Every breath tells a story.
The oxygen atoms in your body were forged inside earlier generations of stars and scattered into space. Over immense periods, some became part of the material from which Earth formed.¹
Today, oxygen feels ordinary. We breathe it without thinking. Our blood carries it throughout the body and our cells use it to help release energy from the food we eat.
But for most of human history, we depended on oxygen without knowing what it was.
Its story stretches from the earliest oxygen producing life on Earth to the discovery of oxygen itself, the understanding of cellular energy and eventually the way humans learned to use oxygen in medicine, exploration and performance.
And it begins billions of years before the first human breath.
Before Earth Could Breathe
When Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago, its atmosphere contained virtually no free oxygen.
That began to change when early photosynthetic microorganisms used sunlight for energy and released oxygen as a by-product. Initially, much of that oxygen reacted with iron and other materials in the oceans.
Eventually, oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere.
Around 2.4 billion years ago, Earth entered what scientists call the Great Oxidation Event.²
It was one of the great turning points in the history of life.
The increasing availability of oxygen ultimately helped make highly efficient aerobic energy production possible, creating conditions in which increasingly complex forms of life could evolve.
Billions of years later, every breath we take is connected to that extraordinary transformation.
How Humans Discovered Oxygen
Humans understood what oxygen did long before they understood what it was.
Fire needed air to burn, animals needed air to survive and the human body could only last minutes without breathing.
But the invisible substance connecting combustion and respiration remained unexplained until the 18th century.
Working independently, Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley isolated the gas we now know as oxygen. Antoine Lavoisier then helped reveal its true significance showing its fundamental role in combustion and respiration and overturning long held ideas about how these processes worked.
For the first time humanity had a name for something life had always depended upon.
The next discovery was even more important: understanding what the body actually does with it.
Why Every Cell Depends on Oxygen
When we breathe, oxygen enters the lungs, passes into the bloodstream and is transported throughout the body.
But oxygen's importance becomes clearest at the cellular level.
Inside our cells, mitochondria use oxygen during oxidative phosphorylation, a process that helps convert energy from nutrients into adenosine triphosphate or ATP.⁴
ATP is often described as the body's usable energy currency. It powers processes ranging from muscular contraction and nerve activity to cellular maintenance and repair.
This is why oxygen sits at the heart of aerobic energy production and why our demand for it changes when we move, exercise and recover.
Understanding oxygen inside the body was a major scientific breakthrough.
But another chapter in its story was unfolding somewhere very different.
Beneath the surface of the ocean, divers were discovering what happens when oxygen, pressure and the human body meet.
What Diving Taught Us About Oxygen
Few groups have contributed more to our practical understanding of oxygen than divers.
Early commercial divers relied on heavy helmets supplied with air from the surface. Scuba systems later allowed divers to carry compressed breathing gas, while rebreathers recycled exhaled gas, removed excess carbon dioxide, then added oxygen back into the breathing system to replace what the diver has consumed.⁵
These developments made longer and more independent dives possible. They also taught scientists and divers that oxygen’s effects depend not only on concentration, but also on pressure, exposure time and delivery method.
Divers learned how to select and manage breathing gases for different depths, while researchers gained a more detailed understanding of how the human body responds beneath the surface.
They also played a major role in revealing decompression sickness.
When a diver ascends, pressure falls. That dissolved nitrogen needs time to leave the tissues and ultimately be breathed out through the lungs. If the ascent is too rapid, nitrogen can form bubbles in tissues and blood contributing to decompression sickness, often called "the bends."
From Recompression to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Oxygen plays an important role in diving medicine in two key ways.
First, during planned decompression, divers can switch to breathing mixtures with higher oxygen content and less nitrogen. This increases the gradient that helps nitrogen move out of the tissues so it can be eliminated by the lungs.
Second, if decompression sickness occurs, an established treatment is recompression in a hyperbaric chamber while breathing high concentration oxygen. Increased pressure helps reduce the size of gas bubbles, while oxygen supports tissue oxygenation and helps accelerate the elimination of inert gas.
This use of oxygen under increased pressure became the foundation for what we now know as hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT.
