Introduction to Ozone Therapy

If you’re running on empty and struggling to stay well, welcome! You are in the right place! See, modern living can be crazy: Work to do, bills to pay, a veritable never ending supply of tasks hitting life’s inbox. It’s harming our health.

Psychological and physical stresses weigh heavily our shoulders and the impacts are draining, even deadly. Why? Our incredible bodies are designed for the short term stresses of yesteryear: To quickly flee from an unexpected encounter with a dangerous animal or to fight off a tribal attack. In moments of sudden dire need our body redirects energy and resources to only those processes required for surviving, not thriving. Then, once the ominous situation has passed, our biology should revert to healing and optimal function.

But what happens when the stresses of modern life rarely relent?

We become fatigued, run down, unwell: Our biology takes a beating. After all, you simply can’t sprint a marathon. Rest and recuperation are required but often elusive. That is, until now…

Ozone Therapy: What Are Its Therapeutic, Healing Benefits?

Unsurprisingly, oxygen is crucial for health and healing: If you don’t breathe, you don’t live. But did you know that 65% of a human’s body mass is made of oxygen? This odourless element is involved in the metabolic functions that sustain life. Ozone Therapy saturates the body with oxygen, leading to wonderful benefits for our biology.

Medical Properties of Ozone include: (1)(2)(3)

• Ozone regulates the immune system.
• Ozone stimulates uptake and utilisation of life-giving oxygen.
• Ozone increases the effectiveness of our healing anti-oxidant enzyme system.
• Ozone improves circulation to the body and brain.
• Ozone delivers anti-inflammatory properties.
• Ozone is a strong anti-microbial agent (yes, it fights off harmful bugs)!.

Ozone Therapy Overview

Dr. Velio Bocci, MD, renowned researcher and scientist, is the world’s leading authority on Medical Ozone. His research has shown that introducing ozone (O3) into the body maximises the delivery and consumption of life-giving oxygen.

How does it work?

Ozone therapy directly impacts the ability of our red blood cells to transport oxygen around the body. This profoundly enhances the way oxygen is used by tissues.

Ozone Therapy: Effects on Oxygen Transport and Red Blood Cell Function

Ozone therapy improves the flexibility of the body’s oxygen-carrying red blood cells (RBC).  (4) It’s like Yoga for the cells! The result? Blood can enter even the smallest capillaries effectively. And it gets better…

Ozone therapy heightens the negative electrical charge of our RBC’s, leading to cellular repulsion rather than attraction. Like turning a stagnant trickle into a raging river, this improves the rheological (flow) properties of blood (5) and enables greater oxygen transportation efficiency and the profound health benefits that come with it.

Ozone therapy stimulates red blood cells to generate a compound named 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3 DGP). This molecule controls the movement of oxygen from red blood cells to the body’s tissues. (6) Without sufficient 2,3 DGP tissues become oxygen starved; with it, tissues come to life.

Ozone therapy also increases the levels of energy-giving adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in our RBC's. As the ATP system is responsible for intracellular energy transfer, the additional vitality enables them to become, what Bocci describes as, ‘super gifted’. And speaking of heightened energy…

Increased Oxygen Consumption Within Body Tissues

Mitochondria are the powerhouses within our cells that generate the energy we need to thrive. Ozone therapy appears to stimulate mitochondrial function and supercharge self-repair. (7) Both German and Cuban researchers have linked increased intra-cellular oxygen consumption to mitochondrial stimulation. In short, people may regain lost energy and a sense of wellbeing following therapy. (8)

Immune System Benefits: Combating Inflammation and Pathogens

Bocci and Menendez showed that ozone can modulate and balance the immune system. When poor function is present, ozone therapy acts as a stimulant. When the body is in hyperdrive, over-active and producing excessive and harmful inflammation, ozone therapy dampens down this effect and allows inflamed tissues to heal.

Calming Inflammation

The inflammatory process is designed to destroy foreign invaders and repair damaged tissues. Following an acute response, inflammation should be “switched off”. If it continues unabated, inflammation itself can become destructive.

In the case of joint pain, ozone’s inflammation-modulating effects may lead to much-needed, safe relief from the discomfort and dysfunction of knee osteoarthritis. (9) But this is just the beginning…

The journal article Clinical utility of ozone therapy for musculoskeletal disorders (10) reported reduced inflammation in a variety of tissues and pain relief from a raft of problems including:

• Temporomandibular joint disorder.
• Disc herniation and back pain.
• Shoulder (glenohumeral) pain.
• Frozen shoulder.
• Hip bursitis.
• Carpal tunnel syndrome.
• Partial supraspinatus tendon tears.
• Fibromyalgia.
• Spinal pain.
• Lumbar spinal stenosis.

Protecting against pathogens

Ozone and its metabolic products are wonderfully toxic to harmful pathogens. In fact, ozone “punches holes” in bacterial membranes (6) causing death. As a reference, ozone is a more potent disinfectant than the chlorine compounds commonly used!

