Ozone Therapy and Healing Review Article 2025

Background

Ozone (O₃) is a highly reactive form of oxygen that has been used in medicine and sanitation for more than a century, from the disinfection of drinking water to the treatment of infected wounds during the First World War. Interest in it as a therapeutic agent rests on a paradox: at high concentrations ozone is toxic and damaging to tissue, yet at low, controlled doses it appears to trigger a mild, regulated stress response that the body answers by strengthening its own defences. This review sets out to gather what has been reported about how ozone behaves in the body and where it has been applied in healing.

Study design

This article is a narrative review by a single author. It is not primary research and does not report an experiment, a trial or a systematic search of the literature. There is no methods section, no stated criteria for which studies were included, and no formal appraisal of the evidence. Instead the author summarises and interprets a selection of previously published work - roughly thirty-five references - to give a broad overview of ozone's proposed actions and uses. Its findings should therefore be read as a summary of what others have reported rather than as new or independently verified results.

Findings

The review describes four main actions attributed to ozone in the sources it draws on. It reports an antimicrobial effect, in which ozone acts directly on the membranes of micro-organisms through oxidation and is said to be active against a wide range of bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. It reports an antioxidant effect, whereby a brief, controlled oxidative challenge is followed by a compensatory rise in the body's own antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase. It describes an anti-inflammatory action linked to the oxidation of compounds such as arachidonic acid and its derivatives, which are involved in inflammatory signalling. And it notes an analgesic, or pain-relieving, effect attributed to the oxidation of pain-related molecules. Alongside these, the review points to reports of ozone supporting cellular energy production and being applied in the management of high blood sugar and its complications, citing a study in which treated patients were said to show better glycaemic control and fewer amputations than controls.

What the authors concluded

The author concludes that ozone, used at low and non-toxic doses, can activate the body's antioxidant systems, support oxygen-dependent energy pathways and act as an antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and analgesic agent, and that it has potential across a range of conditions including diabetes-related complications. The overall tone is that ozone therapy is a versatile agent worth further attention, while the author frames these actions as documented in the wider literature rather than proven by any single definitive trial.

Limitations of this study

This is a narrative review written by a single author, without a systematic method, stated inclusion criteria or any structured assessment of the quality of the studies it cites. As such it reflects the author's selection and interpretation of the evidence and cannot weigh the strength of that evidence or account for studies pointing the other way. It was published in the Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research (Mantech Publications), a small, low-profile journal with limited indexing and no digital object identifier for this article, which makes independent verification of the citation and the peer-review process difficult. The mechanisms and clinical benefits it describes are drawn from other people's work and are presented in broad terms; they should be treated as a general overview of what has been claimed for ozone rather than as confirmed clinical fact.