I've been a big fan of hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) for a while now and regularly go into an HBOT chamber to reduce inflammation and improve mental and physical performance, but the time it takes to get to my local center, get the chamber to pressure, breathe and then decompress the chamber, is a huge time investment. A typical session can set me back 2 1/2 hours.
You can therefore imagine how excited I was to see a device, called LiveO2, at this year's Bulletproof Biohacking Conference in Pasadena, California, that claims to give 15 hours of HBOT treatment in only 15 minutes. That's a whopping time savings compared to the usual 150 minutes I normally invest, and it's 15x the usual return I get.
How Live O2 works in your body
In order to understand how LiveO2 does this, we need to understand how oxygen is delivered by our blood around the body. Blood is made up of about 55% plasma, the watery, clear stuff in your blood, and 45% blood cells. Oxygen is usually carried by hemoglobin in our red blood cells, but HBOT and LiveO2 both operate by saturating your blood plasma with oxygen, thereby increasing the amount of oxygen delivered to all your cells.
HBOT uses pressure in a sealed chamber to drive oxygen into the blood plasma while the individual is passively sitting down for around 80 minutes. LiveO2, on the other hand, tricks your body's own pumps, the heart and lungs, to effectively do the same thing during a 15-minute, supercharged Exercise With Oxygen Training (EWOT) session - or at least that's my take on it! The guys at LiveO2 have kindly put together a definitive guide to EWOT that you should check out to learn more.
When the body is given high levels of oxygen and then low, as if you were at altitude, your blood flow increases to compensate, raising your breathing and heart rates. If you then switch back to oxygen-rich air during this elevated blood flow, you create a temporary 'pulse' of oxygen to your tissues.
This reduces endothelial or vascular inflammation, according to Tom Butler, LiveO2 Business Development Director. Endothelial cells line all our arteries, and when they have oxygen, they lay nice and flat, like subway tiles, on the walls of the arteries. When they are starved of oxygen, the endothelial cells swell up like basketballs and prevent blood flow, and therefore oxygen, getting to our tissues. When we have oxygen entering the cells, we help the mitochondria and the production of ATP and the Krebs cycle.
We're designed to use oxygen and the more oxygen we get, the better health and energy we have and the longer we live. -Tom Butler, Business Development Director, LiveO2
Testing LiveO2
David Chamblee, a former American college football player who works for LiveO2, took me through my Exercise with Oxygen Therapy paces. He fitted me with a snug-fitting oxygen mask hooked up to the LiveO2 concentrator and had me pedal at a leisurely pace on an exercise bike. He flooded my mask with 100% oxygen for a few seconds then instructed me to go all out for 15 seconds. During this time of all out exertion, he reduced my oxygen intake, simulating exercise at 10,000 feet. This pushed my lungs and heart to work much harder.
Alright, this isn't the most attractive way to exercise, but it gets the job done. I'm assured that it's good for anti-aging too.
When my LiveO2 contrast device switched up the level of oxygen again to 100% 15 seconds later, I was still pumping hard, but the burst of 100% oxygen I was forcing through at this higher heart rate meant I was flattening the endothelial cells that line my arteries, sending oxygen to more parts of my body more easily.
This positive effect continues until the body decreases blood flow naturally during recovery and blood flow normalizes.
The sprints where I was flooded with 100% oxygen were brilliant - fast, effortless and powerful.
The sprints where I was given only 40% oxygen felt like I was slogging through, but as they only lasted 15-30 seconds, the sensation didn't last long.
If you'd like to check the system out, you can watch Ben Greenfield, prolific podcaster, Ironman, Spartan and Tough Mudder athlete, try it out at PaleoFX.
The LiveO2 oxygen concentrators are slimline and portable, so that they can be used in the comfort of your home without the need to get to a chamber, but also without the need to continually buy oxygen tanks or have someone monitor you. If you like the idea of EWOT, HBOT and HIIT, this could be the home solution you're looking for.
You can check out the protocols, white papers and videos explaining the contrast oxygen system at LiveO2.
Photo credit: Brian Metzler, Unsplash