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Major Autohemotherapy (MAHT)
Major autohemotherapy is perhaps the most popular form of generalized ozone therapy. A type of extracorporeal blood treatment (in which blood is taken from the body, treated and reinfused) it has been analyzed and evaluated under a wide variety of clinical conditions.
Major autohemotherapy typically calls for the removal of up to 250 ml of the patient's blood. Ozone and oxygen are added carefully (to avoid bubbling) into the blood for several minutes, and then the ozonated blood is reintroduced into the vein in the form of an IV drip. Bubbling causes foaming that damages blood cells and must be avoided.
Like rectal insufflation described above, MAHT has been found to activate red blood cell metabolism, increase ATP production and oxygen release, activate the immune system with the release of cytokins (such as interferon and interleukins), aid in immune system modulation, and increase the body’s antioxidant capacity.(5) For these reasons, it has been used successfully to treat a wide variety of health problems, including herpes, arthritis, cancer, circulatory disorders and HIV-infection. It is probably the most commonly used type of ozone therapy today.
Body Ozone Exposure (BOEX): The Sauna Bag
Ozone pumped into a "sauna bag" (which leaves the head uncovered) is now being used to treat more generalized health problems, such as HIV-infection, circulatory problems and diabetes. Typically the patient would take a warm shower and get into the bag. Pure oxygen mixed with small amounts of ozone are then pumped into the bag for a period of twenty to thirty minutes, making contact with all skin surfaces. The skin interacts with the ozone, and only the oxygen and ozone reactive products are absorbed.
Body Ozone Exposure: The Steam Cabinet Method
Another BOEX delivery system calls for the patient to sit in a steam cabinet. In addition to steam, a mixture of oxygen and ozone is pumped into the cabinet through a tube from an ozone generator. Wet towels are placed around the patient's neck and a ventilating fan is placed behind the head so that ozone is not breathed into the lungs.
A session will normally last from ten to twenty minutes, or until the patient feels uncomfortable from the heat. Like the sauna bag technique described above, the theory behind this method is that the ozone will react with the surface of the skin, and the oxygen and ozone reactive products will be absorbed and eventually find their way into the bloodstream.
BOEX with a steam cabinet can easily be done at home with a minimum of technical skill, and many enjoy it as a spa treatment or in health maintenance programs. A growing number of physicians and patients have expressed enthusiasm for the steam cabinet method for treating a wide variety of health complaints, although more scientific research needs to be done. In addition, standardized protocols need to be developed for this relatively new form of ozone application.
While the method itself is considered very safe, ozone must not be inhaled, even in small amounts. For this reason, the steam cabinet must be sealed to prevent ozone leakage and the room in which treatment takes place must be adequately ventilated.
One of the few researchers to document the effects of BOEX is Velio Bocci in his book Oxygen-Ozone Therapy: A Critical Evaluation. While acknowledging the problems mentioned above, Dr. Bocci cites several advantages of BOEX over other methods like MAHT: it is simple to perform, fairly inexpensive, non-invasive (no puncturing of veins) and it does not involve the handling of blood. He points out that BOEX can be potentially useful in treating a variety of health problems, such as viral diseases (including HIV and herpes), chronic fatigue syndrome and certain circulatory diseases at low temperature levels (such as hind limb ischemia due to atherosclerosis, Buerger disease and diabetes), moderate burns, skin diseases, sclerodermia, certain types of muscular-tendinous lesions in athletes and advanced lipodystrophies, such as Madelung disease.
As with other ozone therapies, Dr. Bocci recommends the “start low, go slow” protocols, with low initial concentrations of ozone to help the body adapt to chronic oxidative stress. He recommends a course of therapy every other day for several weeks at temperatures from 70 to 90 degrees C. for periods of ten to twenty-five minutes each treatment. (6)
Direct Intravenous Injection
This controversial method involves injecting a mixture of oxygen and ozone directly into a vein. This method has long been promoted by Ed McCabe in his publications and lectures, and he includes a protocol for treatment in his popular book Flood Your Body with Oxygen. When determining how much ozone to use, McCabe writes:
"I have always used the analogy of filling up the gas tank in your car. You pump the gas in and when it’s full, if you keep pumping it in the gas runs down the side of the car. The lungs are the oxygen overflow mechanism for the blood. When the bloodstream is full, the blood out-gasses into the lungs, and the oxygen-ozone sub species ‘run down’ the inside of the lungs, causing rapid lung pollution detoxification, heat, and possible slight temporary edema. All the patient knows is that he or she can’t stop coughing if you do not quickly stop the procedure at the first sign of this." (7)
Although a number of health practitioners in the United States and Canada claim that this method to be safe and effective, many physicians (especially those trained in Europe and Cuba) consider it dangerous and without clinical advantages over other ozone delivery methods.
In my own work as a journalist covering the subject of ozone therapy, I’ve come across stories of embolism, including one of a patient going comatose and another patient suffering respiratory arrest after direct IV treatment. Dr. Robert Atkins’ medical license was temporarily revoked after a patient went to the hospital complaining of adverse side effects to direct IV injection, which lead to him to abandon it permanently.
Dr. Frank Shallenberger, perhaps the most respected ozone practitioner in the United States today, has treated thousands of patients with therapeutic ozone since 1985. After several negative experiences with direct IV early in his practice, he stopped using the method completely in favor of autohemotherapy. In his training manual for physicians who attend his workshops, Dr. Shallenberger offered seven reasons why direct IV injection should not be used:
"1. Precise dosing is impossible, because the induction effects of ozone vary according to the volume amount of blood being treated. Since it is impossible to know with any precision what volume of blood is being treated in a direct IV application, it is impossible to maximize the treatment effect.
2. Autopsy studies of dogs treated with the direct IV method have consistently demonstrated that the technique causes pulmonary embolisms. These embolisms are caused by the oxygen in the gas mixture and not the ozone.
3. The embolisms associated with direct IV injection will induce bronchospasm, which in the case of patients with a history of either asthma or chronic lung disease may result in fatal acute respiratory failure.
4. ...The treatment of many clinical conditions requires fairly large doses of ozone. While these doses are readily achieved using MAH [major authohemotherapy], they are extremely time-consuming using the direct IV method.
5. The direct IV method is very uncomfortable to patients. The embolisms cause chest pain, coughing spasms, and tachycardia.
6. Phlebitis at the injection site is a common side effect of this modality." (8)
Dr. Bocci has also spoken out strongly against direct IV injection. In a 1995 speech on the future of ozone therapy presented at the Twelfth World Congress of the International Ozone Association in Lille, France, he cautioned:
"[The] use of the intravenous administration route is extremely dangerous because even if the gaseous mixture of oxygen-ozone is administered very slowly with a pump, it frequently procures lung embolization and serious side effects, particularly when daily dosing is up to 120 ml."(9)
Prof. Bocci has cited a number of fatalities in Italy resulting from subcutaneous (under the skin) ozone injections to treat lipodistrophy, commonly known as cellulite. Three deaths, from March 1998 to December 2002, caused the Italian Ministry of Health to not only prohibit the use of ozone therapy in all cosmetic and beauty centers, but in public hospitals as well.