Kim Kardashian just made hyperbaric oxygen therapy the most talked about wellness device in the country. In a new interview with the Sunday Times, she said she has moved past the picture perfect body era and into something different: “I’ve switched my mentality, and now I’m coming from a place of longevity and cellular health.” Right now, she added, she is “super into hyperbaric chambers” and red light therapy.
I have photographed the Kardashians over the course of my 27 years behind the camera, so I have watched this family’s wellness arc up close. When Kim adopts a health habit, millions follow. That makes it worth asking the serious question: what does a hyperbaric chamber actually do, and does any of it have to do with living longer?
The Hyperbaric Chamber Price Check
Celebrities love it. What does the article say it actually does, and what does it cost you? Enter your own numbers below.
Wellness clinics typically recommend 2 to 5 sessions per week for multi-week protocols.
3 sessions per week
The article reports a medical session runs hundreds of dollars and wellness clinics sell packages in the thousands.
What the article says it actually does
Real medical uses (FDA cleared for 14 conditions):
- Decompression sickness in divers
- Carbon monoxide poisoning
- Radiation injuries
- Severe anemia and non-healing wounds
- Helps damaged tissue heal, stimulates new blood vessel growth, fights certain infections
Not a cleared use: living longer. None of the 14 cleared uses is longevity. Dr. Owen J. O’Neill of Northwell’s Phelps Hospital told the New York Post the biological effects are real, but “they do not mean that HBO2 treatment reverses aging or makes people live longer.” He would not recommend it to a healthy person simply for anti-aging.
What the article warns about
- Soft, portable home chambers operate at much lower pressure and sometimes use compressed air instead of 100% medical-grade oxygen. O’Neill strongly advises against them.
- Risks include sinus and ear injuries, seizures, blood sugar drops, blood pressure changes, claustrophobia, and vision changes. Pressurized pure oxygen is flammable.
- “Oxygen under pressure is considered a drug. Like any drug, it has a proper dose, specific reasons for using it, situations in which it should not be used, possible and significant side effects.” (Dr. O’Neill)
All cost figures above are your own inputs; price ranges quoted in the accordions come from the article. The article’s bottom line: for real medical conditions, talk to your doctor and use an FDA approved chamber under physician supervision. This is not medical advice.
What Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Actually Is
A hyperbaric chamber is a sealed vessel that fills with pure oxygen at higher than normal air pressure. Inside, your lungs absorb far more oxygen than they can at sea level. That oxygen rich blood then circulates through the body, delivering extra oxygen to tissues.
The idea is old. Hyperbaric therapy was first documented in 1662 and was originally developed for lung disease and decompression sickness in scuba divers. The modern medical version is a large, hard shell chamber used in hospitals, where trained staff control pressure, oxygen concentration, and session length precisely.
The at home versions flooding the wellness market are a different animal. Many are soft, portable chambers, essentially pressurized body bags, that operate at much lower pressures and sometimes use compressed air instead of 100 percent medical grade oxygen. The dose of oxygen your body receives can be vastly different from a hospital session, which matters because oxygen under pressure is, medically speaking, a drug.
The Pressure Numbers: ATA, Explained
Pressure is the dose, and the unit is ATA, atmospheres absolute. Sea level is 1.0 ATA. Here is how chambers compare:
- Hospital hard shell chambers: 2.0 to 3.0 ATA with 100% medical grade oxygen. The standard clinical dose for FDA cleared indications is typically 2.4 ATA, with sessions running 90 to 120 minutes.
- Wellness clinic hard shell chambers: 1.5 to 2.0 ATA, 60 to 90 minute sessions. The popular “mild” recovery dose is around 1.5 to 2.0 ATA.
- Soft shell home and studio chambers: 1.3 to 1.5 ATA maximum, usually with ambient air or an add on oxygen concentrator rather than pure medical oxygen. That is roughly the pressure of being 10 feet underwater.
