Ozone autohemotherapy

Ozone therapy for MS: why is it an alternative medicine? #MSBlog #MSResearch

"Ozone therapy is an alternative medicine. Proponents of the treatment claims it increases the amount of oxygen to the body. Various methods have been suggested on the method of introducing ozone into the body, the study below uses autohemotherapy. Blood is taken out of the body exposed to ozone and reintroduced into the body. The investigators claim that this therapy improves improves the brain metabolism of MSers. There are however serious concerns about ozone therapy and whether it is safe. When ozone is inhaled it reacts with the tissues in the lungs and triggers a cascade of pathological effects, possibly by oxidizing organic compounds. With autohemotherapy it probably oxidizes components of the blood and may produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) or free radicals, which can cause so called oxidative stress and damage.  Serious complications have been reported from ozone therapy including damage to the liver and rare fatalities. Please note that the American Cancer Society has concluded there is not enough evidence to support the use of ozone treatment in any disease."



"I would like to see more published data on the effects of autohemotherapy in animal models of MS and mechanistic studies to show how it could work in MS. The bottom line is that this therapy is unproven and at present unsupported by a body of basic, or preclinical, science, and its potentially very dangerous. I would therefore strongly urge MSers not to undergo ozone autohemotherapy outside of well-designed clinical trials that have been peer-reviewed and vetted by an ethics committee. A red flag is if this therapy is being offered as a treatment for MS, or as part of a clinical trial, and the investigators ask you to pay for the treatment. No study subject should be asked to pay for a treatment as part of a clinical trial that is assessing the efficacy of the particular treatment."

"Please note I am not dismissing this paper, or this therapy, all I am asking is for more basic research and for you to be sceptical of unsubstantiated claims that this therapy works in MS. I am also warning you that this treatment may cause potentially life-threatening complications."

Molinari et al. Ozone autohemotherapy induces long-term cerebral metabolic changes in multiple sclerosis patients. Int J Immunopathol Pharmacol. 2014 Jul-Sep;27(3):379-389.

Background: Ozone autohemotherapy is an emerging therapeutic technique that is gaining increasing importance in treating neurological disorders. A validated and standard methodology to assess the effect of such therapy on brain metabolism and circulation is however still lacking. 


Methods: We used a near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system to monitor the cerebral metabolism and a transcranial Doppler (TCD) to monitor the blood flow velocity in the middle cerebral arteries. Fifty-four subjects (32 neurological patients and 22 controls) were tested before, during, and after ozone autohemotherapy. We monitored the concentration changes in the level of oxygenated and deoxygenated haemoglobin, and in the level of the Cytochrome-c-oxidase (CYT-c). 

Results: As a primary endpoint of the work, we showed the changes in the brain metabolism and circulation of the entire population. The concentration of oxygenated haemoglobin increased after the reinjection of the ozoned blood and remained higher than the beginning for another 1.5 hours. The concentration of the deoxygenated haemoglobin decreased during the therapy and the CYT-c concentration markedly increased about 1 hour after the reinjection. No significant changes were observed on the blood flow velocity. As secondary endpoint, we compared the NIRS metabolic pattern of 20 remitting-relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS) patients against 20 controls. We showed that by using only 7 NIRS variables it was possible to characterize the metabolic brain pattern of the two groups of subjects. The MS subjects showed a marked increase of the CYT-c activity and concentration about 40 minutes after the end of the autohemotherapy, possibly revealing a reduction of the chronic oxidative stress level typical of MS sufferers. 

Conclusion: From a technical point of view, this preliminary study showed that NIRS could be useful to show the effects of ozone autohemotherapy at cerebral level, in a long-term monitoring. The clinical result of this study is the quantitative measurement of the CYT-c level changes in MS induced by ozone autohemotherapy.

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