Prolozone™ – Regenerating Joints and Eliminating Pain
By Frank Shallenberger, MD, HMD, ABAAM
Oxygen is an atom that cannot exist in a stabilized form as a single atom. This is because it does not have enough electrons to balance it out. So in order to provide stability, two oxygen atoms bond together in close proximity and share electrons. This molecule, called O2, is what is generally referred to when the word “oxygen” is used. O2 is the stable form of oxygen that exists in the atmosphere.
When an energetic force, such as electricity (lightening) or ultra-violet light (solar exposure), is imposed upon a molecule of O2, the two oxygen atoms are temporarily split apart into single oxygen atoms. Then, in a matter of nanoseconds these highly unstable oxygen atoms will pair up again and reform back into O2 molecules. But a small percentage of them will unite in a ménage-a-trio known as ozone. Thus, ozone, referred to as O3, is a gaseous molecule which consists of three oxygen atoms all sharing the same electrons.
This is exactly what happens in a corona discharge ozone generator. Oxygen (O2) molecules go into the generator and are exposed to an electric spark. What emerges from the other end is a mixture of oxygen and ozone. The parameters of the generator can be set to produce a given amount of ozone in that mixture. In clinical circumstances the concentration of ozone in the final gas mixture is between 1-3%. In the therapeutic sections of this article I will be using the word “ozone” to refer to this mixture of ozone and oxygen.
Ozone is a relatively unstable molecule. This is because there just are not enough electrons to go around to keep three oxygen atoms stabilized. There are enough for two atoms, but not three. This instability is exactly why ozone is so powerful—because it is driven to give off the extra oxygen atom so that it can be reduced to the stable O2 form. This of course requires getting electrons, and the best place for a single oxygen atom to get an electron in a cellular environment is from the double bonds found in lipids and amino acids. The reaction looks like this:
O3 + -C=C- → -C-O3-C- → -CO-CO2→ -C=O + -C-O2
The resulting peroxides (- C-O2) are short chained, and can easily penetrate cellular membranes. There, they will exert their oxidizing effect on NADH by accepting its electrons, and thereby oxidizing it to NAD. The importance of this reaction will be discussed later. However, this is not the only reaction that can occur with ozone. As I mentioned above, it can also react with itself to be converted back into oxygen. In a matter of only minutes, ozone molecules can react with each other to form the more stable O2 molecule:
O3 + O3 → 3O2
This process is referred to as dismutation. It does not happen when ozone is injected into tissue, but it does happen when ozone is kept in a syringe. It has been found that in a glass container at room temperature ozone will dismutate at a rate of 50% every 45 minutes. In a plastic container it will dismutate even faster, at the rate of 50% every 30 minutes. This is important to know because once ozone has been generated for a medical application; it must be used rather quickly. It can’t be stored and used later. As you can see, this fact somewhat limits the usefulness of ozone. I just can’t give my patient a bottle of ozone to take home with him, because within hours it will all have dismutated back into O2.