Most of the published research on HBOT for tissue healing, cognitive function, and cellular aging was done at 1.5 to 2.5 ATA in hard shell chambers with 100% oxygen. The dose response evidence for 1.3 ATA soft chambers is much thinner. When someone says “I do hyperbaric,” the ATA number tells you whether they got a clinical dose or a mild one.
What the Science Actually Supports
The FDA has cleared hyperbaric oxygen therapy for a limited list of 14 medical conditions. The well established uses include decompression sickness in divers, carbon monoxide poisoning, gas embolism, radiation injuries, severe anemia, non healing wounds, and certain serious infections. In these cases the evidence is solid: extra oxygen under pressure helps damaged tissue heal, stimulates new blood vessel growth, and fights certain infections.
None of those 14 cleared uses is “living longer.”
That distinction matters. Dr. Owen J. O’Neill, the founding medical director of the Department of Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine at Northwell’s Phelps Hospital, told the New York Post that “there are real biological effects from hyperbaric oxygen treatment that have created interest in aging research.” Breathing pressurized oxygen can affect how cells function, influence inflammation, and help damaged tissues heal. But, he added, “those are important medical effects, but they do not mean that HBO2 treatment reverses aging or makes people live longer.”
Does a hyperbaric chamber help you live longer?
The short answer: No published human evidence shows that hyperbaric oxygen therapy extends lifespan. The therapy has 14 FDA-cleared medical uses, none for longevity or anti-aging. Most wellness claims come from soft-shell chambers at 1.3 ATA, while nearly all published research used hard-shell chambers at 1.5 to 2.5 ATA with 100 percent oxygen.
That gap between the dose people buy and the dose researchers studied is the whole story. When Kim Kardashian says she is super into hyperbaric chambers, she is describing a wellness habit, not a treatment with longevity data behind it. Dr. Owen J. O’Neill of Northwell’s Phelps Hospital put it plainly to the New York Post: the biological effects are real, but they do not mean HBO2 reverses aging or makes people live longer. He would not recommend it to a healthy person simply for anti-aging.
The Human Trials: What Was Actually Measured
The most cited aging study is Hachmo et al., published in the journal Aging in 2020. Israeli researchers at Shamir Medical Center and Tel Aviv University enrolled 35 healthy adults aged 64 and older and put them through 60 HBOT sessions, 90 minutes each at 2.0 ATA, five days a week for three months.
What they measured was cellular, not clinical:
- Telomere length in immune cells increased 20% to 38% depending on cell type. B cells showed the largest change, up 37.6%. For context, lifestyle interventions like exercise typically move telomere length by 2% to 5%.
- Senescent cell concentrations fell 11% to 37% depending on cell type. Senescent T helper cells dropped about 37%.
What the study did not have: a control group. The telomere analysis covered 25 of the 35 participants, and the researchers noted that clearing short telomere cells from the population could raise the average without lengthening any single telomere. No one measured lifespan, disease, or mortality. It is a fascinating cellular signal, not a longevity result.
A separate 2020 study from the same group did randomize 63 adults over 64, with 33 receiving HBOT and 30 in a control arm, and found improvements in cognitive measures including processing speed and attention, alongside increased cerebral blood flow on MRI. That is a genuine randomized trial, and it measured brain function, not aging itself.
O’Neill’s caution is specific and worth quoting: changes in biological markers, the kind you see on blood tests or brain scans after treatment, are not evidence that someone will stay healthier or live longer. A biomarker moving in the right direction for a few weeks is a long way from an extra decade of life.
“For that reason, I would not recommend HBO2 treatment to a healthy person simply for ‘anti-aging’ or longevity purposes,” O’Neill said, adding that much larger and better designed studies are necessary before anyone can make that case.
The Celebrity Factor
Kim is far from the first famous name attached to a chamber. Leann Rimes has said she uses hyperbaric therapy for “repairing the brain.” Mayim Bialik turned to it for autoimmune flare ups. Biohackers Gary Brecka and Bryan Johnson, both of whom have made life extension a public mission, have reportedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on personal chamber setups. Athletes including LeBron James and Michael Phelps have used it to speed recovery, as have three Philadelphia major league sports teams.
