It is Time that Health Authorities Promote the Use of the Ozone as a Biological Modulator in the Treatment of the Chronic Oxidative Stress Diseases | Chapter 01 | Current Trends in Medicine and Medical Research Vol. 4
Ozone is a very reactive gas and is toxic
for the respiratory system but, under precise rules, it can be therapeutically useful for
human disease with
a chronic oxidative
stress. Ozone is an extremely versatile drug
and the therapeutic
range has been
precisely defined to
exclude acute and
chronic toxicity. It is
remarkable that the
majority of patients
report a feeling
of wellness using
prolonged ozone therapy. Particularly in chronic skin infections and
ulcers, which affect millions of patients, the use of parenteral and topical
ozone applications is far more effective than conventional medications for
enhancing healing, simply because ozone disinfects, oxygenates and stimulates
cell proliferation. The critical point remains an exhaustive clinical
evaluation of ozone therapy in the outlined diseases. Orthodox medicine
remains skeptical because
multi-center and extensive
clinical trials are
not yet available owing
to the lack
of sponsors. An
unfavorable combination of
factors such as
a wrong dogma, the fact that
ozone is one of the worst troposphere pollutants and past misuse of ozone have
led to a poor consideration of ozone therapy. However, basic and clinical work,
developed during the last two decades, clarified both
the biochemical and
molecular mechanisms of
action of ozone
in biology and medicine. A judicious dose of ozone dissolved in blood
immediately triggers a cascade of well
defined chemical compounds
acting on multiple
cellular targets according
to well-known biochemical and
molecular pathways. Ozone therapy is proving to be very useful in the dry form
of age-related macular degeneration
(AMD), cardiovascular diseases,
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD),
cerebral diseases and
healing disorders, where
conventional medicine appears insufficient and
too expensive. It
is time that
World Health Authorities
abandon prejudice and skepticism and start to take advantage of
an integrative medical application able to help the majority of world
population. Among complementary medical approaches, ozone therapy is known all
over the world but it
is not yet
practiced correctly everywhere
because of the
incomplete knowledge by improvised ozone therapists. However, on
the basis of basic and small clinical studies performed in the last two
decades, it has become clear that ozone, in very small dosages, behaves as a
real drug and the biochemical and molecular mechanism of action are well within
orthodox medicine. Ethical Committees
are sometimes reluctant to give
permission for clinical
trials because they
prefer pharmaceuticals able to pay huge
sums for insurance
and all clinical
tests. The few and
small National Associations of
ozone therapy, in
comparison to the
Pharmaceutical Industries, which register an annual business of many
billion dollars, have no financial power and are unable to support expensive
clinical studies.
Author(s) Details
Dr. Emma Borrelli
Department of Medical
Biotechnologies, University of Siena, Italy.
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