The Ridiculously SIMPLE At-Home Treatment For Mold, Infections, Wounds, Bacteria, Viruses, Water Cleaning & More: Do-It-Yourself Ozone Kit How-To With SimplyO3's Micah Lowe.

My name is Ben Greenfield.

And on this episode of the Boundless Life Podcast.

You can infuse ozone gas into water. You do want to use distilled water because you want the least amount of minerals within the water for it to retain the ozone. People drink anywhere from 4 up to 16 ounces a day, and that is a form of ozone therapy. While the research kind of shows that it's primarily utilized in stomach infections, parasites, and things of that nature, people with cancer might have alleviation of certain symptoms. Specifically like the negative symptoms they get from chemotherapy. You get a huge antioxidant response, cell protective response that seems to make people feel better when they're going through that kind of stuff.

Welcome to The Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield.

I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond.

Ben Greenfield: So, when I was a kid, ozone was the thing that made the hole in our atmosphere and you weren't supposed to breathe it and it was super dangerous stuff. And unless you've been hiding under a rock, you have probably now heard about ozone as being something that is quite popular in the health world now for a variety of issues. I've never really done a podcast fully dedicated to ozone even though I've been using ozone or getting ozone treatments for years. I've done blood ozonation and extracorporeal blood oxygenation and ozonation and rectal ozone and ozone insufflation and ozone limb bagging and you name it. One of the guys who's taught me a ton about ozone including how to even do your own protocols at home is my guest on today's podcast, Micah Lowe. And, Micah's company is Simply O3. He is a real expert in ozone therapy, and I'll let him kind of fill you in on how he got into this whole field in the first place. But, if you're interested in ozone and all it seems like to you right now is that it's this scary gas that you got to be super careful with, you're going to learn a lot. So, Mica, dude, how you doing?

Doing really good. Really happy to be here. Appreciative that we can do a podcast finally. We've been talking for a while, so it's cool to be able to join you on this.

Yeah, we can. We kind of reconnected when I ran into, for a rental that I own, mold issues in the washer dryer area. And you and I were chatting and you actually have a solution that you actually use in the washer to somehow use ozone to control mold. And, maybe that'd be a good way to explain to people how ozone actually works. But, fill me in on this whole washer-dryer thing because I hear from a ton of people who are concerned especially about front-load washers with mold issues in those.

Yeah. So, I mean, real quick context on ozone. It's a gas. It's O3, pretty similar to oxygen which is O2, but it's unstable which gives it a lot of properties we want. And then, I think today we're going to be talking about it from a couple standpoints. Number one, it's utility and water purification, air purification, things like that. And then, it also has a lot of utility as a therapeutic agent, which is where most of my expertise is. I've kind of dabbled in the water purification. I actually have this hot tub. I built a custom ozone generator for it.

Ben Greenfield: No way. You don't have to use chlorine in your hot tub?

No, not at all. It's totally pure. You have purification and filtration, so you still need a filter that's getting the sediment out. But as far as purification, it takes care of everything. In fact, the Olympic swimming pools in the Sydney Olympics, I think it was back 2000, 2004, those were all just ozone. So it's kind of this like a little bit of a scam that the water purification is running in the sense that you don't actually need chemicals to do purification. I mean, ozone is a chemical, but you don't need the stuff like that they're putting into the water that's not good for your skin, you can use ozone. And, the cool part about it is once you put it into the water, it dissolves back into oxygen. So, the only thing left over thereafter is oxygen.

Ben Greenfield: Wait, wait, wait. I want to stop for just a second. We can't skim over this. So, let's say I have a pre-existing hot tub, whatever. I go to my local YB Tubless store, whatever, and I pick up a spa and I have it on my patio. You can outfit an existing spa using the methods you've designed to actually use just ozone?

I did. I mean, I'm not selling it, it's just something I personally did because I'm using a hot tub and I have access to all the ozone stuff I need.

