What Doctors Don't Tell YouPioneers in various countries are amassing evidence that oxygen therapiesozone, hydrogen peroxide and hyperbaric oxygen can successfully battle a load of degenerative diseases, from cancer to AIDs.
At a time when orthodox medical research has begun to admit that it is losing the war against cancer, itis bizarre that a simple treatment used successfully by doctors around the world to treat cancer as well as heart disease and HIV/AIDS is virtually ignored, particularly when it has been shown to be effective.
Oxygen is so obviously vital to life that the role of chronic, subclinical oxygen deprivation and its contribution to the development of disease is often overlooked. As long ago as 1931, the German doctor Otto Warburg, a director of the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Cell Physiology in Germany, won his first Nobel Prize for discovering the fundamental importance of oxygen transfer in cell respiration, and his second for discovering the enzyme that transfers hydrogen as a further part of this vital process.
In his book, The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer (Wurzburg: K Tritsch, 1966), Dr Warburg made no bones about the fact that a perversion of the cell oxygenation process is at the heart of cancer development.
“Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes, but there is only one prime cause. . .the replacement of the normal oxygen respiration of body cells by an anaerobic [oxygen lacking] cell respiration.”
Warburg showed that cancer cells start through a lack of oxygen at the cellular level. When cells cannot get sufficient oxygen, they begin to feed off themselves in a sugar fermentation process that becomes progressively disruptive, leading to a toxic environment in which cancer and other illnesses, triggered by viruses and parasites, can thrive. Cancer cells cannot exist in a highoxygen environment.
Bacteria and parasites in the gut can be classified into two types: the beneficial varieties, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium, which are mainly aerobic, and the harmful types, such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus and Helicobacter pylori, which are anaerobic. With sufficient oxygenation, the beneficial bugs thrive while the harmful ones are kept under control. But if the oxygen saturation in the cells falls below a critical level around 60 per cent the reverse occurs. If this situation becomes chronic, a host of diseases may develop.
For more than 100 years, doctors around the world who understood the role of oxygen in good health have made use of a number of bio-oxidative therapies, mainly ozone, hydrogen peroxide and, to a lesser extent, hyperbaric oxygen.
Only now are these therapies starting to attract mainstream interest, partly because of the problems of antibiotic resistance and ‘superbugs’. At present, they are the subject of some 50 to 100 references appearing in medical journals worldwide each month.
Ozone
In nature, ozone is formed in the atmosphere when ultra-violet radiation forces oxygen to recombine temporarily in groups of three atoms (O3) as an energised form of oxygen, which quickly reacts with other substances. It is also produced during an electrical storm, causing the characteristic fresh smell afterwards.
Ozone is produced commercially in ozone generators, which use an electrical charge through a condenser, and has been used to purify water since 1860, when the first treatment plant was built in Monaco. Today, over 1000 cities use ozone to treat their drinking supplies.
Ozone is used by the bottling, pharmaceutical and food industries as a disinfectant. It is used to clean up polluted lakes or rivers, which it does far more effectively than chlorine and without killing animal life or leaving harmful chemical residues. Ozone is also an effective air cleaner and remover of noxious odours.
During World War I, the Germans used ozone to treat wounds and infections. In the 1930s, German scientists and doctors carried out considerable research into its effects, using it to successfully treat Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel disease and chronic bacterial diarrhoea.
A German dentist, Dr E.A. Fisch, first used ozonated water as a disinfectant; one of his patients, surgeon Dr Erwin Payr, in 1945 pioneered the method of injecting ozone intravenously to treat circulatory problems.
Another German, physicist Joaquim Hansler, developed the first medical ozone generator that could produce oxygen and ozone in the correct therapeutic doses, and the company he founded is now the largest manufacturer of medical ozone generators in the world. The advances by German doctors in this field led to Dr W. Zable in the late 1950s becoming the first to treat cancer with ozone, while Dr Horst Kief, based near Frankfurt, is probably the first to use it to treat HIV.
Today, an estimated 9000 licensed health practitioners in Germany and another 8000 practitioners throughout Europe use ozone. It is generally given by way of the rectum, injection, autohaemotherapy (where blood is extracted, treated, then returned to the body), steam cabinet, body bag, ozonated water or, under special conditions, inhalation.
An estimated ten million ozone treatments have been given to more than one million patients in Germany alone over the last 40 years. Despite this extraordinary record, the US FDA continues to block human trials and allows American doctors to be prosecuted for using ozone (see box opposite).
