Many have asked for a concise summary of the wonderful physiological effects of ozone therapy, especially considering the medical mission I undertook with Dr. Howard Robins of Manhattan to Sierra Leone to cure Ebola. I will endeavor on this page to tell you why I instigated the trip and commandeered Dr. Robins to come with me. Please know that this information is merely informative. It is not to make a claim that ozone or any particular therapy might cure any condition, but to discuss the known physiology of ozone therapy, and how that physiology might apply to viruses. The results of our mission are published in the African Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Ebola, as you know, is a virus. It incubates for 2-21 or so days and then roars to life to induce death. Ebola first tricks the immune system into thinking nothing is there. The virus enters many different types of cells in your body. It multiplies extremely rapidly, emerges from the cell to infect yet more. Interestingly, much of the damage induced by the infections is actually your suppressed immune system awakening and then shooting cannons at everything, inclusive of your own cells. This causes great inflammation, leakages in blood vessels (hemorrhage), extreme oxygen starvation to tissues, organ failure, and a high death rate.

Oxygen delivery and consumption is the most important factor in health and healing. Red blood cells (RBCs) carry your oxygen from your lungs to your small capillaries, which are even smaller than the diameter of your RBCs. So, consider this in relation to the known published medical effects of ozone below. The first three deal with oxygen, the stuff of life. The final three deal with your immune system and infection.

1. Ozone therapy improves red cell flexibility, meaning your blood will flow much better. RBCs will be able to flex better to get through the small capillaries. They will carry a higher negative electrical charge so that they repel each other and don’t stack together. This improves rheological (flow) properties of your blood, enabling more oxygen transport.
2. Ozone therapy stimulates your RBCs to generate a compound called 2,3 DGP. Interestingly, this molecule enables your RBCs to release their payload of oxygen into your tissues. Less 2,3 DGP and your RBCs might actually hold on to the payload leaving your tissues to become oxygen starved.
3. ​Ozone therapy increases RBC ATP. The increased energy in the red cells enable newly created RBCs to become “super gifted” in the words of researcher Velio Bocci, MD of Italy.
4. Ozone therapy appears to turn on overall mitochondrial function in your cells. Mitochondria are your cell furnaces where energy is made. More energy, more ability to repair, no matter the tissue or organ. This conclusion is based on basic science research of German and Cuban researchers showing more oxygen consumption in tissues.
5. Researchers Bocci in Italy and Silvia Menendez, PhD and her team in Cuba have determined that ozone modulates the immune system. In other words, where there is inflammation that is not needed, ozone will dampen it, and allow inflamed tissues to heal. Where the immune system is weak, ozone therapy picks it up. The net effect of ozone therapy is to bring your immune system to a healthier set point of balance. You need inflammation to fight invaders and repair, but when inflammation is not turned off, the inflammation itself then becomes destructive to your tissues. In the case of joints, modulating inflammation with ozone can sometimes lead to instant results.
6. Ozone and its metabolic products are directly toxic to pathogens. In fact ozone virtually instantly punches holes in the membranes of bacteria hemorrhaging them on the spot. In contrast, chlorine compounds, well known as disinfectants, are 100x slower! When it comes to viruses, these stealth pathogens MUST gain entry to your cells to wreak their havoc, no matter the virus. Research has shown that most viruses (at least every one I’ve looked at) require fully functional and reduced sulfhydryl groups (SH) on their outer shell to attach to and enter your cells.¹ The SH groups are the “fingers” viruses use to open and enter your cells according to world literature.

​Ozone is extremely reactive oxygen. It will strip the H off the SH as follows:

SH + SH + O3 > S-S = H2O + O2. This is called “oxidation.” The only residual product is oxygen, which your body burns, and water, so no toxicity whatsoever!

If the SH groups are oxidized to S-S, the virus is inactivated. It can’t enter your cells. And that is the best thing that could happen for you. See, if the virus is present in your blood stream, but can’t enter your cells, your immune system can see them without the tissue destruction. This should enable you to mount a proper and fast immune defense and dispatch the invader without damage to you!

