Does oxygen have harmful effects? - (Apr/27/2006 )

I think it would be interesting to do a study see if giving people supplemental oxygen would improve test scores on a short standarized test. I need to know if oxygen has harmful effects if a healthy person is given 50% O2 for 5 or 10 minutes while they take the test. Also, is medical oxygen prescription only in the US?
Thanks,
PhageMaster

hi,
Oxygen is essential for brain activity. The brain's need for oxygen is more than ten times greater than the need in the rest of your body. But I think what you want to do, is read teh attached article:


It is actually estimated that the air breathed by our distant ancestors contained approximately 50% oxygen. An article a while back (i'll try to dig it up for you, no promises though) suggest that in excess of two hundred years ago, the air was composed of 35% oxygen and 1% carbon dioxide. In 1946, Switzerland, the O2 levels were 22%, and i think today they're around 19%.
Anyway, so giving 50% O2 to a healthy person for 10 minutes probably won't have any harmful effects.
Prolonged exposure to high levels of oxygen, can lead to oxygen toxicity.

medical oxygen? do you mean the stuff in the bottle (snazzy face mask, or nose tubes, included) that people use when they're sick or in a medical drama?
the simple answer is, no, it's not prescription only.
the FDA have some rules on this. there are oxygen bars, which are allowed to sell session of being hooked up to oxygen tanks, in order to make you feel happy . see the link. flavoured oxygen to. these are legal, however, they aren't allowed to make claims on the health benefits of oxygen.
for home use, you can buy or hire oxygen tanks. depending on which company you go through, they will service and refill the tank when it's empty. lots of sports-people use them.

vetticus

Thanks, that answers my question. Where did you find that PDF? I couldn't find anything like that on Google when I looked. I have been trying to think of a project that I can use for my schools next science fair, and I thought a study on O2's affect on test scores may be an interesting one.

Thanks again,
PhageMaster

pub med
you might also be interested in this little gem: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question493.htm

science fair... hmm, i like things that go boom. http://channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=88541
i loved that show. the 3rd chemical, that they used can be purchased from a hardware store. anyway, if you go to the homepage, they've got some intersting chemistry with household items.
i guess that isn't really biological though.

anyway, best of luck.

vetticus

There's a science fair site: http://all-science-fair-projects.com/scien..._articlesPage=3

Hmm, interesting. If I give to O2 to test subjects (my friends) at regular atmospheric pressure for ten minutes or less, I don't think it will cause any problems. It seems problems only develope after exposure for 24 hours or more. I just hope my teacher approves the project and doesn't get too paranoid. If you were my teacher would you approve a project that involved giving people 60% O2 for less that 10 minutes?
-PhageMaster

yep, provided that you had some evidence (other journal articles), and that you were copying those experiments. also, do you have willing lab mice? do you have an idea on what kind of test questions you'll ask?

vetticus

Lab mice = friends at school (I was in their projects, so they are obligated to be in mine )

For test questions I am thinking math logic type questions, I haven't really looked into what type of test I should use yet. I plan on using people 15 - 16 years old (10th grade) at my school so that everyone will have a pretty even level of education. This way I don't have my friends little sister bombing the test and throwing off the results, while his dad aces it because he is a rocket scientist / math genius.

Phagemaster, I think you would be wise to consult your teacher as soon as you can. I suspect this project might be illegal here in the states, regardless of whether your friends sign a consent form. Experimentation on human subjects...no matter how benign...needs all sorts of legal issues sorted out before you can proceed, as well as safeguards for the health of the participants, when you are talking about dosing someone with anything. It doesn't matter if we all know it's probalby harmless, that stuff is very tightly regulated.

I suspect you could feed them all diets with varying amounts of sugar and watch the flora in their mouths change over time...I think you could probably measure the amount of coffee you're feeding people and see how long it takes them to pee....I think you could probably do basic observational experiments like these, but I think you're walking on a fine line when you are talking about medical oxygen, and I don't want you to get in trouble!

If you do get the experiment approved, remember to have a placebo group too. You could for example have tubes going to face masks with the source of the gas hidden so the subjects don't know if they are getting regular air or enriched oxygen.

A bad idea would be to use carbon monoxide as your placebo control, muhahahahahaha!

I am planning on hooking a SCBA cylinder to an oxygen mask, and putting the cylinder in a duffle bag for the placebo group. If I end up doing this as a project, it is going to really fun to watch the placebo people when I give them regular air. Since I am doing this at my high school, I am going to get a l lot of drama and "I feel high" type statements etc. After they are done with the test they'll be quite imbarrased when they find out all they were breathing was regular air!