Rocketing To Health

Hydrogen peroxide — sometime rocket fuel, blonde bleacher and disinfectant — is increasingly being touted as a cure for what ails you.

Last year, the following headlines appeared in the Dominion:

ME Sufferer Casts Her Net Wide On Road To Recovery

"...a group of ME sufferers...made spectacular improvements using hydrogen peroxide therapy"

30th October 1990

Mouthwash Cure For Yuppie Flu

"I would like to see more ME patients getting the benefits hydrogen peroxide can offer."

13th September 1990

Nothing Like A Shot Of Fresh Oxygen

"...has been trained in hydrogen peroxide therapy in the United States and recommends it to his patients...in the United States, many doctors inject similarly diluted hydrogen peroxide intravenously."

20th September 1990

These stories all tell of people turning to hydrogen peroxide as a treatment for various ailments. The basis of some of these claims is the idea that hydrogen peroxide can be used to raise the levels of oxygen in the body over their normal levels. This is thought to be a Good Thing.

Some of the doses taken appear to be very low and thus unlikely to have any significant effect, either good or bad. Assuming that hydrogen peroxide is taken into the body at higher doses, either by swallowing or injecting, could it have any beneficial effect?

Basic Chemistry

The first thing to be clear about is what hydrogen peroxide, oxygen and the often-associated ozone are, these substances often being mentioned in the same breath (so to speak).

Oxygen is a gas making up about 20% of the volume of the atmosphere. It is essential to animal life, as it supports respiration. Oxygen molecules come in pairs, hence the chemical formula On.

Ozone is a gas consisting of three oxygen atoms (Os). It is toxic and can be a pollutant near the ground, but it is essential in the stratosphere, as it absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

Hydrogen peroxide is a liquid, the molecules of which consist of two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen (H2O2). Unless very pure, solutions of it are unstable and decompose to water and oxygen, but it is wrong to think of it as water with an extra oxygen atom attached.

It can also decompose into hydroxyl radicals (-OH), consisting of a hydrogen and an oxygen atom associated with an additional electron. Free radicals are very reactive and hence toxic to the body.

Very concentrated solutions of hydrogen peroxide (90%) are used as rocket fuel; dilute, stabilised solutions (3%) make good sterilants and disinfectants, the germicidal action probably being due to the hydroxyl radical.

If hydrogen peroxide is swallowed, what happens? Some of it would probably decompose into oxygen and hydroxyl radicals. The hydroxyl radicals would have a toxic effect on bacteria in the mouth and, if large amounts were taken, it seems likely that there would be a risk of tissue damage.

The same would apply to hydrogen peroxide finding its way into the oesophagus and stomach. If any was absorbed into the bloodstream — or was injected there — it would have a very short life, as it would be quickly broken down by the enzyme catalase.

Hungry Enzyme

Catalase is a very active enzyme which has the specific role of breaking down hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen. The largest amounts of catalase in mammalian tissues are found in red blood cells and in the liver.

It's interesting to note that hydrogen peroxide is formed naturally in our bodies as a side reaction of respiration. If it wasn't broken down by the catalase, then we would suffer the deleterious effect of hydroxyl radicals arising from the spontaneous chemical composition of the hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide itself would appear to have no beneficial effects. It is toxic through its breakdown into hydroxyl radicals, and the body has an enzyme specifically for the purpose of getting rid of it. Catalase does break it down to oxygen though — could this oxygen have a beneficial effect?

Blood circulating through our lungs becomes fully oxygenated — the plasma is saturated with oxygen and the haemoglobin in the red blood cells picks up as many molecules as is possible.

The arterial blood then retains a high level of oxygen as it moves around the body. It is just not possible to elevate the dissolved oxygen content of the blood over what it already is in a healthy person.

A Dangerous Drink Drinking hydrogen peroxide in an attempt to do this would be pointless and dangerous — injecting it would be even more risky. Quite apart from the toxic effects of hydroxyl radicals, the oxygen resulting from its catalytic breakdown would be unable to dissolve in the blood, and thus there would be the risk of embolisms forming, obstructing the arteries.

There are conditions where the blood is less oxygenated than it should be, such as in carbon monoxide poisoning and pneumonia. Such conditions are relieved by supplying oxygen to the patient through a mask.