​So, having practiced oxidation therapy (ozone is one of several oxidation methods) since 1986 (yes, you read that right), I thought ozone would be a good match for Ebola. Research has shown that Ebola has the same “Achilles Heel” as other viruses, in that it has glycoproteins (proteins with sugar attached) on its surface, which have sulfur groups that MUST be reduced to SH in order to gain cell entry.²

Additionally, all viruses, Ebola included, make replications of themselves from your own cell components, hijacking their machinery. Hence, viruses will steal your own lipids to make their own lipid shell. Lipids are sensitive to ozone alteration/oxidation damage, which alteration may adversely affect their ability to infect cells.³

Your cells, breathing oxygen, are made for this process and have abundant antioxidant vitamins and enzymes to repair and restore the process, which actually improves the overall strength of your cells. Viruses and bacteria have NO such protection. They are sitting ducks. In fact, your own immune system makes ozone and other oxidants to wipe out pathogens. This “other” oxidants include bleach, believe it or not, nitric oxide and hydrogen peroxide, which you are familiar with from the drug store. So, oxidation processes are a natural part of your immune defenses. Pathogens have had billions of years to get resistant to these processes. And, they have not succeeded. But it only takes a short while for germs to gain resistance to synthetic petrochemical pharmaceuticals.

​Ozone therapy improves blood flow, critical in attacking Ebola, and improves tissue oxygenation. With Ebola destroying circulation, I figured ozone to be a great remedy. With Ebola suppressing the immune system, during incubation, which when it finally comes alive starts shooting at everything (including your own tissues), I figured the immune modulation of ozone therapy would temper the “cytokine storm” the Ebola virus induces which may be what ultimately kills the victim. Cytokines are immune system molecules, which can create massive inflammation.

I asked Dr. Howard Robins to come with me to Sierra Leone as he particularly perfected the “Robins” technique of direct intravenous ozone gas infusion, commonly called DIV. This is exceptionally inexpensive to do, and generates scant medical waste, both property important when dealing with poor Africans, and a disease to easily transmitted by contamination.

Dr. Robins first thought I was nuts to go to Africa and place myself at risk. But I had no fear of Ebola armed with ozone. When he realized I might get all the credit for the particular technique he pioneered, he quickly changed his mind and we went to the battlefield together as brothers to equally share in success or failure.

​Our saga of the African experience and its aftermath is posted on my Facebook page. The purpose of this article is to explain in simple terms the incredible physiological effects of oxidation therapy, particularly ozone, and why it might be of help to so many problems. I am not suggesting that ozone cures anything. And of course, the authorities would not take kindly to it. But oxidation therapies (inclusive of intravenous hydrogen peroxide, ultraviolet blood irradiation therapy, high dose IV vitamin C, major autohemotherapy, ozone insufflation) and others all seemingly have crossover physiological effects I mentioned above. Hence, since all body processes require oxygen to heal, and at the very least, we seem to get better rheological properties of blood and oxygen delivery, it only makes sense that these therapies might help a wide variety of health challenges to actually heal.

I have been teaching didactic oxidation courses since about 1994. My wife and I have been teaching hands on ozone techniques since 2004. You can see the results of oxidation therapy at our YouTube channel.

Now, to close the story on Ebola, that dread disease, it appears at the time of this writing (January 2015) to be the “Wicked Witch of the West” like in the Wizard of Oz. She was VERY evil. Ebola is VERY deadly. The witch had a secret weakness Dorothy accidently discovered – water made her melt!!!!! I suspected ozone would have a similar effect on Ebola, but not to the effect we’ve seen to date. Neither Dr. Robins nor I suspected that Ebola might ever melt away as fast as the wicked witch did, but in reports we have gotten from Sierra Leone, it seems that is exactly what is happening. I have learned that several patients to date have recovered from documented Ebola infection in just a few days receiving ozone therapy in any form: IV, rectal or even ozone water. We expected ozone to quickly cure Ebola. That is why we went. But this easily? Yes, even we are surprised.

​This is a major discovery, and to me, a medical triumph of our time – that a class 4 deadly feared pathogen, which fear has gripped the world, has a vulnerability as simple as the wicked witch of the Wizard of Oz – is simply like jumping “somewhere over the rainbow.”

Oh, I should also mention the implications of the above on the use of ozone for joint conditions such as degenerative arthritis. Remember, the most important item for any of your cells is oxygen! Ozone is oxygen as O3 but carried within a larger percentage of O2. Arthritic joints are starving for oxygen as the inflammation therein reduces oxygen diffusion from the joint capsule (where the circulation is) to the needy cartilage cells. Inflammation in the joint creates chemicals which damage and degrade your cartilage.

Silvia Menendez, PhD of Cuba and her team have conducted a masterful study on what happens when ozone is administered into joints. Inflammatory proteins fall, glutathione (a principle healing molecule) rises, levels of anti-oxidant enzymes rise. And simply put, this can pave the way for natural healing abilities. Please visit my YouYube channel to see the marvelous results of ozone therapy for joints!

For more information go to Dr. Robert J. Rowen's website, Dr. Robert J. Rowen's YouTube page, or Dr. Robert J. Rowen's Facebook page.