Why is oxygen important?

19.04.2023
HBOT Basics
HBOT Science - Oxygen is important

Oxygen is the orchestra conductor for our body’s immune system

Breathing and inhaling oxygen over 18 000 times a day is a process we rarely think about, yet our body works in constant harmony like an orchestra to coordinate the efforts of our vital organs to deliver oxygen to tissues throughout our body.

We breathe over 9.5 liters of air per minute, from which about 21% is oxygen and the rest is made up of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and several other gases. Our body is able to absorb about 1/6 of this oxygen quantity per minute to use for the vital functions.

The amount of oxygen inhaled during breathing influences the amount of energy that is released into our body cells. We breathe in air with oxygen inside our lungs, and oxygen is carried through the arterial blood to our tissue and through the venous blood back to the lungs to breathe out.

 

Breathing oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber

When the body is exposed to pure oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber, the higher amount of pressure and the amount of pure oxygen allows the absorption of a much greater level of oxygen than breathing the air at regular atmospheric pressure.

The main mechanism by which the oxygen absorption occurs is pressure. Pressure and oxygen concentration creates a gradient. That gradient allows an increased absorption of oxygen into our body, fueling it with higher levels of oxygen for each cell. Every cell in our body basically uses oxygen as a nutrient for creating energy.

Cells require optimal levels of oxygen because oxygen is one of the key ingredients in aerobic respiration, the process that produces a molecule called ATP, which our cells use to power their complex working functions. The distribution of oxygen throughout our bodies is a rather intricate task. Gas enters cells by diffusing in from their surroundings, and that only happens efficiently over tiny distances.

For oxygen to reach every cell within the body, it needs a transportation network made up of about 20 trillion red blood cells. Each red blood cell contains about 270 million oxygen binding molecules of hemoglobin, which is what gives blood its scarlet hue.

 

Oxygen is vital for proper functioning of the human body and the immune system

Oxygen is probably the most important thing we need more than food and water. Our body can go for weeks without food. We can go for maybe days without water, but within minutes of being deprived of oxygen, brain functions begin to collapse. After 1 minute, brain cells begin dying. After 3 minutes, neurons suffer more extensive damage, and lasting brain damage becomes more likely. At five minutes, death becomes imminent.

When O2 or blood flow (which is carrying the nutrients) is reduced, the neuronal ATP levels break down very fast, with 90% ATP depleted in less than 5 minutes.

Stress, poor diet, bad posture, aging, air pollution and lack of exercise limit our normal oxygen intake, which leads to oxygen deficiency and oxygen starvation, possibly the single greatest cause of all diseases. Reason stands, the body must need oxygen supplementation in order to maintain a healthy environment.

 

The effects of pure oxygen on our immune system

HBOT Science - Oxygen is important

White blood cell activation, neutrophil and macrophage production

As a result of the increased oxygen level, our immune system up-regulates itself by increasing white blood cell activation and the production of neutrophils and macrophages, which are a big part of our immune system’s ability to fight infection.

HBOT Science - Oxygen is important

Antimicrobial or almost antibiotic effect, especially for anaerobic pathogens

Most of the pathogens, the bacteria in our body that create health problems, are anaerobic. What that means is they live in either low or no oxygen environments. By raising the body’s oxygen level, these infections are neutralized.

Hyperbaric oxygen can be used for infections like osteomyelitis or gangrene. These are anaerobic infections that create massive problems for patients. By increasing oxygen levels, it literally makes the environment of our body inhabitable for anaerobic pathogens.

HBOT Science - Oxygen is important

Oxygen helps to break down bacteria biofilms

Many anaerobic bacterial species grow biofilms, just like mold species, which surroundings are ultimately formed around the infection itself. Biofilms allow the microbe to create or to isolate itself in a low oxygen environment.

High oxygen levels help to break the biofilms that microorganisms use to protect themselves and to keep the low oxygen environment for their survival.

HBOT Science - Oxygen is important

Oxygen creates a favorable medium in the microbiome for the development of good bacteria, probiotics

Most of our probiotic, which are the good bacteria that live inside our body, are either aerobic or at least oxygen tolerant. A higher oxygen environment is feeding, fueling and improving the environment for the probiotics, which allow our body to develop the microbiota, the petri dish that we are.

Oxygen supplementation shifts the entire environment into a higher oxygen level, which improves the ability for our probiotic to live and to thrive, which improves our immune system while killing and or at least making it very uncomfortable for most of these pathogens to also co-exist inside or on our body.

Oxygen is the most abundant element on planet Earth

Oxygen makes up 23% of the atmosphere, 89% of all of the Earth’s water and about 47% percent of the Earth’s crust. We’re lucky oxygen is available in such abundant supply because not just human beings need it to survive, but almost all living things, with the exception of anaerobic life, of course, need oxygen to survive.

Plants don’t need oxygen, plants give off oxygen and human beings breathe that oxygen. For plants, photosynthesis during the day when the sun is out creates oxygen as a byproduct. But it’s a known fact that plants also breathe, yet during the night, they actually gather oxygen from the air and from the soil, using their roots, which is used to break down sugars to produce energy. It’s a process called cellular respiration, and our body does the exact same thing, it needs oxygen for cellular respiration in cells throughout our body.

