Oxygen Bar

India, Choking on Toxic Air, Tries

Something New: An Oxygen Bar
As top officials remain silent, the country’s pollution levels remained hazardous this
week, prompting a second closure of schools in the capital and a sometimes
desperate search for clean air.
The Oxy Pure Oxygen Bar in New Delhi claims to offer pure oxygen to its customers.

NEW DELHI — As air pollution shot up to dangerous levels across India on Friday,
underscoring an already dire public health crisis, a crowd descended on a small shop
in New Delhi for a novel solution: a 15-minute hit of clean oxygen.
At Oxy Pure, a self-styled “oxygen bar,” customers strapped tubes to their noses and
inhaled scents of lavender, lemongrass or spearmint. In the absence of other options,
Lisa Dwivedi, a Ukrainian living in the city, said she came to the bar because she was
fed up with having itchy eyes, a runny nose and a swollen throat.

“I don’t know if it’s psychological, but it makes me feel good to know I am inhaling
pure oxygen, if only for 15 minutes,” she said.

The air pollution crisis in India has become so severe that officials in the capital
declared a public health emergency earlier this month, when levels of deadly
particulate matter rose a few dozen times above what the World Health Organization
considers safe.

Doctors are reporting a surge of patients with severe respiratory problems. This
week, New Delhi’s government shut all primary schools for a second time this month
because of pollution in the capital region, home to more than 46 million people.
But despite air so scary it may be causing brain damage in children, some central
government officials have either resisted acknowledging the problem, which has
persisted in India for years, or minimized its severity.
During an especially poisonous day, when levels of PM 2.5, tiny, cancer-linked
particulate matter, rose to some 60 times the safe limit in parts of the capital, Harsh
Vardhan, India’s health minister, recommended eating carrots to fight any harmful
effects. Another senior lawmaker criticized those who tried to stop farmers from
burning their crops, and instead suggested praying to the Hindu god of rain for relief.
So far this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refrained from publicly
commenting on the air pollution. His office recently set up a panel to look into it, but
a high-level parliamentary meeting on Friday about the pollution
was canceled because hardly any officials showed up, according to Indian news
outlets.
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“People are dying and it cannot happen in a civilized country,” a bench of Supreme
Court judges said this month about the pollution. “We will not tolerate this. We are
making a mockery of everything.”
With no imminent solutions, some Indians have tried to step in — with solutions like
the oxygen bar.

A store manager attending to a customer at the Oxy Pure Oxygen Bar.

As winds slow during winter months and farmers burn crops to make room for a new
harvest, dirty air settles over India’s cities, mixing with construction dust, power
plant emissions and fumes from people bursting fireworks to celebrate festivals.
Many Indians have become fatalistic about the government taking tougher steps to
clean the air, if they even know how dangerous it has become.

Without consistent and strong public messaging, pollution masks are still uncommon
in India and those who wear them are sometimes laughed at. This month, people
waded into the capital’s stretch of the Yamuna River, which is largely untreated
sewage, to wash, clean utensils and take selfies with icebergs of foam formed by
industrial waste.

On Thursday, despite the second government shutdown of schools, which lasted

from Thursday to Friday, a nonprofit organization sponsored an outdoor run for
children. Hundreds of people participated and event banners bore the logo for the
state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India.
During parts of November, officials in New Delhi have tried to lessen the pollution by
restricting the use of private vehicles on alternating days, allowing only cars with
odd-number license plates to drive on odd dates and cars with even-numbered plates
on even-numbered dates.

Image
Commuters wearing pollution masks and waiting for transportation in New Delhi.

But efforts like this one appeared to have a marginal effect in improving the air,
which remained “severe” throughout the capital this week, according to data from the
Delhi Pollution Control Committee.

For Indians worried about the air, options have largely been restricted to buying
purifiers, sealing cracks in their homes with blankets and towels, or leaving toxic
cities entirely. India’s poorest residents have no choice but to sleep outside in the fog.

At Oxy Pure, which is in Select Citywalk, a more upscale mall in New Delhi,
customers pay $4 to $6 for 15 minutes of oxygen carried through a nasal cannula.
They can choose among seven scents — including eucalyptus, peppermint and
cinnamon. Oxy Pure has introduced a “pollution special”: five sessions for the price
of four.

The owner, Aryavir Kumar, who originally worked as a hotelier, said he did not make
a profit from the business, which opened in May. But he plans to open locations in
the capital’s airport, and in the cities of Mumbai and Bangalore.

