Oxygen cocktails and baths – useful treatments or a waste of money?

MD, pediatrician, nutritionist, co-founder of UniProf Academy of Physicians

What is oxygen therapy? What is it useful and what is harmful?

Oxygen therapy, or oxygen therapy, oxygenation – a method of oxygen application in the treatment of respiratory diseases and in cosmetology. It consists in the fact that the patient inhales a gas mixture with an increased proportion of oxygen, because pure oxygen can not breathe. Often this method is used with insufficient blood saturation, to avoid the development of tissue hypoxia. It is also used for obstructive lung disease, cardiac asthma, pulmonary edema and pneumonia, brain injuries, eye diseases. Oxygen therapy can also be performed at home. For example, in asthma attacks.

It is important to say that oxygen therapy can be inhalation (pulmonary) – then oxygen is administered through masks, tubes, cannulas – and non-inhalation (subcutaneous administration, intravascular and others).

Of course, prescribe oxygen therapy for the disease can only a doctor. Of the serious contraindications – pulmonary hemorrhage, brain dystrophy. Not in therapeutic, but for health-improving purposes are used oxygen baths, oxygen cocktails, barotherapy.

Another common and everyone’s favorite procedure is vitamin drips, but you should not get carried away with them. Why, read here.

Oxygen baths

Oxygen baths, of course, are not recognized by all doctors as a therapeutic procedure. Anyway, it has existed for a long time, and even if the obvious benefits do not bring – is relatively inexpensive and gives a short-term pleasant effect.

The procedure consists of immersion in water saturated with oxygen chemically (using a mixture of copper sulfate, perhydrol and sodium carbonate) or physically (oxygen is pushed into the water mass with a pressure of 1.5-2.5 atmospheres). The duration of immersion is 20-25 minutes.

What are the benefits for the body

Inhaling clean air improves lung function. Pores expand, connective tissue receives oxygen. Oxygen enters the bloodstream, together with it is spread throughout all organ systems, nourishes the tissues.

Oxygen baths can stabilize blood pressure, improve the quality of the skin, contribute to the recovery of the lungs after staying in an area with environmental pollution or after viral diseases.

Who should not

People with cardiovascular diseases, renal failure, active respiratory diseases and viral invasions, active tuberculosis. Pregnant women are not prohibited from the procedure, but consultation with a therapist before starting the course is necessary.

Oxygen cocktails

Oxygen cocktail is a mixture of oxygen, flavoring filler and food foaming agent. Even Soviet scientists proved that oxygen can be absorbed in the GI tract. Since then, the procedure of using oxygen cocktails is necessarily introduced in all health improvement programs.

What are the benefits for the body

The liquid component is usually natural juices, herbal infusions, pure water. The very use of such drinks in courses, when prescribed, helps to improve digestion. So in the program of sanatorium recovery cocktails have a place.

Oxygen cocktail really saturates the body with oxygen, its use is even equated to a walk in the woods. In general, the course of reception due to the constant enrichment of the body with oxygen gives a charge of vigor, strengthens the walls of blood vessels, allows you to quickly remove the toxins of “urban” life.

Who can not

However, oxygen cocktails can provoke an exacerbation of gastritis, increase bile flow, and with it move and gallstones in the gallbladder, if they are present. Also, oxygen cocktails can cause allergic reactions. Among the acute contraindications – urolithiasis, gallstone disease, ulcerative colitis, gastritis, circulatory disorders of the brain, asthma.

In general, oxygen therapy to improve health – a useful procedure, but subject to compliance with the rules of a healthy lifestyle. If there are a lot of bad habits, lack of movement, consumption of trans fats and sugar, such procedures, even on a regular basis, will not help to restore the resources spent by the body.