In reality, most of these products, especially those offered in oxygen bars, deliver only about 35 percent to 40 percent oxygen, says Frank LoVecchio, DO, MPH, co-medical director of the Banner Good Samaritan Poison and Drug Information Center at Banner Health and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix. Just how much more oxygen do you get? While the air you breathe is made up of 21 percent oxygen, many oxygen bars and canned oxygen products claim to give you about 95 percent oxygen. Recreational oxygen therapy rests on a relatively simple premise: By delivering higher concentrations of oxygen than you would normally get from the air around you, you reap the above health rewards. Here’s what you need to know before you inhale. If all of that sounds too good to be true, it undoubtedly is, which is why you should cast a doubtful eye on these oxygen products. Who doesn’t want to relieve stress, ease muscle aches, increase energy, concentrate and focus more effectively, sleep better, slow the aging process, and recover quickly from jet lag and hangovers? Originally popular in the 1990s, these bars essentially market and sell air, and some make health claims for their inhaled product.Ĭlaims for canned, inhaled oxygen are intoxicating, to say the least.
A new wave of oxygen bars is popping up across the country.