 

Cellular respiration

There are complex functions and processes powered by cellular respiration, where carbohydrates are broken down in the presence of oxygen into something called adenosine triphosphate or ATP. The production of ATP is achieved through the oxidation of glucose molecules.

The intake of excessive amounts of carbohydrates can lead to metabolic diseases in conjunction with lack of physical exercise. A resulting metabolic disease is type 2 diabetes, a complex endocrine disorder characterized by abnormally high concentrations of circulating glucose.

ATP is an energy source that can be used by just about any cell in the body for just about any function. Basically, ATP is what makes cellular energy happen. Scientists like to refer to it as the common currency of all cellular processes, a rechargeable battery that powers the entire system.

 

Why do we breathe oxygen?

We may think of cellular respiration as the process of converting carbohydrates into ATP in a similar way as foreign currencies are converted at the exchange office.

There are multiple methods of cellular respiration, but humans, along with other animals and plants, have a special organelle in most of their cells that superchargers energy production called the mitochondria. Mitochondria make the amount of stored chemical energy for our body’s cells and need oxygen to do it when they have it.

Cellular respiration also produces a couple of byproducts as well, namely CO2, carbon dioxide, H2O, water and heat. Heat is the second reason our body needs oxygen to survive. Since all cellular processes are fueled by the oxygen involved in cellular respiration and also producing heat, it’s a clever and efficient to use that heat to warm the body. Everything we do from thinking to running uses cellular respiration and thus will produce heat, which keeps our body temperature at a nice, warm state.

The body will produce carbon dioxide and excess water during cellular respiration and our body has to get eliminate them somehow. Breathing helps the body take in oxygen from the environment and to get rid of waste, CO2 and excess water at the same time.

 

HBOT Science - Oxygen is important

Oxygen is a vital cog in the organic machine that is our body, especially our cells.

Cells need to release chemical energy to do work and keep functioning. They need to remove waste, copy DNA and move motors.

  • Oxygen enhances the body’s ability to detoxify the blood and strengthen the immune system
  • All unhealthy germs and bacteria are weakened or killed by oxygen, while healthy bacteria are strengthened by extra oxygen
  • Oxygen is one of the most important healing agents, the most potent antibiotic
  • Oxygen is a versatile hormone
  • Oxygen is a blood clotter and anti-clotter
  • Oxygen burns fat and enhances the benefits of any exercise
  • Oxygen will heighten concentration, memory and alertness
  • Oxygen can provide almost immediate relief from headaches, hangover, migraine, stress, fatigue, cramps, jet lag, heat exhaustion, various aches and pains.
AHA Hyperbarics - Therapy

What can be better than oxygen? Re-learning to breathe.

One simple idea started AHA Hyperbarics company: To breathe the future, we need to cherish every breath of oxygen.

Hyperbaric therapy (HBOT) has been used for decades all over the world to strengthen the immune system and help in the prevention, improvement and recovery from various health conditions. An oxygen-rich environment under pressure feeds the body’s oxygen supply chain.

Various conditions benefit from an oxygen-rich environment under pressure as oxygen is a major contributor to the body’s ability to self-heal. Understanding of the real benefit of HBOT for each medical objective is the first step for safe and effective health care inside a hyperbaric chamber. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is proved to be useful as complementary treatment for people in need of oxygen supplementation to reach multiple health objectives. In certain circumstances, HBOT is used as the primary treatment modality, whereas in others, it is an adjunct to surgical or pharmacologic interventions.

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AHA Hyperbaric Medical Systems is effectively being used for 7 certified medical indications

AHA Hyperbaric Medical System is certified according to the European Council Directive concerning medical devices (MDD) 93/42/EEC and produced on the basis of the quality management system for the production of medical products as determined by EN ISO 13485:2016.

Due to their functionality and safe use, AHA Hyperbaric Medical System is the only inflatable hyperbaric chamber in the world that can be used for 7 medical indications: crush injuries, diabetic foot ulcer, post-concussion syndrome, cerebrovascular insult, intestinal cystitis, scleral ischemia and autism (2-16 of age).

 

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AHA Hyperbaric Wellness System

AHA Hyperbaric Wellness System effectively enhances body and mind vitality

The AHA Fit 20 hyperbaric chamber, the essential part of AHA Wellness System is the world’s strongest inflatable hyperbaric chamber, designed with a patented three-layer system that can withstand pressures up to 3.0 ATA.

Designed for efficient, user-friendly and safe HBOT treatments it is made with exquisite, non-oxidizing materials and hand-made production, and features 6 high-strength acrylic windows and a diameter of 85cm. This award-winning chamber has 26 patented solutions that deliver an unparalleled hyperbaric oxygen therapy experience.

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AHA Hyperbarics

How can you verify the use of pure oxygen in the hyperbaric chamber?

Learn how to recognize if a hyperbaric system truly generates at least 95% medical-grade oxygen at pressures of at least 1.6 ata and if the manufacturer has indeed obtained all the necessary certificates.

Only a select few manufacturers in the world are capable and have all the necessary certificates for producing hyperbaric systems that are highly efficient and effective. As this technology becomes more popular and widely adopted, there is a risk of being misled by invalid products or improper usage of hyperbaric chambers.

 

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