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Comment by kev009 | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone experimented with supplemental oxygen for cognitive benefit?

I don't think anyone's studied it for every day cognitive benefit but oxygen supplementation is common in medicine. Note that increasing oxygen concentration is not the same as decreasing carbon dioxide concentration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_therapy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arterial_blood_gas_test

Obese people can also experience cognitive symptoms due to hypoventilation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_hypoventilation_syndro...

I suppose this could be considered analogous to breathing in air with high carbon dioxide concentrations.

Increasing O2 has physiological effects different from the effects of decreasing CO2. It is not just the ratio or difference between the concentrations that matter.

For example, a major effect of increasing CO2 is to make the blood more acidic (or to put more stress on the homeostatic mechanisms that maintain a target pH), and my guess is that no amount of increasing O2 will cancel that out.

> a major effect of increasing CO2 is to make the blood more acidic (or to put more stress on the homeostatic mechanisms that maintain a target pH), and my guess is that no amount of increasing O2 will cancel that out

True. More details on this mechanism:

The body uses buffer systems in order to minimize blood pH changes. For example, the bicarbonate buffer system which is catalazyed by carbonic anhydrase.

  CO₂ + H₂O ⇌ H₂CO₃ ⇌ HCO₃- + H+

It is converted back to carbon dioxide in the lungs and exhaled. The rate at which this process occurs is mainly influenced by respiratory rate. Oxygen doesn't directly influence it. O₂ enables aerobic cellular respiration, the process which produces carbon dioxide.

The hydrogen ions are buffered by proteins such as hemoglobin. They are also excreted by the kidneys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_solution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicarbonate_buffer_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid%E2%80%93base_homeostasis

https://opentextbc.ca/anatomyandphysiology/chapter/26-4-acid...

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