Is it hard to do?

Well, yeah, it would be if you don't have access to— the reactor that I have for it is huge. It's probably 300 times bigger. It's way overkill, so it's way too strong. For what it needs to be because I could probably use that same one for an Olympic-sized pool. I just built some really beefy ozone generator. The drawback there is since I don't have— in this context, I need more expertise and understanding in water purification because the one drawback is I will probably have to refit all the O-rings that are inside of it because they're made of a black rubber. And, like I said, ozone is unstable. So, once you put it in there, it probably will start to disintegrate those faster than their actual lifetime would be. If I just replace those with silicone, it'd be all good, but I do need to do that. And, I just did it for me personally. I've been in communication with somebody that does it for equine, so for horse, racehorses and that kind of thing. They actually have a big issue with using chemicals for some sort of water therapy that they're doing with the horses. I don't pretend to know. But yeah, we're getting a little bit into the water purification because there's a lot of need for it because you can get rid of these really harmful chemicals, just use ozone. And, it's a one-time purchase. So, once you get it, you're all set and good to go.

Yeah, you probably void the hell out of the warranty though on the tub.

Yeah. Probably. The thing that they do is they say they'll use ozone in it and then they go, "Well, ozone's not strong enough." What they actually do is they put this tiny little ozone generator in there that's super small. And then, that warrants them to be able to say, "Well, we use ozone, it's just not strong enough." But, in reality, what they're doing is they are putting in a really small amount because a lot of people who know purification know ozone works. And then, that way, they can say they have it, but you still need to buy the chemicals.

Yeah. I'm in the market for a hot tub right now for the home I'm building in Idaho. And, I've seen that advertised, ozone and UV. And, everybody I've talked to has been like, "Yeah, ozone and UV, but you still need chlorine." Yeah.

That's not actually true. You just need it strong enough because you make it strong enough, it gets rid of all the bad microbes that are in the water. So, we have to run it every couple weeks. Our hot tub will get— if I've been gone for a month now, probably when I get back, it'll be yellowish because there's all the bugs that build up and that kind of thing. But, I throw it in there and within 30, 45 minutes, it's crystal clear.

Wow, amazing. And, what about the washer?

Yeah. So, you can do a similar thing with laundry. The nice thing with that is that it's going to replace the need for detergent mostly. It still might be needed in the case of a heavy soiling, but since ozone is such a strong oxidant, it can go into the laundry machine just with the water and actually purify the clothes of microbes. It's an odor eliminator. So, if there's odors on the clothes from working out and that kind of thing, it's going to eliminate those. There is one drawback with the laundry units though is that The laundry units will not get rid of stains, so you still need to do stain remover and that kind of thing. So, it's not going to be removing those. But, I mean, we don't use much detergent anymore only in the case of really heavy soiling or some stains and things like that. Otherwise, it's just ozone.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. So, for my two rentals and the Idaho home, I just bought three of the ozone units that Do you actually stock them at Simply03? I don't recall, or was this a different company that you were selling the ozone stuff for the washer?

Yes. Simply03 has these in— well, it depends on when this podcast goes out. We are putting them in stock next week. So, they will be in stock within a week of this recording.

Are they pretty easy to install or do you usually need a professional to do the install in the washer?

I mean, I guess that depends on your comfortability with a hose, but that's about it. You got to put the unit on the wall. So, there's 2 holes that— I mean, it's like hanging up a picture frame. It's a little bit more complicated than that, but it's 2 screws instead of 1. And then, you have to disconnect the hose that's on the washer currently and connect it to that and then take a hose from that unit and put that back into the washer. And, that's it.

That's simple. So, you're just mounting and doing a couple hose connections.

Yeah, yeah. It's not complicated. You don't need a plumber.

Okay. If people look for it on your website, what's it called?

Just search ozone laundry. It'll be on there. I'm not sure what we're going to name it. It'll be like the mold demolisher or something. I don't know what we'll name it, but just search ozone laundry and you'll find it.