Hydrogen peroxide
Created in the atmosphere when ultra-violet light strikes oxygen in the presence of moisture, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a clear, colourless liquid that mixes easily with water. It is involved in all of the essential processes of life, including the immune system, and is the body’s first line of defense against viruses, bacteria, parasites and yeasts. Hydrogen peroxide is produced by granulocytes, white blood cells that fight infection. It is also necessary to help metabolise carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals, and regulates the production of oestrogen, progesterone and thyroxin. It also assists in
regulating blood sugar and energy production in cells.
For many years, H2O2 has been used as an antiseptic, disinfectant and oxidiser. One of its special qualities is its ready ability to decompose into water and oxygen.
Hydrogen peroxide has been found in many of the world’s healing springs, including Lourdes in France and, most recently, it has been used to treat a wide variety of diseases, with few side effects.
It is usually administered orally, intravenously or by injection into joints and soft tissue trigger points in the form of 35 per cent food grade H2O2 .
Hyperbaric oxygen
This therapy uses 100 per cent pure oxygen administered at two to three times the normal atmospheric pressure in a special chamber. When oxygen is dissolved in the blood, the increased oxygen is delivered directly to tissues. This is best known for its use in treating carbon monoxide poisoning, gas gangrene and decompression in divers, known as the ‘bends’.
However, hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy is now increasingly being used as an adjunct to standard medical care because it not only reduces swelling or oedema, but also produces antioxidant effects and stimulates new blood vessel formation where the blood supply is limited. It is now used to treat anaerobic infections, bone infections, difficult wounds, crush and soft tissue injuries, burns, skin grafts and radiation injuries.
HBO has proved useful in treating diabetes, vascular disease, cancer patients undergoing irradiation, and in those recovering from cosmetic, plastic and laser surgery. Research is now looking at its use in stroke, HIV linked disorders and chronic fatigue syndrome. It is also being used for treating sports injuries, and some believe that it enhances athletic performance. Some 26 centres in the UK now offer this therapy.
Cancer treatment
As the double Nobel Prize winner Dr Warburg showed, cancer cells cannot exist in a high oxygen environment. In 1974, one study reported that such cells are inhibited by peroxide (Erfahrungs-heilkunde, 1974; 23: 178-81). This was confirmed in an English publication in 1980, when Dr Frederick Sweet and his colleagues reported laboratory evidence showing that ozone selectively inhibits the growth of cancer cells (Science, 1980; 209: 931-2).
In the US, early cancer research in the 1960s at Baylor University in Dallas, Texas, by Dr J.W. Finney and associates showed the value of H2O2 as an adjunct in treating cancer by making cancer cells more sensitive to irradiation (South Med J, 1962; 55: 230-2). A further study demonstrated the value of H2O2 in shrinking the size of tumours (Cancer, 1965; 18: 1250).
A Japanese study of 15 patients confirmed that H2O2 enhanced the effect of an anticancer agent (Yonago Acta Med, 1967; 11: 149) while researchers in New York reported in 1981 that H2O2 contributed to the destruction of tumor cells by macrophages and granulocytes in cell cultures (J Exp Med, 1981; 154: 1548).
More recently, researchers at the University of California investigating effects on Hodgkin’s disease observed that low levels of H2O2 were sufficient to kill a substantial number of Hodgkin’s disease infected cells in vitro after only 15 minutes of incubation (Cancer, 1989; 63: 2114).
One of the first reports of successful treatment of cancer using ozone in patients was reported by Dr Joachim Varro at the Sixth World Ozone Conference in 1983, published in Medical Applications of Ozone (LaRaus J, ed, International Ozone Association, 1983, pp 94-5). Dr Varro reported that the patients experienced increased appetite, greater strength, higher rates of physical activity and a reduction in pain. He stated that patients were “free of metastases and tumour relapses for remarkably long periods of time; survival time could be prolonged, far exceeding the usual dubious prognoses, even in cases of inoperability, radiation resistance, or chemotherapy non tolerance, and with improved quality of life. Most patients who had undergone the combination therapy shortly after surgery and radiation could return full time to their occupations.”
Italian researchers at the University of Siena suspected that the anticancer effects of ozone were due in part to its ability to induce release of tumour necrosis factor (TNF). Their hunch was confirmed when they measured ozonated blood and observed that most of the TNF was released immediately after ozonation took place (Lymphokine Cytokine Res, 1991; 10: 409-12).
At the Hospital Santa Monica in Mexico, founder Dr Kurt Donsbach uses intravenous H2O2 extensively to treat cancer patients. He claims that, of the thousands he has treated, the majority make a complete recovery. In his highly recommended book Oxygen Healing Therapies, author Nathaniel Altman visited the hospital and asked Dr Donsbach about survival rates.