HBOT is a medical treatment where a person breathes nearly 100% oxygen inside a specially designed chamber in which the air pressure is increased above normal atmospheric pressure. (ATA)
The combination of high oxygen concentration and increased pressure allows substantially more oxygen to be carried in the blood plasma and delivered to tissues than under normal conditions. This can increase oxygen availability to tissues and support processes involved in healing and recovery
Traditionally, hyperbaric therapy has required purpose built equipment, trained supervision and carefully controlled treatment protocols, with sessions often taking place in hospitals or specialist facilities. this can make regular access both time consuming and expensive.
But, access to oxygen support is beginning to broaden. Hyperbaric chambers are increasingly found in specialist clinics, recovery centres and performance facilities, while smaller systems designed for home use are becoming more widely available.
Alongside this growing accessibility oxygen is gaining new relevance beyond medicine. Across elite sport, recovery and wellness there is increasing interest in how greater access to oxygen can support the demands we place on our bodies. This reflects something bigger; oxygen is no longer being viewed as only something we breathe or receive when medically necessary. Increasingly it is something people are actively seeking out to support how they live, train and recover.
Oxygen Beyond Earth
The ocean was not the only frontier that changed our relationship with oxygen.
As humans began travelling beyond earths atmosphere, oxygen became part of one of our greatest engineering challenges: how do you carry the conditions needed for human life into an environment where they do not exist?
Spacecraft and spacesuit's had to create controlled environments in which astronaut's could breathe, work and survive. Oxygen was no longer simply something available in the atmosphere around us. It had to be stored managed and delivered as part of an artificial life support system.
That achievement helped humans leave earth, walk on the moon and live for months aboard spacecraft orbiting hundreds of kilometres above the planet.
There is something remarkable about this progression.
For billions of years, life adapted to the oxygen available on earth.
Eventually, humans learned enough about oxygen to take it with us beyond Earth.
Oxygen Beyond the Medical Chamber
As the understanding of oxygen developed, researchers began exploring its role beyond traditional clinical environments.
Research expanded into altitude physiology, exercise, metabolism, tissue oxygenation, fatigue and recovery. Athletes also began using oxygen-enriched breathing systems within specialist training and performance environments.
But these approaches typically relied on masks, cylinders, chambers or specialist equipment. Oxygen support was becoming better understood, but accessing it remained relatively expensive and complex.
That raised a simple question:
Could oxygen support be made portable, affordable and easy to incorporate into everyday life.
Making Oxygen Support Portable
KURE represents the next chapter in the story of oxygen.
The idea behind KURE was simple:
Oxygen support had traditionally depended on equipment, specialist environments or specific applications.
Could it be made simple enough to become part of everyday life?
Using UK patent protected technology KURE supplements Cornish spring water with oxygen held in stable nano bubbles. The result is everyday oxygen support in a familiar, ready to drink format: water.
This simplicity matters. There are no masks, cylinders or chambers. No complicated routine. KURE fits into something people already do every day, whether around training, recovery, travel, work or simply the demands of a busy life.
KURE is not intended to replace established medical uses of oxygen. It has a different purpose entirely: to make supplemental oxygen accessible, portable and easy to incorporate into every day routines.
But creating this new way to deliver oxygen support was only the beginning. The important question was whether drinking KURE would produce measurable differences in the human body.
Putting KURE to the Test
That question moved KURE from an idea into human clinical research.
Two independent controlled studies were conducted by UK universities to examine whether drinking KURE could produce measurable physiological differences during exercise.
The principle was straight forward: compare KURE with control spring water, keep the exercise conditions controlled and measure how the body responded.
Different participants - Different protocols - Different measures
The aim was the same.
To find out if KURE made a measurable difference.
University of Roehampton
Researchers at the university of Roehampton conducted a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study involving ten trained female athletes.⁷
Each participant completed controlled running trails with KURE and standard with spring water. Importantly, the controlled water came from the same source as KURE, was matched for pH and mineral content and was packaged identically so participants did not know which water they were drinking.
During the KURE condition, researchers measured a lower blood lactate at selected stages of steady state running, together with differences in fuel utilisation.
