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Other Health Problems

The broad spectrum of application for oxidative therapies was discussed in a paper by Dr. Velio Bocci published in the Journal of Biological Regulators and Homeostatic Agents. In this paper, Dr. Bocci wrote that brief oxidative stress “appears safe, simple, inexpensive and amenable to be adjusted to different pathological states” and that ozone’s ability to upregulate intracellular antioxidant enzymes can eventually inhibit the chronic oxidative stress responsible for degenerative disease and aging.¹ In this chapter, we’ll explore how oxidative therapies have been found to impact a broad spectrum of other health problems and can perhaps can be part of a health maintenance program.

DUODENAL ULCER

At the General Calixto Garcia Hospital in Havana, Cuba, twenty patients suffering from duodenal ulcer were treated several times daily with ozonated water over the course of one month. Clinical studies revealed that 40 percent of the patients were totally healed by the end of treatment, 10 percent were in the final stages of scar formation, 25 percent of the patients had 50 percent scar formation, 5 percent experienced a 33 percent scar formation, and 20 percent had to discontinue the study due to intense pain.²

COLITIS

Before he developed his revolutionary intraperitoneal ozone delivery system to treat cancer and sepsis, Dr. Siegfried Schulz did experiments with ozone on Djungarian hamsters as a basis for treating antibiotic-induced colitis in humans, a disease that is extremely difficult to treat with other antibiotics. Many patients with severe colitis require colostomies, or the removal of the colon. While enterocolitis in hamsters cannot be compared with human colitis in its anatomical and clinical outcome, Dr. Schulz felt that the term colitis—based on his electron microscope results from the colons of hamsters—was justified. In addition, because this type of hamster is omnivorous, it is more relevant to humans than other animal species as an animal model for studying this disease.

After the hamsters were infected, one group was given the drug clindamycin, with 100 percent mortality after three days; the same mortality rate occurred when animals were treated with air and clindamycin. When oxygen and ozone were administered rectally in clindamycintreated animals, 30 percent died within three days. But when ozone and oxygen were administered via both oral (through a tube inserted into the stomach) and rectal insufflation, all of the clindamycin-treated animals were alive after ten days.³

Dr. Schulz concluded that insufflation of ozone into the gastrointestinal tract significantly prevented the fatal outcome of lethal enterocolitis, and he believes that greater attention should be paid to the role of ozone in treating antibiotic-induced or antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections of the gastrointestinal tract like pseudomembranous colitis.⁴

ULCERATIVE COLITIS

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a disease that causes inflammation and sores, called ulcers, in the lining of the rectum and colon. It is one of a group of diseases called inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Several types of drugs can help control it. In severe cases, doctors must remove the colon.

A team of researchers from three major hospitals and research centers (the 303rd Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army, the Research Center of Clinical Medicine, and Nanfeng Hospital at Southern Medical University) in China undertook a study to assess the therapeutic effect of ozone therapy combined with sulfasalazine delivered via a colon therapy system in the treatment of distal ulcerative colitis. Sulfasalazine is widely used by conventional medicine to treat IBD, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

This randomized controlled clinical trial involved fifty-four patients diagnosed with mild to moderate active distal ulcerative colitis. They were randomly divided into three groups of eighteen patients per group. Each group was given a daily dose of 2 g of sulfasalazine. For those in the “colon therapy group” and “ozone therapy plus sulfasalazine therapy group,” sulfasalazine was delivered daily via a specially designed colon therapy system, while the control group received sulfasalazine via retention enema only. Colonoscopies were performed to evaluate disease activity before treatment and at two weeks and four weeks after the beginning of treatment. In addition, biopsy samples were obtained at zero weeks and at four weeks for histological examination. (Histology is the study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants and animals.)

The researchers found that when compared with the colon therapy group and the control group, patients in the ozone therapy plus colon therapy group experienced faster alleviation of their clinical symptoms as well as a greater degree of histological improvement, especially four weeks after treatment began. In the paper, which was published in the Journal of Southern Medical University, the researchers observed that ozone therapy was inexpensive to use and that it produced no adverse side effects. They concluded: “Ozone therapy combined with sulfasalazine delivered via a colon therapy system is feasible and effective for treatment of ulcerative colitis.”⁵

GASTROENTERITIS

Robert Mayer, M.D., a pediatrician in Miami, Florida, used medical ozone to treat children suffering from gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and intestinal tract. Nonbacterial diarrhea was a common symptom. A total of 2,757 children from one month to eighteen years of age were divided into two groups. Group 1 consisted of 1,931 children who were treated with oxygen and ozone through rectal insufflation. Of that total, 1,265 received one treatment, 583 were given two treatments, and 83 received three insufflations of ozone and oxygen. Group 2 was a control group of 825, which was in turn divided into three subgroups: subgroup A received a restricted diet only, subgroup B received rectal air insufflation, and subgroup C was given rectal oxygen insufflation.