“Customers say, ‘Now we have to buy fresh air?’” he said in an interview. “I tell them,
‘Do you not also pay for a bottle of clean drinking water, something you did not do 20
years ago?’”

On Friday morning, Vikram Aiyer, 25, a clean shaven business executive, stopped in
to the small store, with its floor-to-ceiling garden installation, water fountains and a
replica of a Van Gogh painting, before going to work as a salesman.
He chose eucalyptus as his scent and an attendant in a white lab coat fitted his
nostrils with tubes attached to a beaker containing a green liquid. Mr. Aiyer sat in a
leathery chair and took a deep breath.

“The thought of unadulterated oxygen pumps up my flagging morale in this city,” he

said, closing his eyes and exhaling.

Oxygen bar sells fresh air in

pollution-hit New Delhi
With India's capital engulfed in choking pollution, someone has
sniffed an opportunity.

A bar offering fresh puffs of oxygen is proving popular among

middle-aged and elderly residents of New Delhi.

It was introduced in June but has proven a hit in recent weeks.

The bar offers a 15-minute session to inhale a cocktail of oxygen in

different flavours, for 500 rupees (€6.32).

Gas-tronomic Sydney gets sucked in:

city's first oxygen bar
The retail market may be running out of gas but Sydney has its first permanent
stand-alone oxygen bar.

The O2 Bar, which opened at Darling Harbour's Harbourside yesterday, offers 90

per cent-pure flavoured oxygen for $1 a minute for up to 15 minutes, owner Alexi
Fahad said.
A smell of the new gas in Sydney, flavoured oxygen that claims to beat the
hangover, increase energy and relax you.

Flyers for the new bar claim oxygen can increase energy, ease hangover headaches
and stress, and help combat jet lag.

But experts say there are no known benefits for healthy people in breathing pure
oxygen, and too much may not be good for you.

Bar fly ... a belt of pure oxygen for $1 a minute at the new O2 bar at Darling Harbour.
Mr Fahad decided on his venture in Sydney after seeing how popular oxygen bars
were overseas.

Even though his is Sydney's first purpose-built oxygen bar, oxygen mobile stands
at parties, nightclubs and company functions have been around for a while,
Damien Hall, of Flowoxygen, said.

He said his machines were not just for "a quick hit" or "a novelty" but were also
used by people at home and by athletes.

Oxygen bars have been popular in the US and other countries for more than a
decade. Hollywood star Woody Harrelson opened his O2 Bar in Los Angeles in
1999 but it has since reportedly closed.

Gas-tronomic ... The oxygen comes in different flavours

So, what's the story with oxygen?

About 21 per cent of the air we inhale is oxygen. Concentrated oxygen is given to
hospital patients for asthma and emphysema, and to pilots at high altitudes.

But inhaling oxygen for a few minutes at a bar would not do much for the average
healthy person, exercise science specialist Associate Professor Aaron Coutts, of the
University of Technology, Sydney, said.

"You don't have a high demand for oxygen anyway when you are at rest," he said.

When you are exercising maximally, there's been studies that show ... the supply of
oxygen can improve performance or improve recovery. But at rest, it's not a
limiting factor
"When you are exercising maximally, there've been studies that show ... the supply
of oxygen can improve performance or improve recovery. But, at rest, it's not a
limiting factor."

His views are echoed by the Australian Lung Foundation's respiratory expert
Professor Christine McDonald of Austin Hospital in Melbourne, who said there
was no evidence of health benefits from using oxygen bars.

Dr Lin Yiguang, an expert in oxygen toxicity at the University of Technology,

Sydney, said inhaling pure oxygen increased the amount of toxic oxygen radicals
in the body.

"Naturally it will cause damage to our body. Many studies have shown that it can
damage the cell membrane to nuclei and to protein inside the cells."

Mr Hall said he was confident of the oxygen bar's therapeutic benefits, saying that
it helped to reduce symptoms of migraine, cold and flu.

"The main thing is that it really calms a person; it relaxes them. If [people] are
really stressed out or they've got migraines, 20 minutes on their oxygen machine
brings their heart rates down. It's not just a quick hit."

A spokeswoman for Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration said oxygen

bars had not been evaluated by it and so "no assurance can be given as to their
safety and efficacy".

"It should be noted, excessive oxygen may be dangerous to people with certain
diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease," she added in a statement.

The Australian Lung Foundation said it could not support the use of oxygen bars,
given the lack of available evidence about the health benefits.