“Approximately 70 per cent of our patients are alive three years after their first visit. . . .very few of these patients had more than months to live according to their doctors when they arrived. . .a significant percentage of our patients become totally and completely cured,” he said.
A similar view was given when Altman visited Dr Horst Kief’s clinic in Germany in 1993. The reported long term remission rate for cancer patients was given as 60 per cent, with another 20 per cent experiencing an improvement.
In their book The Use of Ozone in Medicine (Haug Publishers, Heidelberg, 1987, updated 1994), Drs Siegfried Rilling and Renate Viebahn state that doctors have used ozone therapy in angiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, gerontology, intensive care, gynaecology, neurology, odontology, oncology, orthopaedics, proctology, radiology, rheumatology, surgery and urology.
Other uses
Cuba’s Department of Ozone has carried out medical ozone research since 1985, working with doctors across the country as part of the National Program for Ozone Therapy. Since 1985, over 20,000 Cubans have been treated with ozone, and many foreigners travel there for just this treatment.
Research, especially in Cuba, has covered many areas. Ozone therapy is now routine in Cuban hospitals for those suffering from angina and heart attacks. A recent study at their Ozone Research Center on 22 heart attack patients found that therapy significantly decreased total blood cholesterol and low density lipoprotein, “provoking the activation of antioxidant protection systems” (Free Radical Biol Med, 1995; 19: 115-9).
In another Cuban study of ischaemic cerebrovascular disease (due to insufficient oxygen in the blood), the mental and physical conditions of 120 elderly patients were significantly improved. Post therapy tests showed that 80-95 per cent of the patients improved in ability to participate in daily life (Devesa E at al, Ozone in Medicine: Proceedings of the 11th Ozone World Congress, Stamford, Conn: International Ozone Association, 1993).
Cuban scientists have also pioneered ozone therapy to treat eye diseases such as glaucoma, corneal ulcers, atrophy of the optic nerve and diabetic retinopathy. They have had particular success in treating retinitis pigmentosa; in one study, 89 per cent of the 175 patients studied showed marked improvement for two years after treatment (Rev CENIC Cien Biol, 1989; 20: 84-90). A 10 year study of 20 patients found that the best results were achieved when treatment was repeated twice a year, resulting in improvements of 70 per cent in visual field and 42 per cent in visual acuity (Copello M et al, Abstracts, 2nd International Symposium on Ozone Applications, Havana: Ozone Research Center, 1997: 36).
Cuban doctors have reported success with hepatitis A, B and C. In a study of 80 patients, those receiving ozone were diagnosed as cured after three weeks whereas the control group took six months (Betancourt Y et al, as above, pp 61-2).
Skin diseases have also been successfully treated. In a study of herpes zoster (shingles) treated with ozonated sunflower oil injected intramuscularly for 15 days, all 15 patients showed marked improvement after only three applications and were judged symptom free by the end of treatment, with no relapses after one year’s follow up (Rev CENIC Cien Biol, 1989; 20: 160-2).
Other researchers have reported success in treating arthritis, asthma, dementia, diabetes, flu, giardiasis, Lyme disease, osteoporosis, sickle cell anaemia, tuberculosis and wounds.
A recent review by Professor V. Bocci of the University of Siena presents a convincing case for readmitting ozone therapy into the medical mainstream, from which it was excluded many years ago by the growing domination of drug therapy (Br J Biomed Sci, 1999; 56: 270-9).
Much of the research carried out into bio-oxidative therapies has taken place in Cuba, Russia and Germany. In Russia, ozone therapy has been approved by the Ministry of Public Health and is fast becoming part of mainstream medicine. Russia and Cuba’s eminence in ozone research is due to the fact that both have a history of socialised medicine and limited access to Western drugs. There is also the fact that the lack of patentability and thus little profit in producing ozone means a cheap price tag.
Clearly, in this one instance, British and American doctors might do well to follow the lead of the Communists. Dr Charles Farr of Oklahoma City, who recently died, was one of America’s leading practitioners of oxidative medicine. His nomination for a Nobel Prize in 1993 for his work is an indication that this just might be beginning to happen.
!ASimon Best
E-mail: simonbest@EMhazardtherapy.com; http://www.EMhazardtherapy.com; helpline (premium rate) tel: 0906 401 0237; PO Box 2039, Shoreham, West Sussex BN43 5JD
Jim Strohecker
Tom Ferguson MD
Daniel Redwood DC