Respiro runs at ~1.3 ATA on ambient air — no mask, no concentrator. At that depth, every gas in your blood is mildly compressed (Henry's law), dissolved oxygen rises modestly, and the body experiences a true hyperbaric environment without the chemistry of pure oxygen.
This matters because in the major US military and VA trials of HBOT for post-concussion syndrome and PTSD, 1.3 ATA ambient air was used as the placebo arm. The "sham" group improved nearly as much as the high-dose oxygen group. Two honest readings: either HBOT itself doesn't help these conditions, or pressure alone is doing therapeutic work independent of oxygen concentration. Researchers like Harch and Efrati argue the latter, and the basic science — capillary perfusion, HIF-1α modulation, stem-cell signaling — points the same direction.
We don't claim 1.3 ATA ambient air is "better than" normobaric oxygen — no clean head-to-head trial has tested that. We do think it's the gentlest, most honest way to feel what pressure actually does to your body before you decide whether to step up the ladder.
›References (5 trials, 2012–2020)
Wolf et al., J Neurotrauma 2012 · Cifu et al., J Head Trauma Rehabil 2014 · Miller et al., JAMA Intern Med 2015 · Harch, Med Gas Res 2015 · Hadanny & Efrati, Aging 2020.