I'll hunt it down or get the link. I'll put it at BenGreenfieldLife.com/O3podcast, like O, the number 3 podcast, which is where the shownotes will be. So, back to ozone itself, I think it's still confusing like I mentioned in the introduction to a lot of people who think that if they smell ozone, whether using it for medical or personal use or mold issues like a washer or say a hot tub, that it could be a bad thing. So, how do you know whether the ozone that you're smelling is too much or is that just a myth that it's bad for you?

So, there is one thing with ozone, you can't breathe it. However, that's primarily in large doses. So, the reason you can't breathe ozone is because you don't have an antioxidant defense system there because you need to pull in oxygen and metabolize that, utilize that. So, ozone being a strong oxidant when it goes into an environment that doesn't have antioxidant defense, it's going to irritate the lung tissue. And, there's a lot of studies around that like ground-level ozone pollution, that kind of thing. So, that's where this comes from is the research that's been done on that, that is never talking about ozone therapy. So, two entirely different topics. In ozone therapy, and I'm prefacing this because I think it's important to understand, is there are antioxidant defenses in your blood, in your colon, and other parts of the body. And so, when the ozone goes in there, the mechanism changes because it goes towards the antioxidants or drawn to that oxidant and then you have a beneficial response from that. But that's why you can put it in something like blood while you can't breathe it is because of that antioxidant defense system. But that being said, you can still smell it and that's fine. So, even OSHA has standards on how much can be in the air, which I can't remember the exact standard that they've put out there, but there is a safe limit and that's even for 8 hours that they'll say at this rate, it's totally fine to breathe. But you can smell it really quickly. So, you can actually smell it at, I believe it's 5 parts per million, which is one of the most detectable molecules by smell. So, you can smell it far before it exceeds any sort of safety standard. Now, the thing you don't want to do is throw on an air purifier and stay in the room while it's running. But, you know, me, I've 10, 11 years now have been around ozone even in pretty high doses. Personal comfort with it is really high. I even had asthma, which I remediated through ice baths when it coincidentally didn't anticipate that to happen, but it did. And, and I never had issues with it even having asthma. I also didn't do inhalers and that kind of stuff, but it was pretty bad. Like, I would get to the point that I couldn't breathe and I'd throw up and that kind of stuff. But I never had that induced from ozone, uh, I haven't had any noticeable negative effects and I've had gotten some pretty strong whiffs of it obviously over 11 years of working with it very actively.

You alleviated your asthma with ice baths?

Yeah, it was weird. I didn't anticipate it. So, I was in Washington, well out in the Olympic Peninsula, you're familiar with that area, but they have these canals that come in from the ocean. And, it'd be a nice summer day out like 90 degrees, whole family's out there, that kind of thing. This is what I remember specifically happening, my thought process I went through. I jumped in the water and I couldn't breathe, my lungs constricted and I was just embarrassed. The whole family's around and 5, 10 minutes, can't breathe, can't talk. So, I'm in there, people are talking to me and I'm like, "I can't get any words out because my lungs are so constricted." So, what I thought was I wasn't even thinking about getting rid of the asthma symptoms, I was just thinking, can I make my lungs stronger so that when I get into cold water, now I'm conditioned to where I'm not going to get that constricting response? So, I just started to do cold tap water baths, cold showers, and I, out there in the mountains, would jump into some of that mountain runoff water that's really cold and started to do some deep breathing exercises before and after. I would notice the difference of the breathing exercise before and after was quite substantial. Afterwards, I would always feel better as long as I got my breath under control in the water, always felt better. And what ended up happening over time is I noticed my symptoms of asthma started going away where I wouldn't just randomly get tight-chested or randomly have some sort of trigger. And then, I eventually got into colder and colder water. And so, 6, 7 years now, I haven't had any asthma symptoms. I don't know if it's gone forever or what. This is just purely anecdotal, but totally got rid of all my symptoms.

