Remedy or Ripoff O Stick

Or, not. It’s 90 percent pure oxygen at 34 bucks. Refills will cost you around 60 dollars for six canisters. Is this a value? It’s the hot item in spas and such. According to the company that makes it, oxygen plus, the pitch is this: a couple of hits, and you’ll feel uplifted, in a better mood; you’ll have a boost of energy.

 Heck it’s apparently even a hangover remedy. And it helps with jetlag. John Benzick, COO of Oxygen Plus, says, “Often times you can your oxygen levels can be compromised. So you’re not getting the complete 21% of oxygen that is normally in the air. So when you inhale the oxygen plus, it will---it fuels the oxygen in your blood that takes them to the cells and it replenishes your blood cells that way.

Yeah.” Well, the medical textbook says the blood is already nearly 100 percent saturated with oxygen. Any more oxygen won’t increase oxygen delivery to the cells. It’s kind of like filling an already filled cup of water. But just to make sure we’re not off, we asked Mr. Benzick to explain for us, then, how his product would increase oxygen delivery given the science of the so called oxygen dissociation curve says---it won’t. Mr. Benzick replied, “Yeah, you know I’m not a doctor and so I’d have to advise you to talk to a doctor about those specifics.” Good advice.

So, we went to dr. Mark Rosen, Chief of Pulmonary Medicine at North Shore University Hospital. “There is actually zero benefit in increasing the oxygen saturation from 95 to 97 percent to 100 percent in fact everything over 88 to 89 percent is wasted we don’t even use that oxygen that we have. It won’t make a healthy person healthier, it won’t make a sick person healthier,” says Dr. Rosen.

 Mr. Benzick disagrees, saying our cells are suffering in today’s air. “They can become deficient of oxygen whether due to stress or anxiety or pollution in the air or stale air environments and so by inhaling more enriched oxygen or 98% oxygen in the oxygen plus, you’ll replenish those and immediately feel enough uplift by the oxygen that gets carried through the blood to the brain cells and the body cells.”

Yet, Dr. Rosen has some final comments. “How ridiculous can a product be? When I looked at this my first reaction was to laugh. That the claims are so outlandish and based on nothing that is remotely connected with any notion of science. You want to spend some money, and you want to feel better, donate it to charity. You’ll feel good about yourself. You might help somebody because you’re sure not helping anyone with this.”

 Dr. Rosen goes on to point out the oxygen we breathe is free, and does us just fine. He confirms, though, that there may be a placebo effect if people really do experience feeling better. We asked the company representative about research specifically on the product’s benefits and he said, “we’re always planning to do studies, but frankly we’ve been so busy just trying to keep up with orders here with the company.”