Why Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy’s Rise In Med Spas and Celebrity Homes Alarms Safety Experts
Celebrities swear by it. Experts are alarmed. Here's the truth about hyperbaric oxygen.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is having a wellness moment — pitched as a fix for everything from Alzheimer’s to wrinkles — but recent deaths inside hyperbaric chambers and warnings from medical experts are forcing a reckoning over what the treatment can actually do and where it crosses into danger.
What is hyperbaric oxygen therapy and how does it work?
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT, involves breathing 100% oxygen inside a pressurized chamber at up to two and a half times normal air pressure, allowing the lungs to absorb far more oxygen than they would from regular air and deliver it more efficiently to organs and tissues. The air we normally breathe is only about 21% oxygen.
Individual sessions typically run 90 minutes to two hours. Some conditions resolve after a single session, while others require repeated sessions over days or weeks. The FDA began regulating hyperbaric chambers in 1976 and adopted formal rules for their use in 1979, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
Woman's World Answers
The mechanism is straightforward: at higher pressure, oxygen dissolves more readily into blood plasma and reaches tissues that struggle to get enough on their own. That’s why HBOT has a clear role in treating wounds that aren’t healing and certain emergencies — and why physicians and trained technicians are supposed to oversee the process. The chambers themselves are complex medical devices, not wellness gadgets. Pressure changes affect the ears, sinuses and lungs, and the oxygen-rich environment is highly flammable, which is why accredited facilities tightly control what patients wear and bring inside.
That clinical reality stands in sharp contrast to how the treatment is now being marketed. Med spas, chiropractic offices and home users are increasingly promoting HBOT as a general-purpose health booster — claims that go well beyond what the science supports and well beyond what the FDA has approved. As John S. Peters, executive director of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS), told The Guardian in December 2025, the unregulated expansion of hyperbaric oxygen therapy has created “absolute anarchy and chaos.”
What conditions has the FDA approved hyperbaric oxygen therapy for?
The FDA has approved hyperbaric oxygen therapy for a specific list of serious medical conditions — and that list does not include the anti-aging, neurological or lifestyle uses now being promoted by many wellness businesses.
Approved uses include wounds that are difficult to heal, such as diabetic foot ulcers; certain infections and swelling; severe burns; frostbite; gas gangrene; carbon monoxide poisoning; decompression sickness; sudden unexplained hearing loss; severe anemia when transfusions cannot be used; and damage from radiation treatment. Each of these has been studied in clinical settings, and each typically involves treatment inside accredited hyperbaric chambers supervised by trained medical staff.
What’s notable is everything not on that list. Treatment centers and wellness businesses are now marketing HBOT for Alzheimer’s disease, autism, cancer, Lyme disease, anti-aging, ADHD and sleep apnea, among many other conditions. None of those uses are FDA-approved, and the evidence behind them ranges from preliminary to nonexistent.
Celebrity endorsements have widened the gulf. According to The Guardian, Justin Bieber and Kendall Jenner have installed chambers in their homes, podcaster Joe Rogan has called HBOT “phenomenal for everything,” and U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also recommended it. None of those endorsements change what the FDA has actually cleared the therapy to treat.
For anyone weighing HBOT, the practical test is simple: ask whether the condition being treated appears on the FDA’s approved list, and whether the facility is accredited by the UHMS. If the answer to either is no, the treatment is operating outside the framework that makes it safe and evidence-based — and consumers are taking on risks that go well beyond the marketing copy.
Why are wellness centers offering hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers without medical oversight?
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers are spreading rapidly into med spas, chiropractic offices, alternative medicine clinics and private homes because there is no nationwide rule requiring HBOT facilities to be medically accredited — and demand, driven by celebrity and media endorsements, has outpaced regulation.
Per The Guardian, HBOT is increasingly being provided by people without medical degrees or sufficient training, including chiropractors, physical therapists and alternative medicine practitioners. Many of these businesses market the therapy as a cure-all for conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s to ADHD to wrinkles, despite the absence of evidence.
The American Medical Association recommends that all states require HBOT facilities to be accredited by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, which runs the U.S. hyperbaric oxygen facility accreditation program. No state currently has such a requirement. Peters, the UHMS executive director, estimated to The Guardian that unsafe HBOT chambers may now number in the tens of thousands across the country.
What are the safety risks of hyperbaric oxygen chambers, and have people died?
Yes — at least seven people have died since 2009 due to fire, suffocation or other adverse events in hyperbaric oxygen chambers, according to the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, and experts expect that number to rise as HBOT spreads into non-medical settings.
In properly regulated medical settings treating FDA-approved conditions, HBOT is considered safe. Complications are uncommon but can include ear and sinus pain, ruptured eardrums, temporary vision changes and, rarely, lung collapse. HBOT should not be given to people with a collapsed lung, certain lung diseases such as COPD, cystic fibrosis or emphysema, a fever or cold, or recent ear injuries or surgery.
Fire is the more acute danger in unregulated settings, because the pressurized, oxygen-rich environment can ignite catastrophically if safety protocols aren’t followed. Two recent deaths illustrate the stakes.
On Jan. 31, 2025, 5-year-old Thomas Cooper was killed when a fire started inside the hyperbaric chamber where he was receiving treatment at the Oxford Center in Troy, a northern suburb of Detroit. According to family attorney James Harrington, who spoke to NBC News, Thomas’ mother, Annie Cooper, rushed toward the chamber when the fire ignited, burning her arm in an unsuccessful attempt to save her son as he burned alive in front of her.
The Michigan attorney general alleges that on the day Thomas died, the Oxford Center did not have a physician or safety coordinator on the premises, and that the HBOT technician was not properly trained, per The Guardian.
“In the Michigan incident there was no physician oversight when they oriented the parents,” Peters told The Guardian. “There was no mention of risks and benefits and consent … the risk is death. It’s a total failure.”
Then in July, Walter Foxcroft, a physical therapist, was killed in a fire inside his own chamber.
What are safer alternatives to hyperbaric oxygen therapy?
For people drawn to HBOT for general wellness rather than an FDA-approved medical condition, several lower-risk alternatives can support healthy oxygen intake without the dangers tied to unregulated hyperbaric chambers.
Oxygen concentrators are medical devices that separate nitrogen from ambient air so users can breathe up to 95% pure oxygen. They’re portable, widely available for home use and far less complex than HBOT systems. They’re less effective than hyperbaric oxygen therapy for certain serious conditions, but for casual supplemental use they avoid the pressure, fire risk and equipment complexity of a chamber.
Exercise With Oxygen Therapy, or EWOT, combines cardiovascular exercise with oxygen-enriched air. Results may vary, and it requires both effort and equipment, but it doesn’t involve pressurization and doesn’t carry the same severe risk profile as a hyperbaric setup.
Breathing techniques such as Pranayama, Buteyko or the Wim Hof method can improve oxygen utilization naturally with no equipment at all. The benefits tend to be subtle and require consistent practice, but the downside risk is minimal compared with stepping into an unregulated chamber.
The questions to ask are straightforward: Is this facility UHMS-accredited? Is there a physician present during sessions? Is a safety coordinator on duty? Has the technician been formally trained? Has my condition been evaluated against the FDA’s approved uses?
If a provider can’t answer those questions clearly — or if the pitch leans on celebrity testimonials, vague anti-aging claims or promises to treat conditions the FDA has never cleared HBOT for — it’s a signal to walk away. The therapy itself has a legitimate, evidence-backed role in modern medicine. The marketplace surrounding it, in many parts of the country, does not yet match that standard.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Woman's World does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.