Of the children receiving ozone therapy, 95 percent of the group receiving one treatment were cured in one day. Of the subjects receiving two treatments, 95 percent were cured in two days. All of the remaining patients receiving ozone were cured in three days. By contrast, all members of the control group recovered more slowly and persisted in their symptoms for up to six days.⁶

HUMORAL IMMUNE DEFICIENCY

A group of researchers at the Central Havana Pediatric Hospital sought to evaluate the effects of ozone therapy on children with humoral immune deficiency. Fifty-nine children between one and five years of age who had not responded to conventional immune-stimulating therapies were chosen for the study.

Clinical manifestations of patients were as follows:

Frequent recurrence of respiratory infections: 3 patients (5 percent)

Chronic adenoiditis and/or tonsillitis: 10 patients (17 percent)

Pneumonia: 22 patients (37 percent)

Asthma: 15 patients (25 percent)

Chronic diffuse middle otitis (ear infection): 9 patients (15 percent)

Sepsis: 1 patient (2 percent)

Immunoglobulins are proteins that are capable of acting as antibodies to protect the body from disease. All patients in the study were deficient in one or more immunoglobulins: forty-eight patients (81 percent) were deficient in gamma A (IgA), which helps protect mucosal surfaces from invading pathogens; eight (14 percent) were deficient in gamma M (IgM), which is formed in almost all the body’s immune responses; and thirty (51 percent) were deficient in gamma G (IgG), the principal immunoglobulin found in human serum.

Immunological improvement was rated as “satisfactory” when immunological studies were normalized or were higher than reference values. It was rated “unsatisfactory” when the immunological parameters remained pathological. Clinical improvement was “satisfactory” when recurrent infectious episodes were relieved or eliminated, and “unsatisfactory” when infectious episodes continued or increased.

Ozone was administered via rectal insufflation at age-dependent doses in three different cycles. The first cycle included fifteen daily treatments over a three-week period, the second cycle included twelve sessions over six weeks, and the third cycle called for nine ozone insufflations over six weeks, with a break of fifteen days between cycles.

The results were impressive. Researchers found that humoral immunity levels increased while clinical improvements were achieved to a satisfactory level in all patients. In addition, pathological IgA, IgM, and IgG values were normalized within the first cycle of treatment. Finally, the researchers noted that the ozone therapy was well tolerated by all patients and no adverse side effects were present.⁷

JAUNDICE

Mechanical jaundice is a type of jaundice caused by obstruction of the biliary passages by tumor or gallstones. A group of Russian physicians wanted to see whether ozone, when used as an adjunct, could improve patient response to traditional therapy. After evaluating results from ninety patients whose mechanical jaundice was due to tumor, the researchers concluded: “Ozone therapy facilitates more rapid arrest of hepatic dysfunction and endogenous intoxification.”⁸

MIGRAINE

Dr. S. A. Kotov conducted a randomized clinical trial to see whether ozone therapy can help relieve symptoms of migraine. Sixty-eight adult migraine sufferers were chosen for this study. Forty patients received eight or nine infusions of ozonated saline solution at a concentration of 1,200 µg/l, and a control group of twenty-eight received infusions of saline without ozone.

The intensity of headache, expressions of anxiety, state of vessels in the brain, and other biochemical indices were evaluated. Dr. Kotov found that there was a 25 percent overall improvement among the patients receiving ozone as compared to the controls. He concluded: “In 59% of the patients the attacks were absent during 3–5 months after ozone therapy, less intensity of headache was observed after their relapse. Improvements in the patients coincide with changes in biochemical parameters.”⁹

REFRACTORY MIGRAINE

While the majority of headaches are caused by tension and do not require medical intervention, roughly 20 percent of the population experience incapacitating headaches that resist medical treatment. Refractory migraines are those that continue persistently despite aggressive attempts to manage them, including medical, behavioral, and alternative modes of treatment.

A novel study was undertaken by Dr. Bernardino Clavo and his colleagues at the Chronic Pain Unit, Research Unit, and the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Neurology at the Dr. Negrin University Hospital, Las Palmas, Spain, along with Dr. Velio Bocci of the Department of Physiology at the University of Siena, Italy.

Five patients were chosen for this study. All had suffered from severe/ persistent headache that did not respond to standard headache management (including 5-HT1 agonist triptan drugs). Patients were treated with ozone therapy in the form of major autohemotherapy. The procedure involved venous blood drawn into a sterile single-use glass bottle containing anticoagulant, gently mixed with an equal volume of an ozone-oxygen gas mixture, prefiltered through a sterile 0.20-μm filter, and slowly rein-fused back into the donor patient via the antecubital vein in the arm.

Outcomes were measured by analgesia requirements, days of sick leave due to headache, number of headache events, and pain intensity according to the visual analogue scale (VAS). Outcomes were recorded at three time points: before ozone therapy, after ozone therapy, and before the last follow-up (mean: 64.6 to 36.8 months).

One month before ozone treatment began, the median number of severe headache episodes was twenty a month, with eighty reported episodes over six months before the ozone therapy began. One month after ozone therapy sessions concluded, zero events were reported. After six months, zero severe headache events were reported. The VAS scores also recorded a large decrease in headache pain in general. In the six-month period before the study, 60 percent of the patients had to take time off from work due to headache pain. In a follow-up five years after ozone therapy, patients reported no sick days due to headache pain. All patients stopped using trip-tan drugs, which are primarily used to treat migraine and cluster headaches.

