The oxygen we overlook
Without energy, there is no life. That simple law of biology explains why oxygen and our mitochondria are the ultimate partners in existence. Mitochondria are tiny parts inside cell units that act as power plants. Using oxygen they turn food into a chemical fuel named ATP (adenosine triphosphate). ATP is the main energy currency of the body. It gives power to almost every job your cells do.
Roughly 80 percent of the oxygen we inhale is utilized by our mitochondria. Every breath delivers this quiet, invisible molecule into our bloodstream, fueling every organ and the metabolic engine of survival. Yet ordinary breathing only taps a fraction of what this molecule can do. Delivered in higher concentrations, oxygen has become an important treatment for a variety of illnesses and injuries — an agent for health, vitality, and longevity.
Many people first heard about concentrated oxygen through a misunderstood tabloid photograph of Michael Jackson lying inside an oxygen capsule in the mid-1980s, amid rumors he was chasing eternal youth. The truth was more scientific: Jackson had been treated with concentrated oxygen for severe burns from his 1984 Pepsi commercial accident, and later donated the equipment to a burn center. The world laughed it off as eccentricity, but the underlying science was real.
I learned that lesson firsthand, more than 35 years ago, when I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. In the late 1980s, almost nothing was known about treating this tick-borne illness. My turning point came from a protocol that flooded my body with concentrated oxygen. It worked because of simple biology: Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium behind Lyme disease, is anaerobic — it thrives in low-oxygen environments. Flooding my system with this element turned my own body into hostile territory for the pathogen, breaking the infection’s grip on me.
That experience changed how I viewed oxygen therapy. It could heal far more than infection — it is a universal catalyst for tissue repair, cellular defense, and vitality. Decades later, sprinting on the track and training for judo, I still rely on concentrated oxygen to speed recovery, ease inflammation, and repair the small tears of hard training. I am hardly alone; elite athletes like LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Tiger Woods use oxygen-saturation methods to accelerate healing from injuries, aid recovery from training and maintain peak fitness which will hopefully extend their careers.
The mechanism behind this has a name: hyperbaric, from the Greek for “high pressure.” Hyperbaric oxygen delivery means breathing pure oxygen while the body sits under mild environmental pressure, letting the molecule do what it cannot do on its own. Normally, oxygen travels through blood strictly aboard red blood cells, a limited system. Under hyperbaric pressure, it dissolves directly into blood plasma and spinal fluid, reaching tissue circulation alone cannot adequately supply — triggering the release of stem cells, calming inflammation, clearing lactic acid, speeding the healing of burns and soft-tissue injuries, and can improve the metabolic function of dormant or hypoxic neurons after stroke or brain trauma. One study cited in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology demonstrated that a single two-hour session at 2.0 atmospheres of pressure while breathing pure oxygen can double the number of circulating stem cells, and a full course of treatments can increase them significantly more.
Emerging research suggests it may lengthen telomeres, the protective caps on our DNA linked to slower cellular aging. One study published in peer-reviewed journal Aging reports that the telomeres length of T helper, T cytotoxic, natural killer and B cells increased significantly by over 20% following 60 sessions of HBOT.
What makes this protocol so remarkable is its dual identity. Hyperbaric oxygen is not only a treatment for disease and injury — it is equally a tool for everyday health, vitality, and peak performance in the healthy. The same principle that once broke a bacterial infection in my body now keeps me sprinting and competing in judo decades later. To this day, I still maintain a hyperbaric session on a monthly basis purely for sport recovery, and I leaned on it even more heavily during Covid and through seasonal changes to help support my immune system. That is the real gift of this molecule: it heals the wounded and elevates the well, using one natural process for both.
What began, for me, as a desperate search for a cure three decades ago revealed something far bigger: oxygen, the molecule that gives us life and fuels every beat of our mitochondria, is also one of the most versatile healing forces available. We spend our lives breathing without a second thought. Perhaps it’s time we started paying attention.
Dr. Nabil El-Hag, PhD, MPH in Nutrition Biochemistry, is a social entrepreneur, technocrat, philanthropist, and judo Olympian, and whose career has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who in America. In his upcoming book, “Link to Vitality,” he shares the science and philosophy behind lifelong wellness. He also writes about wellness, vitality, and longevity.