What changes was the metabolic response.
Under the same exercise demand, changing what the athletes drank produces measurable physiological differences.
London South Bank University
A separate study at London South Bank university examined KURE involving twelve trained male athletes during controlled cycling exercise in both normal and oxygen reduced environments.
Researchers measured hydration, tissue oxygenation, cardiovascular response, blood lactate and exercise performance against controlled spring water.
The study identified differences in post exercise blood lactate, skin oxygenation, body water content and blood pressure recovery.
The second study added a new layer of evidence. With different participants, a different exercise protocol and a broader range of physiological measures, researchers again identified measurable differences between KURE and control spring water.
Taken together, the two studies provide independent human evidence across both running and cycling protocols. Different participants. Different exercise demands. different physiological measures. Yet both demonstrated measurable differences when KURE was compared with controlled spring water under controlled conditions.
For KURE, this was an important milestone. What began as a new way to deliver oxygen support had progressed from an idea, to patented technology, to measurable physiological responses in human research.
The Continuing Story of Oxygen
The history of oxygen stretches across billions of years.
It begins inside stars.
It reshapes Earth’s atmosphere.
It makes complex life possible.
It transforms chemistry and medicine.
And it changes how we understand energy, movement and human performance.
At every stage, progress has come from understanding oxygen more deeply and finding new ways to make practical use of it.
Humans isolated it.
Then understood it.
Then compressed it.
Then administered it medically.
We learned manage it beneath the ocean, carry it to into the highest reaches of our atmosphere and take it us beyond Earth.
Oxygen helped us explore places the human body was never naturally equipped to survive.
Today, that story is continuing in another direction.
KURE uses stable oxygen nano bubble technology to infuse supplemental oxygen into Cornish spring water, bringing oxygen support into an every day habit.
Two independent UK university studies have measured physiological differences between KURE and control spring water across areas including blood lactate, fuel utilisation, skin oxygenation, body water content and blood pressure recovery.
The science will continue to develop, as meaningful innovation always does.
Oxygen has always been essential.
The way we use it continues to evolve.
KURE is the latest chapter in that story.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is oxygen?
Oxygen is a chemical element and a gas that makes up approximately 21% of Earth’s atmosphere. It is essential for human respiration and plays a fundamental role in cellular energy production.
Why do humans need oxygen?
Oxygen is essential to life. Your cells use it to help produce the energy needed for movement, recovery and normal everyday function.
How does KURE hold oxygen in water?
KURE uses its patented technology to supplement Cornish spring water with oxygen held in stable nano bubbles. This allows additional oxygen to remain within the water in a convenient, ready to drink format.
When can I drink KURE?
Anytime you would normally reach for water. KURE is designed to fit naturally into everyday life, whether you are training, working, travelling or simply getting on with your day.
Has KURE been independently researched?
Yes. KURE has been studied in two independent university research programmes examining measurable physiological responses associated with drinking KURE. You can explore the research and methodology on our science page.
References
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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. What Is Your Cosmic Connection to the Elements?
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NASA Astrobiology (2018). Revisiting Earth’s Oxygenation 2.4 Billion Years Ago.
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Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Volume 62: Discoverer of Oxygen.
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Nolfi-Donegan, D., Braganza, A. and Shiva, S. (2020). “Mitochondrial electron transport chain: oxidative phosphorylation, oxidant production and methods of measurement.” Redox Biology, 37, 101674.
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Divers Alert Network (2024). Developing Oxygen Toxicity Guidelines.
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Moon, R.E. (ed.) (2019). Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Indications. 14th edn. Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.
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Rhodes, A., Tyler, C.J., Motei, D. and Mackenzie, R.W.A. The Effects of Oxygenated Water on Metabolism in Female Athletes During Aerobic Exercise: A Double-Blind Randomised Control Trial. University of Roehampton and Coventry University.
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Magagnin, M. and Zaidell, L. Exploring the Physiological Effects and the Ergogenic Potential of Oxygen-Enriched Water in Exercise Performance: A Pilot Investigation. Sports and Exercise Science Research Centre, London South Bank University.