A Dr Kathleen Maros in the Australian Medical Journal suggested that ME was caused by microcirculatory blockage and poor oxygen delivery. Even if this were the case, the use of hydrogen peroxide hardly seems the way to overcome any deficiency in capillary function. It would have no effect on the oxygen content of the blood, and there would still be the danger of embolism and other toxic effects.

Hydrogen peroxide doesn't fulfill the requirements of a wonder drug, or indeed of any sort of drug at all., Its use seems to have arisen from vague ideas that oxygen deficiency lurks behind every corner. If you want to feel "fully oxygenated", go for a brisk walk.

Alan Hart is a Palmerston North skeptic.

Spot The Mistakes

"What more can we

"am convinced this is one of the most versatile products wwe have ever seen in the natural health field"

Or John Muntz PhD

NO OO, Glen Eden

"Thanks to Genesis 10001 dm now completely free of excema and would gladly recommend this product to anyone with a skin problem like mine." Ursula Rose Lee, Heme Bay "thos improved my + Matiseo oxroim eneral state of Rreatth, cleared up cold and flu symptoms and eliminated a shortage of breath problem I have suffered from for years." R. Oudfield, Kohimarama

"It's the best cure for colds and sore throats I have ever known."

K, Hunwai, Onehunga

Available from Woolworths, health food stores and chemists

OXY-GENESIS LID

Why are Some of us Sick?

By Ed McCabe

OK, so you're sitting there watching TV. or maybe reading the latest edition of "The Organic Carrot" and wondering why you or your parents, children, friends or relatives are sick. Oh, we don't really think we're sick, it's just that we keep getting the flu or have this rash that is always there or we still have "adolescent skin" after age 25, and every few weeks ournose starts:

"lam extremely artsrunning. Please don't construe any of this as medical impressed. As an asthmatic for the advice, but consider the following scenario 23 a possibility, past 44 yetry Leon You ave at war. You have been invaded sai by the most insidious form of evil imaginimprovement in my condition has been outstanding to say the least,"

M, Vincent, Feiiding able. They have moved quietly into your territory and set up headquarters. They continually send out scouts that take aver new turf, parts of your bedy. The newly established invaders have connected psionic and physiological "taps" onto your cellular metabolic energy that draw off your LIFE

FORCE and pervert it to their own use, and actually foree you to create more of themselves. Yep, you have either a bacterial, viral, yeast or parasitic infection.

The large majority of these living off your body food and energy are anaerobic —

a big word that means the germs and their cousins cannot live in an area of your body that has lots of nature's oxygen in it. By definition, if they can be surrounded with enough oxygen at the cellular level, they cease to exist. I don't mean putting in so much oxygen that your normal aerobicbody cells are hurt, but just enough to "reverse suffocate" these parasitic lower life forms that have invaded the body.

Because you have a low oxygen condition in your cells, they take hold, grow a colony and excrete toxins that make you sick or sometimes give you a fever, sore throat, runny nose, arthnitis, cancer or a cold, etc. 'The reason they can grow in you is because of the low oxygen level in your cells — since you no longer get enough oxygen from breathing, eating or drinking.

Developers are cutting the earth's treea and polluting the ocean plankton - our two major sources of oxygen.

In the bible tour people are named a3 having lived to 950 years of age or more. By analysing trapped gasses, science has proven that our ancient atmosphere was 38 per cent (or more) oxygen, and now we're down to around 19 per cent - and the percentage is sinking,

'A suggested remedy to our low intake of oxygen 13 oxygen water. This is simply water with an extra atom of oxygen attached. The added oxygen in the body, or when applied to a cut, steals an electron from the bacteria killing them in the pro-

"My wife has been using it for a small lump on her leg and the results have been excellent." Rev. F.W. Gears, Ashburton,

"I have had extremely good results with it ~

especially when taking it to avoid colds and flu."

C, Wilcox, Annandale, N.S.W.

"By simply adding 20 drops of Genesis 1000 to quarter of a glass of water and then gargling for a minute or two, I have managed to clear up my sinus problem."

C. Porter, Oakura

NZ Green, Issue 1 cess,