Is Portable Oxygen The Next Bottled Water?
You likely can’t go anywhere today without seeing a bottle of water – especially during the heat and humidity of the summer months. Bottled water – whether for exercise, hydration or just plain old thirst – has become an everyday item as common as your keys or phone.
Now, we ask – could portable supplemental oxygen become the “next” bottled water?
Bottled water wasn’t always this popular. As recently as the 1960s, bottled water was generally unheard of. Water was for bathing and swimming. The only form of bottled water you might see was an old water jug in the break room at work.
Back then, most people considered soda as good hydration during sports or exercise. Seriously.
How bottled water went from obscurity to worldwide popularity
That all changed in the 1970s when Perrier decided to invest heavily in the promotion of bottled water for hydration. They decided to take the chance to become a pioneer in the category, and their timing was incredible:
From seariouseats.com – How Bottled Water Became America’s Most Popular Beverage
“Perrier, a French brand of sparkling natural spring water that was founded in the mid-1800s, had been languishing for decades, its distinctive green bottles selling in a few high-end restaurants and almost nowhere else. In 1977, the firm hired Bruce Nevins, a 40-year-old ex–Special Forces officer and former Levi Strauss executive, to relaunch the brand to the American market with a blitz of television ads voiced by Orson Welles.
By highlighting its French pedigree and premium price, Perrier played off baby boomers’ growing desire for status as the generation shed its tie-dyed T-shirts and started entering the corporate world. Health concerns played an important role, too: Amid a wave of media coverage of studies linking saccharin—the artificial sweetener used in many diet sodas—with cancer, Nevins positioned “pure Perrier” as a healthful alternative to soft drinks.”
From there, bottled water exploded in popularity worldwide. You can read more about that journey in the seriouseats.com article.
And then Gatorade came along…
Around the same time in the 1970s, a drink called “Gatorade” started to make a name for itself. Ever wonder where the name “Gatorade” comes from? Answer: The University of Florida, whose football team is known as the Florida Gators.
The story of Gatorade from the University of Florida website:
“It was in 1965 when then-assistant Gator football coach Dwayne Douglas questioned UF kidney disease specialist Robert Cade about why players lost so much weight during practices and games but urinated so little. Douglas, who had a stellar career with the Gators and then the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles until he injured his knee, told Cade he had lost as much as 18 pounds during a game, but never felt the need to visit the restroom. Cade, who then directed the UF College of Medicine’s renal and electrolyte division, quickly deduced that the players were sweating so much they didn’t have any fluids left to urinate. But it was the underlying questions that intrigued him more.”
“As they researched the effects of heat on the human body, Cade and his colleagues began to realize that all that sweat was taking with it the players’ energy, strength and endurance. The researchers speculated that the electrolytes — primarily sodium and potassium — the players were losing in their sweat were upsetting the body’s delicate chemical balance.”…. “The solution,” Cade says, “was to give them water, but with salt in it to replace the salt they were losing in sweat. Also, give them sugar to keep their blood sugar up, but not so much sugar that it would upset their stomachs.”
You can read the entire story at the University of Florida website, but Cade and his team eventually created the drink that became known as “Gatorade” in the UF medical labs and tested it on their players. The drink became a staple on the Gator sidelines and other teams began to take notice. A few years later, the Associated Press and United Press International published articles about the drink. Other teams and sports not only began to use it, but saw the positive results firsthand of electrolytes in sports recovery. From there, the popularity of Gatorade skyrocketed, from exposure during the early Super Bowls and other major sporting events, celebrity endorsements and highly successful marketing campaigns such as the iconic “Be Like Mike” commercial in 1992 featuring Michael Jordan. Now, it’s an annual tradition to dump the Gatorade jug on the winning coach at the Super Bowl.
Perrier helped educated the world about the hydration benefits of water. Gatorade helped educate the world about the recovery benefits of electrolytes.
And today, the world is starting to learn about the benefits of portable supplemental oxygen as an all-natural respiratory support product.
The rise in popularity of portable supplemental oxygen
Fact: The air we breathe contains only around 21% oxygen! The majority is 78% nitrogen along with pollutants and other gasses. Much like the human body needs water for hydration and food for nutrition, it needs oxygen to fuel our cells to keep our tissues and organs functioning properly. Your cells also need oxygen to convert food molecules into nutrients during digestion. Oxygen is also necessary to help replace and build (on average) SEVEN BILLION new cells in our body EACH DAY.
Cut back on oxygen and all of those cellular processes become sluggish. You start to feel fatigued or short of breath. You can also experience headaches and dizziness. More oxygen equates to cells having the energy they need to repair, improved immune response, and better overall health.
Portable supplemental oxygen simply helps…everyone from athletes for performance and recovery during sports or exercise, to those at higher altitudes due to less oxygen in the air, to senior citizens who might experience shortness of breath, for recovery from a hangover after a night of partying and so much more.
“Before Boost Oxygen, portable canned oxygen was never heavily promoted in the United States, said Rob Neuner, CEO of Boost Oxygen. “There wasn’t any competition for us. It was more of a process to educate the consumers. It was like when Gatorade first came out and they said electrolytes were important for hydration. People continued to use water to stay hydrated, but over time they understood the benefits of electrolytes. It’s the same concept here. People say that breathing regular air is just fine, but if you want to return to competition faster or feel better quicker, having supplemental pure oxygen is much better for you.”
Supplemental oxygen is also gaining in popularity – from teams and athletes who use Boost Oxygen like the NHL’s New York Rangers and Islanders, the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, from celebrities like Simon Cowell who use supplemental oxygen regularly and singers like Billy Joel who use it during performances. The benefits of supplemental oxygen have also been showcased on shows like Shark Tank, The Today Show, American Idol, Ellen and more. Portable oxygen has even appeared on The Simpsons!
To learn more about the benefits of portable supplemental oxygen, we invite you to visit our LEARNING CENTER where you will find extensive articles and videos about the subject. Just as bottled water and Gatorade helped the world stay hydrated, our hope is that everyone will soon learn the benefits of proper oxygenation with portable supplemental oxygen as an all-natural respiratory support!
