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AIR WAYS: Vincent Lim (above) markets Oxia, the oxygen canister. -- ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN
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HOUSEWIFE Diana Tan gave her fellow passengers a scare one day when she whipped out a small canister on the bus and started inhaling deeply from it.
Everyone who was seated near her 'ran away', recalls the 55-year-old.
'They were probably wondering what gas I was using,' she says with a laugh.
'I was just trying to be funny because I wanted to see how people would react.'
The new product she was using is Oxia, a portable oxygen canister that has sold about 1,000 units since it was introduced in May.
Marketed as a trendy lifestyle product, each of these personal oxygen dispensers is said to contain 90 per cent pure oxygen and 10 per cent nitrogen.
In comparison, the air we normally breathe is only 21 per cent oxygen. Seventy-eight per cent is nitrogen and the rest is carbon dioxide and other gases.
Every cell in our body needs oxygen to live and a person cannot last three minutes without it.
Retailing at $238, the pack includes a 22cm-tall oxygen dispenser, a refill cylinder and a carry case. Subsequent refills cost $28 a canister.
Mr Vincent Lim, 45, director of Air O2 and First Aid, says that the product is 'catching on pretty fast'.
His company imports the dispensers from the United States and the air is pumped in locally with oxygen supplied by Singapore Oxygen. It is also popular in Japan and Taiwan.
'Most of my customers buy it to add on to their first-aid kit, but some of them use it on a daily basis,' he says.
When asked if using the product will cause oxygen toxicity - which can lead to severe lung damage - Mr Lim says that will happen only if someone is exposed continuously to 100 per cent oxygen for over two hours.
The product comes with a mouthpiece and you can inhale the oxygen either through your nostrils or mouth.
It claims that a 'two- to three-second 'recharge' of fresh oxygen oxygenates the brain, calms the nerves, regulates the heartbeat and helps you focus on what you need to do'.
But does inhaling high purity oxygen really perk you up? The answer appears to be no, according to experts LifeStyle spoke to.
Dr Jane Yap , a consultant physician in respiratory and internal medicine at Mount Alvernia Hospital, says she is sceptical of the purported health benefits of the product.
'If you're healthy, you'd be breathing normally and room air is good enough,' she says.
'Even if concentrated oxygen does provide a 'boost', it will be temporary anyway,' she adds.
A spokesman for the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) says that the product is not subject to HSA's regulations as it is not a medicinal product.
But she adds that there are no 'well-controlled scientific studies that support the benefits from supplemental oxygen in healthy individuals'.
Oxygen therapy is not a new concept, though.
Oxygen bars have been around in Japan since the late 1980s and were all the rage when they spread to the US in the 1990s.
The first oxygen bar in Singapore, Two Rooms, opened in 2001 in UE Square. It offered clubbers oxygen shots at about $1 a minute, but it folded two years later.
If you want an oxygen boost, head for Plaza Premium Lounge at Changi Airport's Terminal 2. A 10-minute oxygen therapy costs $15.
Or you can pay for a portable oxygen canister, which is available via the Internet, as well as at first-aid workshops conducted by the company during corporate events.
One customer who believes in the benefits of oxygen therapy is accounts executive Winston Chan, 35, who has already spent about $700 on the product.
He uses it mostly in the mornings when he wakes up with a hangover.
'It doesn't really stop the headache but it does refresh me,' he says, adding that he learnt about oxygen therapy when a colleague died of lung cancer in 2004.
'Of course, the effects (of inhaling oxygen) might be psychological,' he concedes.
munsan@sph.com.sg
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