The researchers concluded, “Ozone therapy decreased headache episodes and pain severity over a protracted period.” They added, “This novel approach is effective and merits further research.”¹⁰

PAIN RELIEF

In the AIDS trials undertaken by the Canadian Department of National Defence in 1990, the analgesic effects of ozone were discovered unexpectedly. According to Capt. Michael Shannon, M.D., who coordinated the study, “Inadvertently, we discovered that this particular type of therapy has an incredible effect, a very pronounced effect in managing pain. It has a very potent analgesic effect.”¹¹

I personally observed the analgesic effects of intravenous hydrogen peroxide on an individual who was suffering from a variety of serious AIDS-related symptoms and was given only a few weeks to live. Daily intravenous hydrogen peroxide administered at home appeared to relieve much of his discomfort, lift his spirits, facilitate sleep, and increase his overall energy level. Although the patient died, the quality of his final days was dramatically improved.

SICKLE CELL ANEMIA

Sickle cell anemia is a hereditary chronic form of anemia affecting primarily people of sub-Saharan descent. It is difficult to cure, and its symptoms include episodes of intense pain and fatigue. Believing that ozone could help those suffering from this disease, James Caplan of CAPMED/USA, a research organization, originally proposed that a study be done at the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, but he was rebuffed by hospital authorities. Knowing that Cuba has a large population of people of African origin, Caplan offered his proposal to scientists at Cuba’s National Center for Scientific Research. The Cubans were glad to collaborate, and the study was undertaken in 1989 at the Salvador Allende Hospital with fifty-five adults.

A control group of twenty-five patients received fifteen conventional medical treatments for sickle cell anemia, while the other group underwent fifteen sessions of oxygen-ozone therapy via rectal insufflation. Some members of the second group also received topical applications of ozone to treat skin ulcers, while patients in the control group were given conventional skin medications.

The results showed that the average time for resolution of the sickle cell crisis among those treated with ozone was half that of the control group. In addition, the frequency and severity of painful crises among the patients receiving ozone diminished during the six-month follow-up, in comparison to members of the control group. Skin ulcers, which are common among sickle cell patients, completely disappeared among the patients receiving ozone. The results of this simple, low-cost therapy were so impressive that Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health later approved ozone therapy as a standard treatment for sickle cell anemia throughout the country.¹²

Studies of sickle cell anemia were also undertaken by Dr. Bocci and colleagues in Italy. Dr. Bocci verified the validity of the Cuban studies and offered a possible treatment schedule for patients suffering from this disease and its common complications:

After an initial cycle including 24 treatments in three months (twice weekly), the therapeutic effect can be maintained with three treatments per month. Upregulation of antioxidant enzymes and 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG) is likely to occur during the first two months while rheological improvement (decrease of arterial pressure is the norm) due to NO^-/O₂ rebalance may take two to three months.¹³

SINUSITIS

A team of Russian physicians undertook a randomized clinical trial to see whether ozone therapy was more effective in treating sinusitis than conventional therapy. A total of 102 patients diagnosed with chronic purulent rhinosinusitis were chosen for the study. Seventy-two received five to seven irrigations of the paranasal sinuses with an ozone-oxygen mixture, while thirty control patients received traditional treatment. After evaluating all of the participants in the trial, researchers found that 89 percent of the patients receiving ozone recovered an average of 4.3 days earlier than the controls.¹⁴ Certainly, nasal irrigations with ozonated water offer the greatest level of safety, because this method prevents inhalation of ozone.

URINARY TRACT INFECTION

Urinary tract infection (UTI) has become a common health problem in developed countries, especially among patients who have undergone kidney transplants or are suffering from hypoglycemia, glycosuria, or neurogenic bladder. Urinary tract infections are normally treated with antibiotics. Yet given the expanding problem of multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria, scientists are searching for alternative and adjunct methods to deal with this problem.

Because ozone is known for its powerful antimicrobial properties against bacteria, spores, fungi, viruses, and protozoa, researchers at the Nephrology and Dialysis Unit at Sant’Anna Hospital in Como, Italy, investigated its possible usefulness in treating patients suffering from UTI.

Three female patients were chosen for this study. All had undergone kidney transplants and were suffering from one or more recurring urinary tract infections that did not respond to antibiotic therapy.

After urinary bladder catherization and urinary bladder emptying, a total of 100 to 150 centiliters (cc) of ozonated saline was prepared (ozone concentration: 50 μg/ml). The ozonated saline was then injected via a catheter into the urinary bladder and allowed to remain until the next voiding. The procedure was repeated at day one, day three, and every week thereafter until the patient’s symptoms disappeared or urinary tests showed normalization.

The researchers found that the use of ozonated water allowed for a “substantial bacterial clearance and prolonged urinary discomforts relief.” Although recognizing that this was a preliminary study with only three patients, they concluded: “In light of the emerging multidrug resistant bacteria strains and the need for alternative or adjunct antiseptic strategies, we believe that future studies should investigate and establish the best way to administer ozone, the safety, efficacy and long term outcomes of this cheap and commonly available drug for UTI management.”¹⁵