When it comes to viruses, the mechanism is different. These pathogens don’t have their own cell walls or replication factories. So they must gain entry to our cells and take over the pre-existing intracellular machinery. After all, you can’t build a virus vehicle without the right equipment or materials! If they can do this? Replicate and disease may result. Research shows that most viruses achieve cellular entry via the sulfhydryl (SH) groups on their outer shells. Through this mechanism, viruses are able to attach to healthy cells and enter. Given this…

How can ozone therapy protect against viral pathogens?

Ozone is an extremely reactive oxygen. It strips the hydrogen atom from the sulfhydryl group as follows: SH + SH + O3(ozone) > S-S = H2O + O2. As the sulfhydryl groups are oxidised to S-S, a virus is inactivated. The damaged virus then remains within the bloodstream where it can be identified and removed by the immune system.

Potential Benefits Against Cancerous Cells

According to an article published in the journal, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine:

“Hypoxic cells can become 3 times more resistant to [radiotherapy] than the well-oxygenated tumor cells, and small increases in oxygenation in hypoxic cells result in a remarkable enhancement of the effectiveness of [radiotherapy]. Similarly, hypoxia decreases the effectiveness of several chemotherapeutic drugs.”

This indicates a good case for Ozone Therapy as a possible adjuvant in the treatment of cancer.

Further research includes:

A mouse study found that tumour cell numbers in lung metastases were lower at higher ozone concentrations. (11)

The study Ozone selectively inhibits growth of human cancer cells found that, “The growth of human cancer cells from lung, breast, and uterine tumors was selectively inhibited in a dose-dependent manner by ozone at 0.3 to 0.8 part per million of ozone in ambient air during 8 days of culture…. The presence of ozone at 0.3 to 0.5 part per million inhibited cancer cell growth 40 and 60 percent, respectively.” (12) What does that mean? The growth of cancer cells was controlled without any corresponding damage to healthy cells.

Another study called Medical Ozone and Radiotherapy in a Peritoneal, Erlich-Ascites, Tumor-cell Model concluded that, “Medical ozone therapy might serve as a method of obtaining [anti-oedema] and [anti-tumour] effects, providing a longer survival time.” (13)

The Bio-Oxidative Point of View

Dr. Otto Wahberg, a Nobel Prize winning cancer specialist, found that chronic poor health is strongly linked to the toxification of respiratory enzymes. When this occurs, the body cannot process oxygen optimally leading to subpar metabolism.

Dr. Wayne McCarthy, New Zealand based ozone therapist, believes that this toxicity underlies many aspects of ill health, especially those that are chronic in nature. Saturating the body with oxygen through ozone therapy is therefore able to holistically reinvigorate and heal the body. 

“I think it makes sense when you realise that every step of every chemical reaction in the body requires oxygen. So when oxygen levels are sub optimal or low, the chemical reactions in the body don’t go to full completion, and you are not getting the benefit of what your metabolism is capable of. So when we provide ozone we clear the toxicity out of the respiratory pathways and reinvigorate the bio-oxidative system which is the foundation of your life process, your life biology."

As you can see, ozone therapy is both safe and able to significantly enhance oxygen delivery throughout the body. The therapeutic benefits include heightened health and healing, much needed pain relief, a calming of dangerous inflammatory levels, and a much-needed transformation from surviving to thriving.

Ready to begin your ozone therapy journey toward better health?

Get started with home ozone therapy or contact us to discuss. 

* Please know that this information is merely informative. It is not to make a claim that ozone or any particular therapy might cure any condition, but to discuss the known physiology of ozone therapy.

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Research and studies:

• Podcast -  Ozone: Frank Shallenberger’s 40 years Using Medical Ozone to Fix Everything: https://blog.bulletproof.com/ frank-shallenberger-524/
• Book by Dr Frank Shallenberger: The Ozone Miracle: How you can harness the power of oxygen to keep you and your family healthy (2017) 
• Dr Rowen, MDhttp://www.docrowen.com/ozone-therapy.html

Basic publications of Professor Bocci on ozonetherapy:

The following five papers briefly give a fair idea of the basic biology and usefulness of ozone therapy in Medicine:

1. Scientific and medical aspects of ozone therapy: State of the art. Archives of Medical Research, 37 (2006) 425-435.
2. Is it true that ozone is always toxic? The end of the dogma. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, 216 (2006) 493-504.
3. The case for oxygen-ozone therapy. British J. of Biomedical Science, 64 (2007) 44-49.
4. Basic Biological and Therapeutic effects of Ozonetherapy in Human Medicine, Review published by UNESCO-EOOLS Encyclopedia, 2008.
5. The ozone paradox: ozone is a strong oxidant as well as a medical drug, Medicinal Research Reviews.29, (2009) 646-682.

All the other papers can be traced in PubMed. 5 The second edition of his book “A new medical drug”, 2nd ed., 2011, XXI, 315 p. 25 illus., Hardcover, is available at Springer: (http://www.springer.com/medicine/book/ 978-90-481-9233- 5?changeHeader)