Chronic Oxygen Debt Syndrome (CODS): Understanding the Connection Between Water, Oxygen, and Health

Let’s start with water. First, there is no such thing as “normal” water. Yes, it will always be H₂O, but its physical properties mean that no two waters are exactly alike. These physical properties include, but are not limited to, temperature, purity, tension, boiling point, vaporization point, and dissolved oxygen content—where oxygen gas becomes a property of the liquid water.

It is this last property that we are most interested in. We have found that drinking water with a natural maximum saturation of dissolved oxygen not only elevates blood oxygen saturation (SpO₂, usually measured with a fingertip pulse oximeter) but also activates the thirst mechanism.

This is important because research strongly indicates that, as a society, we are not getting healthier. In fact, studies suggest that we are more stressed, more overweight, more sleep-deprived, more prone to grabbing food on the go, and are offered few healthy choices at the grocery store. This might be changing, but change is slow.

The human body metabolizes food, drink, supplements, prescription medications, enzymes, and hormones—in other words, everything that goes into the bloodstream must eventually be processed and expelled. This process, part of the respiratory system, takes enormous energy—energy produced at the cellular level. Cells create energy by combining fuel with oxygen: the fuel being all the “ins” mentioned above, and the oxygen being the gas we inhale from the atmosphere, along with any supplemental oxygen from oxygen-infused water.

Disease, depression, and overweight or obesity all occur when the fuel is unsuitable—think Cheetos, excess cortisol, or that third glass of wine. Disease, depression, and obesity also occur when oxygen is inadequate. This concept was supported in research that earned the 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology.

For cells to produce energy, care must be taken to provide our cells with the right fuel and to maintain proper oxygen balance. Yet most of us don’t even know that this is the foundation of health and active longevity. Most books about dieting and health don’t even mention the critically important role oxygen plays in metabolism.

As a consequence, a large percentage of Americans suffer from Chronic Oxygen Debt Syndrome (CODS):

Chronic – because it’s not dire enough to kill us outright.

Oxygen Debt – because this is what causes hypoxia, the oxygen-starved cell condition described in the Nobel Prize-winning research.

Syndrome – because, according to Google, it is “a group of symptoms which consistently occur together, or a condition characterized by a set of associated symptoms.”

If our national interest in health is sincere, more research should be encouraged in this emerging science. Even John 5:4 in the Bible describes how “troubling” the water—interpreted as oxygenating the water in the Pool of Bethesda—cures all disease.

Chronic Oxygen Debt Syndrome could easily be eliminated before it ever has the chance to take root.

L’Chaim!
Teri Mathis