it goes… sucker born every minute and all.
Some people need to be able to laugh all the way to the bank. Why are you denying them that pleasure?
Because I can’t (laugh all the way to the bank), dammit!
…me being a broke-ass grad-student and all.
Reminds of the other snake oil that was being peddled on late-night t.v. back in the mid-90s called “The Oxygen Cocktail,” which was basically a drink, any drink, where you infuse pure O2 into it from an aerosol can, and then you drank it.
Why are people so damned stupid????
Politicians need to get elected somehow.
I’m a field biologist so these pathways aren’t my specialty, but I have done the experiment (after a rough night in early November) enriched my breathing with pure oxygen (medical oxygen blown onto my face while hiding in the lab) after about 20 mins I was feeling considerably better.
Going off of your chart is it possible for certain organ systems (like the liver) to uptake oxygen faster than they can be replenished, or maybe the blood plasma is becomming supersaturated because of a hightened osmodic pressure in the lungs?
I’ll direct your attention back to the chart, to the point on the x-axis (partial pressure of oxygen) where you see the blue arrow indicating “lungs.” At X-values above this, as you can see, there is no further increase in O2 carried by hemoglobin a.k.a. O2 in the bloodstream. This also means that even if you were to raise the osmodic pressure of O2 in the lungs, the result would not raise O2 levels in the blood. Another point is the idea of raising the osmodic pressure of O2 in the lungs. This pressure is controlled by the expansion and contraction of the diaphragm, which in turn changes the volume of the lungs. Osmosis is controlled by the concentration gradient of gases, and the determining variable is not the concentration of O2 in the atmosphere (under standard conditions), but rather the volume change of the lungs. There have been studies which show that our lungs don’t even expand completely before reaching this equilibrium point. It comes down to PV=nRT. If you think about it, inhaling medical O2 wont heighten the osmodic pressure in the lungs. The gradient is fixed at one end – the blood stream – by the capacity of hemoglobin. Oxygen has to be displaced from hemoglobin, which occurs at the tissues when it picks up CO2. Hemoglobin has a greater affinity for CO2, and CO, than O2.
As far as blood plasma becoming saturated, it doesn’t happen. The changes in plasma O2 levels which occur are neglible considering the measured O2 gradient
This was a heated discussion in my exercise physiology class. An interesting hypothesis was brought up regarding the use of O2 canisters by athletes during football games. Since it must be accepted that hemoglobin does become fully saturated, we pondered whether O2 might have an actual physiological effect on breathlessness. The question was posed: what if the bloodflow past the lungs was so quick that hemoglobin loading was kinetically limitted? The answer was rationalized as follows: Breathlessness is not caused by oxygen deficiency, but rather the increased rate of CO2 dumping and O2 loading due to increased bloodflow between the lungs and active tissues. It makes sense if you think about it; if the athletes were out of breath because their lungs could not move enough oxygen, they’d be cyanic (blue in the face), and they would become dizzy and fall down quite quickly because the brain is the primo O2 demander (which is why under decreased bloodflow e.g. during hypothermia, the periferal blood flow – flow to major muscle groups – shuts down in order to preserve blood flow to the brain and other organs). We concluded that bloodflow being too quick and kinetically limitting the saturation of hemoglobin would not occur, because it would be evident, as described above, if it did happen.
So why do we see football players sucking on oxygen canisters in between plays? This, too, is a psychosomatic effect. Don’t get me wrong, psychosomatic effects are not akin with voodoo. If a person believes that they are getting more oxygen and this is somehow beneficial to them, their nerve signalling will change, most likely the vagus nerve which controlls heart rate and is sensitive to endorphins – in the case of the football players. The belief that they are being soothed by increased oxygen will actually cause them to relax, lower their heart rate, and feel soothed. But it has nothing to do with the increased pressence of oxygen.
Likewise, I expect that you experienced an effect analogous to this. Thinking that you might get a beneficial effect from taking in medical O2 probably caused you to relax and this attenuated the release of whatever neurotransmitters were being released due to the physical stress you experienced from your rough day. Ever notice how a kid with a scraped knee can go from completely red-faced and screaming to calm, with normal breathing, and will be up and running again in a matter of seconds if his or parents laugh it off? It’s because the belief that things are ok, or not bad can attenuate real sensations, such as pain, breathlessness, or headaches. This, too, has also been studied by neuropsych people. If someone can make you laugh when you’re having a shitty day, you feel instantly – even if temporarily – slightly better, but it isn’t that they’ve given you reason to feel better, it’s that the physical acts of smiling and laughing cause the release of neurotransmitters which trick your brain into thinking that you’re happy.