It is believed that this drink saturates the body with oxygen and therefore is good for health. We checked whether this is confirmed by scientific data.

They write about it sites medical centers and sanatoriums, and in Media They talk about kindergartens where oxygen cocktails are prepared for pupils. IN Some sources, however, not only report the alleged benefit of the drink, but also indicate for the presence of contraindications. At the same time row Experts claim that oxygen cocktails are useless at best. For example, a famous pediatrician Evgeny Komarovsky He explains: “This is useful only for parents who in this way calm themselves, they say,“ we have done everything for our children and their health, we don’t feel sorry for anything. ”

Oxygen cocktail is drink, which is a thick air foam that is 80–90% oxygen and which can be drunk or eat. In addition to oxygen, the composition includes a taste base (juice, fruit drinks, milk, syrup or infusion of herbs), a foaming agent (most often dry egg protein, but for people with allergies it can be replaced with licorice root extract), apple pectin, as well as sugar and ascorbic acid to improve the taste and stability of foam.

Oxygen cocktails invented In 1963, the Soviet physiologist Nikolai Sirotinin. The idea arose during research Hypoxia - A condition in which blood does not suffer enough oxygen to the cells of the body. Then, one of the possible methods of treatment was considered enteric oxygenotherapy (the term "intagastral oxygenotherapy" is also common in the scientific literature)-the introduction of oxygen into the gastrointestinal tract, because the thin and large intestines are able to absorb this gas. At first, syrotinin gave oxygen to the stomachs of his patients with the help of a probe, but it was very uncomfortable for them, so the scientist chose a less painful option - the use of foam oxygen saturated with oxygen. Later, various taste additives began to be added to the foam, and oxygen cocktails have become an integral part of the spa-resort program. At the same time, outside the USSR, these drinks were not widespread either as drugs or as health -improving.

Although the saturation of the body with oxygen bypassing the lungs is a very urgent task facing modern science, the stomach can hardly be called a promising cartridge organ. In the bases of scientific citation there are almost no English -language articles on this topic. There are either translated articles of Russian -speaking authors, or research more than 50 years ago, the authors of which come to the conclusion: The absorption of oxygen in the stomach occurs in insufficient volume. Moreover, the authors of one of these articlesPublished in 1963, they even demonstrated that for newborns with hypoxia, the use of introgastral oxygen therapy can be dangerous.

At the same time, many modern Russian -speaking publications raise a number of issues. For example, c research 2019, held on the basis of Kabardino-Balkarian State University, was studied how patients with bronchial asthma can help intagastral oxygen therapy and Interval hypoxytherapy. However, the article, firstly, does not indicate how oxygen was delivered to the stomach, and secondly, the participants in the experiment were not divided into groups (volunteers were immediately affected by both methods), and thirdly, the scientists do not talk about how intraagastral oxygenotherapy facilitates asthma symptoms-they simply claim that oxygen helps. Authors of the 2014 article Compared Therapy of chronic diseases of the respiratory system using oxygen cocktails without them, however, as a measure of effectiveness, they chose the severity of the symptoms of autonomic dysfunction (that is, vegetative-vascular dystonia, VSD)- pathologies, which is absent in the international classification of diseases (and the world scientific community considers the VSD outdated diagnosis). The most "outstanding" in this list can be called studyPublished by specialists of the Scientific Center for the Health of Children of the RAMS in 2007 in the journal “Questions of Modern Pediatrics” - directly in the text of the article there is an advertisement for the kit for the preparation of oxygen cocktails at home.

However, there are more conscientious publications on intragastral oxygen therapy. For example, in 2022, employees of the Russian National Medical Research Center named after Almazov told About the patient, in the gastrointestinal tract of which oxygen was administered to treat infection. It was caused by the Clostridioides Difficile bacteria, living in an oxygenic environment, so that this procedure had an antimicrobial effect. However, in this case, it was about gaseous oxygen and its delivery through a special probe to the intestines, and not to the stomach, therefore it would be wrong to associate this data with the benefits of oxygen cocktails. This report is similar and another - On the inclusion of intagastral oxygenotherapy in the protocol for the treatment of extremely severe flu in a woman after cesarean section. Back in 2014, scientists from the same center named after Almazov Studied The medical history of 34 patients in critical condition due to problems with the respiratory system came to the conclusion that the administration of oxygen into the intestines reduced the symptoms of hypoxia, but the introduction into the stomach was not.

Data of Russian experts are consistent with discovery, which was made in 2021 by Japanese scientists. During the pandemic of coronavirus against the backdrop of a lack of devices for artificial ventilation of the lungs (IVL) and Extrakorporporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) Researchers from different countries became interested in the method of intestinal breathing, or enteric ventilation through the anus. Japanese scientists were attracted by a ragged bung, practicing such breathing in conditions of a lack of oxygen. Having studied this fish, they tested on mice, rats and pigs the effectiveness of two ways to introduce oxygen into the intestines: gas pumping through the anus and the injection of liquid oxygen -transmitting perferuglerod. The second method turned out to be more effective, and researchers were able to achieve sustainable maintenance of gas exchange in experimental animals. However, devices for ventilation of the body through anus, designed to help people, have not yet entered mass production.

Thus, authoritative studies do not confirm that the use of oxygen cocktails helps in the treatment or prevention of any diseases. In world science, the introduction of oxygen into the stomach is generally recognized as ineffective. The gastrointestinal tract is able to take on the lung function for some time and provide the body with oxygen, but this gas in this case is required into the intestines. Probably, oxygen cocktails, or rather, the foam enriched with oxygen could be effective against hypoxia if it was introduced from the other end of the gastrointestinal tract.

Image on the cover: SGC "Odda"