What is the most fundamental nutrient? It’s oxygen. Think about it. You can go 40 days or so without food. You can go maybe 3-4 days without water. But you can’t go 3-4 minutes without oxygen. There are many ways to use oxygen to enhance health and vitality, including the most obvious: aerobic exercise. Exercise increases “oxygen utilization” which ultimately drives the myriad enzyme systems in the body to produce more energy (ATP).

People suffering from the various types of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders, including asthma and emphysema) can benefit from using cannulated pure oxygen. I keep an oxygen tank in my office for people who aren’t good breathers, or don’t sleep well because of apnea, or are just plain tired. Sometimes 45-60 minutes on pure oxygen (with light plastic tubing that fits into the nostrils) can be as restorative as a 4-hour nap. Oxygen “bars” are increasing common in US coastal cities. There is also a very exciting wave of oxygen therapy that is relatively new in the United States but well established in Europe and Russia. This is the medical use of ozone, a super-charged oxygen molecule, which has wide applications for health by virtue of not only ramping up the potential for energy production, but also as an effective anti-microbial which poses no threat of resistance.

As all savvy optimal health seekers will know, we have a major problem, especially in hospitals, with antibiotic resistance. Without fail, within a few years of the development of a new antibiotic, bugs will evolve mechanisms to survive the antibiotic because after all, bugs are designed to evolve for survival, just as we are. Many drug companies are no longer interested in developing antibiotics, because there’s no money in it. Most, but not all, medical personnel are being much more circumspect in prescribing antibiotics. An especially egregious use of antibiotics is for viral infections such as the common cold. Such prescribing habits are justified by thinking such as “in case a bacterial infection develops.” That is simply not good enough anymore. We have discovered, perhaps too late, that we have nearly wrecked our microbiome (the sum of the DNA of all the bugs that live in and on us) and have yet to witness the future wave of serious disease engendered by legion C-section deliveries — chosen merely for convenience. Please! Only reserve C-section for a true emergency. Your newborn desperately needs it’s “tube” cultured as it comes through the birth canal. It is not unreasonable to think of people as attractive complex tubes. What goes into and what comes out of the tube over the course of our relatively short lives is of paramount importance to health. Put good clean food and water in. Poop every day. Don’t take antibiotics unnecessarily. Which brings me back to oxygen.

Most disease-causing organisms are anaerobic, meaning they don’t like oxygen. So, does blasting them with oxygen get rid of them? Yes! Does oxygen kill the “good bugs” that represents 90% of the DNA by volume in and on our bodies? No! Oxygen is shaping up to be a good thing for combating disease. I’m especially impressed with oxygen for difficult-to-treat chronic viral conditions such as Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, MS, Hepatitis, HIV. Especially when oxygen is supercharged to make ozone.

Ozone is formed by oxygen passing across a current. It’s formed naturally in the atmosphere when lightening rips through the atmosphere. Folks with a keen sense of smell can detect O3 during a lightning storm. O3 is a volatile molecule because oxygen is most stable in a diatomic configuration: O2. When the molecule is split apart with an electric current, the individual atoms of oxygen (O1) are suspended and some will temporarily configure in the super-charged O3 structure. Contrary to popular belief, there are no free radicals formed in this process. O3 quickly reverts to O2 (O3 + O3 -> 3O2) but while in the O3 form can work therapeutic wonder.

One pleasant way to enjoy ozone therapy is in an ozone sauna. Please know that it is not safe to breathe ozone. Our lungs were not engineered to handle this much oxygen energy. The ozone sauna is a little booth with a seat which closes around your neck, so your head is outside the unit. To see a picture of this check out ozonegenerator.com.

In general, saunas increase the eliminative, detoxifying and cleansing capacity of the skin by stimulating the sweat glands and promoting healthy skin tone and texture due to increased blood circulation. Using the steam sauna with ozone allows the steam to surround the body so ozone can be introduced through the opened pores. This allows the ozone into the bloodstream, where it can travel to the fat and lymph tissue. It is very important in this increasingly toxic world to cleanse the lymph tissue of toxins and the ozone/steam sauna is one of the easiest and best way to accomplish this.

Artificially induced hyperthermia combined with heavy sweating and a cleansing effect initiated by ozone will result in elimination of toxins accumulated mainly in the lymphatic system relieving the liver from the difficult task of dealing with them. Raising body temperature results in the destruction of many bacteria and most viruses. Throghout the centuries, people have used steam to purify the skin, soothe sore muscles, boost circulation or to simply relax. The combined action of moist heat and ozone cleanses the lymphatic system, which carries 90% of the body’s fluids.

Some of the benefits of ozone by sauna include reducing the buildup of lactic acid and increasing muscle flexibility; oxidizing toxins so they can be eliminated through the skin, lungs, kidneys and colon; boosting blood circulation, helping injured muscles to repair quicker; stimulating vasodilatation of peripheral blood vessels relieving pain and speeding the healing process; elimination of bacterial and viral infections of all kinds. If all that weren’t impressive enough, ozone, applied in almost any format will speed up the metabolic processes of the inner organs and endocrine glands resulting in a loss of 200-450 calories in a 20 minute session.

There are other formats for delivering ozone, including rectal, vaginal or bladder insufflation depending on the patient concern. Rectal veins drain directly into the liver so rectal insufflation is an effective method of improving the long-term health of hepatitis patients. Ozone can also be bubbled into water and swished in the mouth to treat dental or gum infections, or swallowed to treat many forms of gastrointestinal malfunction.

Ozone can also be highly beneficial for regenerating and building new ligament and cartilage tissue in virtually any joint in the body. Ligaments are the structural “rubber bands” which hold the bones, joints and intervertebral discs together. Ligaments can become weak or over-stretched from injury, excessive use or surgery, and often do not heal back to their original strength and tightness. When ligaments no longer function with structural integrity, a severe strain is placed on the areas that the ligaments were designed to hold together, such as the knees, elbows or spine. Disrupted structural integrity inevitably creates pain from “sloppy” joints, which is the first phase of degenerative arthritis. Bones, discs and joints are affected when ligaments become lax, or are injured. Also, ligaments themselves have many nerve endings which add to the pain. Prolozone therapy is a non-surgical method to help reconstruct joints and ligaments pioneered by Dr. Frank Shallenberger MD of Reno, Nevada. Prolozone is a permanent treatment for many kinds of chronic pain. The term “Prolozone” is derived from the Latin “proli” which means to proliferate, regenerate and rebuild. Prolozone Therapy is so named because the treatment uses ozone to cause the proliferation, regeneration and rebuilding of new ligament and cartilage tissue in areas where they have become weak or injured. Prolozone is an impressively safe, natural and often permanent treatment for low back pain, degenerated or herniated discs, sciatica, neck pain, unresolved whiplash, rotator cuff tears and osteoarthritis of the hip and knees. For more information on prolozone check out aaot.org.