Celebrity adoption creates a halo that the evidence does not support. When a famous face credits a device for their glow or their energy, it reads as proof. It is not proof. It is a testimonial, and testimonials are the weakest form of evidence in medicine.
That said, the celebrity spotlight does one useful thing: it forces real doctors to answer the question in public, which is how the rest of us learn where the evidence actually stands.
“Expensive plus unproven is a bad combination.”
2026 refresh: Kim’s longevity turn, in her own words
Kim’s chamber talk is not old news. In October 2026 she told the Sunday Times she had switched her mentality: “I’ve switched my mentality, and now I’m coming from a place of longevity and cellular health.” She said she is “super into hyperbaric chambers,” alongside red light therapy and a long daily supplement list.
Days later on Jimmy Kimmel, he pressed her on the routine, joking about blood being “transfused and cleaned” and asking whether she was being “bamboozled for money.” She stood her ground and insisted there is “real science behind it.” I have photographed the Kardashians across my 27 years behind the camera, so I will say this with affection: when Kim adopts a habit, millions follow. That is exactly why the dose question matters. What she uses, and what her sister Kendall showed off in her own “wellness room,” are consumer chambers, not the hospital rigs the research was done on.
The 2026 price reality, from manufacturer guides published this year: soft-shell home chambers run $5,000 to $25,000 at 1.3 to 1.5 ATA; hard-shell monoplace chambers reaching 2.0 ATA run $30,000 to $200,000 and up; a clinic session in a hard-shell chamber costs $100 to $250. A mid-range $10,000 to $12,000 home chamber breaks even against clinic visits after roughly 40 to 60 sessions, about 3 to 5 months at three sessions a week. None of that changes the evidence picture, but it changes the math if you were going to pay per session anyway.
For the bigger picture on which celebrity-endorsed devices earn their keep, see which biohacks are actually worth the money and the red light therapy evidence. If you are in Southern California and want a supervised session rather than a home unit, longevity clinics in Los Angeles is where to start.
Not All Chambers Are Equal, and the Bill Is Real
If you are tempted to try it, the first thing to know is that the chamber matters enormously. Medical grade hard shell chambers in hospitals are regulated, staffed, and built to strict engineering standards. The soft portable chambers marketed for home use are not in the same category, and O’Neill strongly advises against them: “Many of these devices are not manufactured in the United States and may not meet the standards expected of medical hyperbaric chambers.” The FDA has also warned about improper use of hyperbaric chambers.
The second thing is cost, and the ranges are wide:
- Wellness studios with soft shell chambers (1.3 ATA): roughly $50 to $100 per session, sometimes up to $225 at premium studios.
- Independent hard shell clinics (2.0 to 3.0 ATA): roughly $150 to $450 per session, with a national median around $250 to $350.
- Hospital based programs: $500 to $2,500+ per session before insurance, with Medicare reimbursing roughly $596 per session for on label conditions.
- A full 20 to 40 session protocol at a clinic typically runs $3,000 to $16,000 out of pocket.
- Home soft shell chambers: a one time purchase of $4,500 to $20,000.
- Personal hard shell chambers: $25,000 to $136,000.
The six figure personal setups attributed to biohackers like Brecka and Johnson are at the extreme end of that range. This is not a casual experiment for most people, which makes the thin longevity evidence an even bigger problem. Expensive plus unproven is a bad combination.
“Oxygen under pressure is considered a drug. Like any drug, it has a proper dose, specific reasons for using it, situations in which it should not be used, possible and significant side effects.”
Dr. Owen J. O’Neill, founding medical director of the Department of Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine at Northwell’s Phelps Hospital
The chamber decoder: which type fits your situation?
Three quick questions. Answer honestly and the decoder will tell you which chamber class the evidence and the pricing actually support for you.
The Chamber Decoder
For information only, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before changing anything.
The Risks Are Real
Pressurized pure oxygen is flammable, and the risks go beyond theory. In 2025, five year old Thomas Cooper died while being treated for ADHD and sleep apnea at a holistic clinic in Detroit when a spark reportedly ignited a fire inside the pressurized chamber. Three staff members were charged. That tragedy involved an unregulated setting, but it is a stark reminder that this is a medical intervention, not a spa treatment.
