Thin air scam

 

DZ is going to continue his little thread on Oxygen, and combine it with two of his other favourite themes, scams and lazy journalism.

They’re all together in this little article I came across today about a pseudo medical therapy called “thinAir adaptive oxygen therapy”, described in the article as “groundbreaking”. So what is it? The article doesn’t enlighten. The journalist, Kelsey Maxwell doesn’t seem to have asked that rather important question, or anything else for that matter. Despite describing herself as a “chief  reporter” all she has done is given the providers of the therapy free rein to simply promote it without question.

I’ve had little success in getting this information on the web either, but it seems to involve getting the gullible mark to breathe air which can alternate in Oxygen levels between hyperoxic and hypoxic levels. So what is it supposed to achieve. Everything apparently. Here is a list that I’ve copied.

What are the benefits of thin air?

Restoring health for everybody

• Assists with reducing inflammation in the brain and body.
• Uses all of your oxygen more efficiently.
• Repairs damage to the body (physical and mental wellbeing)
• Regenerates the body on a cellular level.
• Slows the ageing process on a cellular level.
• 100% safe and zero risk to health.

At first glance this looks like a load of steaming, pseudo scientific bullshit, but let’s not be too judgemental. What’s the evidence? Well there isn’t any. At all. A number of sites promoting and selling the therapy have a fair few testimonials from satisfied patients, but, as we all know, these anecdotes don’t constitute evidence, even if they’re genuine. To give a flavour of these testimonials one male claims that the therapy enables him to continue playing football in his forties. Hardly an achievement. Many sports, including quite vigorous sports, have active veterans including people in their 80s. And the thin air practitioners use a lot of sciency words to impress the gullible. So my first impression is correct. It is, in fact, a load of steaming, pseudo scientific bullshit.

In particular I’m sceptical of the claim that the therapy is “100% safe and zero risk to health.” There are, scattered on the slopes of Mount Everest some 200 unretrieved frozen corpses of climbers whose deaths were caused by a combination of hypothermia and hypoxia

 And ask any anaesthetist how they would feel about giving their patient less than 21% Oxygen, even if their very expensive machine would permit them to do such a thing.

To summarise. Human respiratory and cardiovascular physiology is very good at optimising the body’s Oxygen level and delivery, having evolved systems that are sensitive, responsive, robust and, when studied, actually quite beautiful. Those selling this product are totally ignorant of these systems. Or of the potential harmful effects of thin air therapy.

ThinAir adaptive oxygen therapy is undoubtedly a blatant scam, and it’s only a matter of time before someone with a genuine medical condition comes to harm as a result of it. Avoid.