If safety is your top concern about ozone, you're not alone! We're clearly biased on the subject, but we want to make sure you feel confident and fully informed.

As with any therapy, it's important to make sure that it has an extensive track record before starting it. We recommend checking with your trusted healthcare practitioner before starting any new diet, supplement, or therapy—particularly if you're pregnant, breastfeeding, on any medication, have a known genetic disorder, or have a health condition.

While you may have only recently learned about ozone gas and its therapeutic uses, it is by no means new!

 

“Ozone therapy has been utilized and heavily studied for more than a century. Its effects are proven, consistent, safe and with minimal and preventable side effects. Medical O3 is used to disinfect and treat disease. Mechanism of actions is by inactivation of bacteria, viruses, fungi, yeast, and protozoa, stimulation of oxygen metabolism, activation of the immune system.”

— Elvis, A.M.
Ozone Therapy: A Clinical Review

 

Described as "a toxic gas with no known useful medical application" by the FDA (1), ozone has been used therapeutically since the 1800s to improve every health challenge from post-operative infections, chronic viral conditions, neurological and autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, cancer, inflammatory conditions, oral health, and more (2). The incidence of side effects is difficult to find but it is said by many proponents to have one of the lowest rates of any treatment. 

But if ozone therapy is so useful and low-risk, why is there such skepticism about its safety?

To answer this, we need to dive into a quick review of ozone and how it is administered. 

 

Types of Ozone Therapy, and One Way to NEVER Use it!

 

You can find a more in-depth explanation of how ozone works in the body here on our website but, in a nutshell, ozone gas is made up of three oxygen atoms, one of which has a single, unstable bond to the others. This makes ozone gas highly reactive since the third oxygen atom quickly finds other compounds to bond to. 

This aspect of ozone gas makes it more absorbent and soluble in fluids than pure oxygen and readily increases tissue and cell oxygenation (3). It also briefly causes oxidative stress in the body, triggering a cascade of antioxidants to be released—which is both the main argument against its use and, paradoxically, why it is such a broad-spectrum therapy (4). 

Ozone has amazing therapeutic value when infused into water and oil and either consumed or applied topically, when administered rectally or vaginally, when infused into IV solution and given intravenously, and when given in the form of either ozone autohemotherapy or ten-pass therapy. Both of the latter therapies involve drawing a small amount of a patient's blood and infusing it with ozone gas before giving it back to them intravenously. These are just a few of the ways ozone can be administered. 

When given by one of these methods ozone activates the body's internal antioxidant defenses and has been shown to be very safe (4). However, ozone—in concentrations over what's naturally present in the air—should never be breathed in. The epithelial tissue of the lungs doesn't have strong enough antioxidant defenses to offset the ozone's oxidative properties and can cause permanent damage (5). 

 

Arguments Against Ozone Therapy

 

Now that we've covered the basics of ozone, what are critics saying?

 

• It's ineffective

Ozone therapy is incredibly broad, so the efficacy will vary based on the administration route and concentration of ozone gas. Additionally, ozone must be used consistently for the best results, especially in the case of chronic conditions. Let's look at a few of the conditions in which ozone has shown promising results:

-Halted or reversed dental caries (6,7)

-Improved biomarkers and lung function in asthma (8)

-Better biomarkers and outcomes in chronic viral hepatitis (9)

-Resolved symptoms in moderate-stage COVID-19 patients (10)

-Protected brain tissue from hypoxic damage (oxygen deprivation) (11)

-Increased muscle oxygenation (12)

-Improved oxygenation in hypoxic tumors (13)

-Increased sensitivity of certain cancer cells to chemotherapy drugs (14)

-Improved outcomes in experimentally-induced abdominal infection (15)

-Successful treatment of lumbar disk herniation (16)

-Improvement of sciatic pain (17)

-Improved glycemic control and healing of foot ulcers in diabetics (18)

-Normalization of cardiac arrhythmia (19)

-Reduced healing time in middle ear infections (20)

-Prevented experimentally-induced atherosclerosis (21)

 

These are just some of the many benefits people have experienced from using ozone, including skin diseases, chronic infections, inflammation, and more. Results will vary by the condition and individual, and this information is in no way intended to imply that ozone is a cure for any disease or a substitute for traditional medical care. See this blog post on our favorite ways to use our products!

 

• It creates dangerous oxidative stress

 While we've been taught to view all oxidative stress as bad, certain reactive oxygen species (ROS) are generated by our immune cells to destroy foreign invaders and atypical cells (22). Furthermore, as seen with exercise and ozone therapy, mild levels of oxidative stress strengthen the body against future stressors as it produces a cascade of antioxidants, like superoxide dismutase, glutathione, and catalase, to compensate (23).

While lipid peroxidation (the oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids) could be a concern with too high of a dose of ozone, researchers now believe that dangerous doses may be higher than previously thought. Healthy organisms are able to easily neutralize low levels of oxidative stress by producing antioxidants (23, 24, 25).

 

• Increased risk of cardiovascular events

Exposure to higher levels of atmospheric ozone has been associated with a risk of death both from respiratory and cardiovascular causes (26), but this is when it's being inhaled over long periods of time. 

However, there are several reports online of serious adverse events that have occurred after ozone therapy that we want to address. A quick Google search will bring up a handful of cases of heart attacks, embolisms, and even a case of temporary blindness (27). When examined, most of the cases either lacked enough evidence to be linked to ozone therapy, occurred after direct injection of ozone gas into the patient's vein, or were thought to be due to malpractice (28). As the authors of a paper on the safety of ozone therapy (OT) stated,

"The case reports on OT treatments safety concerns discussed on international journals, make it possible to state that most safety issues are secondary to infections or traumatic reactions due to malpractice. Commonly, the molecule of ozone itself is not responsible of severe reactions at the therapeutic modalities. The millions of patients treated so far from the thousands of physicians correctly practicing OT world widely in the last 40 years demonstrate the safety of this simple and cost-effective regenerative medicine tool." (29)

 

Is Ozone Safe for Everyone?

We're big believers that there are no one-size-fits-all treatments, lifestyles, or diets, and ozone therapy is no different. While the dosage and application method make our products safe for almost everyone, traditional ozone therapy (either autohemotherapy, gas insufflation, or direct ingestion) is contraindicated for anyone with a G6PD deficiency, hemochromatosis, previous ozone reaction, in pregnancy, hyperthyroidism, sickle cell anemia, severe arrhythmias or hypertension, and anyone receiving anticoagulant drugs or copper or iron therapy (30).

 

We hope this post has helped clear up a bit of confusion around the safety and efficacy of ozone therapy! As always, we encourage you to do your own research as well. 

If you're ready to see how ozone can change your life, hit our 'Shop Soma' tab!