Even in proper settings, side effects can include sinus and ear injuries from pressure changes (barotrauma occurs in roughly 7% of sessions in some reports), seizures, drops in blood sugar in people with diabetes, blood pressure changes, severe anxiety or claustrophobia inside the chamber, and temporary changes in vision. This is why O’Neill’s line lands so hard: “Oxygen under pressure is considered a drug. Like any drug, it has a proper dose, specific reasons for using it, situations in which it should not be used, possible and significant side effects.”
The Bottom Line
Kim Kardashian’s instinct is understandable. Shifting from appearance driven wellness to longevity driven health is a genuinely good idea, and curiosity about new therapies is healthy. But hyperbaric oxygen therapy, for all its legitimate medical uses, is not a proven longevity tool. The experts who know it best say the aging research is interesting and the anti aging claims are premature.
"Those are important medical effects, but they do not mean that HBO2 treatment reverses aging or makes people live longer."
Dr. Owen J. O'Neill, founding medical director of the Department of Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine at Northwell's Phelps Hospital
The numbers tell the story: the best human data is a 35 person uncontrolled study measuring telomeres, and a 63 person randomized study measuring cognition, against a therapy that costs $250 to $450 a session at clinical doses. If you are considering it for a real medical condition, talk to your doctor and use an FDA approved chamber under physician supervision. If you are considering it because a celebrity made it look like the secret to a longer life, save your money. The most evidence backed longevity tools remain the boring ones: sleep, exercise, not smoking, and a diet that is mostly plants.
This article is for information only and is not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before trying hyperbaric oxygen therapy or any new treatment.
Frequently asked questions
Does Kim Kardashian own a hyperbaric chamber?
She has not confirmed owning one. In October 2026 she told the Sunday Times she is "super into hyperbaric chambers" as part of her longevity routine, and she defended the practice on Jimmy Kimmel the same month. Her sister Kendall Jenner has shown off her own chamber inside her "wellness room."
Is hyperbaric oxygen therapy FDA approved for anti-aging?
No. HBOT has 14 FDA-cleared medical uses, including wound care and decompression sickness. Longevity, anti-aging, and general wellness are not among them. Experts quoted in October 2026 coverage strongly advised against using it purely for longevity.
How much does a hyperbaric chamber session cost?
2026 pricing guides put hard-shell clinic sessions at $100 to $250 per session, with premium or hospital settings charging more. Soft-shell wellness studios typically run $50 to $100. Monthly packages can bring the effective per-session cost to $60 to $150.
How much does a home hyperbaric chamber cost?
Entry soft-shell chambers run about $4,500 to $8,000, mid-range $9,000 to $14,000, premium soft-shell $16,000 to $27,000. Personal hard-shell chambers start around $25,000 to $50,000 and run to $200,000 and beyond for clinical-grade units.
Can you sleep in a hyperbaric chamber?
Not advised. Sessions are timed and supervised because oxygen under pressure carries real risks: ear and sinus barotrauma, and oxygen toxicity at high doses and long exposures. Consumer chambers are not designed as sleeping pods.
Who should avoid hyperbaric chambers?
People with lung diseases, recent ear surgery or ear sensitivity, and active colds are commonly advised to stay clear, per guidance cited by Johns Hopkins Medicine. Anyone with a medical condition should talk to a doctor first.
Sources
- Hachmo Y et al., “Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases telomere length and decreases immunosenescence in isolated blood cells: a prospective trial,” Aging, 2020 (n=35, 60 sessions at 2.0 ATA)
- Hadanny A et al., randomized trial of HBOT and cognitive function in healthy aging adults, Aging, 2020 (n=63)
- Dr. Owen J. O’Neill, Northwell Health Department of Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine, via New York Post
- FDA, cleared indications for hyperbaric oxygen therapy (14 conditions) and warnings on off label use
- Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS), approved indications list
- Current HBOT pricing data from US clinic and home chamber listings, 2026