That's interesting, especially if the asthma is driven by nervous system dysregulation or vagal nerve function, you could see a mechanism of action there. I don't think it'd work if asthma is driven by an autoimmune or condition related to actual lung damage. But, cold water is interesting like that. It's kind of a nuclear bomb on a lot of issues. I've seen it solve fibromyalgia for people. Chronic pain with even as little as just a week of pretty intense ice bathing, Raynaud's. It's one of those things where a lot of the mechanisms of action aren't even fully understood when it comes to cold water immersion, but this idea of thermoregulation for a variety of health issues or thermal stress, it's pretty compelling.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. And, I don't pretend to understand exactly what's going on and then that's why I say it's just my story, but I posted some videos and they went viral and it had my story of asthma. I had a number of people that messaged me and said, "I had asthma and it didn't do anything," but I probably had 200 or so messages and comments of people saying it also resolved theirs. So, there's something there for a certain subset of people with asthma and I'm not sure what it is, but it definitely seems to work for some people.

Yeah, kind of a random nerdy question, but you were describing ozone, of course, as a pro-oxidant, which is why it can be effective against viruses, bacteria, mold, et cetera, and why it's used in health now. And it even, as you also alluded to, can trigger the body's own endogenous antioxidant production as the body mounts its antioxidant defenses against a pro-oxidative environment. But based on that, when you exercise, for example, it's actually ill-advised to take very high doses of antioxidants because you blunt the body's own endogenous antioxidant production and also quell the inflammatory process to such a great extent that you don't see things like mitochondrial proliferation or satellite cell response or muscle building in response to exercise. So, let's say somebody is getting, I don't know, like an ozone infusion, like an ozone IV, or maybe doing some of the other tactics we'll talk about like a nasal insufflation or a rectal insufflation or drinking ozonated water or something like that. Do you think you can make a case for actually avoiding antioxidants within the period of time after which or even before you're doing ozone therapy?

Yeah, I certainly think you can make a case for it. The issue I see is there's not really any studies that validate this. So, there's clinical experience that you go off of and then our understanding of the biomechanics that are going on or the biochemistry. So, essentially ozone, what it's doing is it goes in and causes an acute mild oxidative stress, which is reactive oxygen species and that kind of stuff. So, you're actually getting a little bit of oxidative stress from it, but it's mild and acute are the keywords there. And what your body does in response is it creates more antioxidants. So, when you do ozone therapy, even though it's an oxidant, kind of, you know, you wouldn't think of it as doing— being an antioxidant therapy, but it really is because your body's response to it is to create more antioxidants. So the idea with this of, say, IV vitamin C is a really big one. You know, a lot of clinics that are doing IV ozone also do IV vitamin C. The idea would be that you would give it a day or two in between those. I think that's best practice. That's my personal opinion. Do the ozone therapy, give it a day or two before you introduce some sort of antioxidant. And I think from that you would probably get a better response. But at the same time, there's like Reardon Clinic who does hundreds of thousands of these therapies now, and they run the IV vitamin C 30 minutes after the IV ozone. So, and they seem to get pretty good response from it. So my understanding of it is really just based on the chemical understanding of it, which theoretically it makes sense that you would want to avoid antioxidants around this.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, that's interesting. I think a half hour is too short. Most of the data I've seen related to exercise and oxidation suggests that you should avoid for at least a couple hours doing activities that suppress the inflammatory response, an intense cold bath, high-dose antioxidants, et cetera. I think a couple of days When it comes to ozone therapy, might be a little bit generous, possibly too long, although you do have, I think, more oxidation occurring from an ozone treatment than from exercise. So, you might be onto something. But, I think what's important, the takeaway for people here is if you're going to a clinic and getting ozone therapy and they're offering you a giant vitamin C IV bag directly afterwards or perhaps glutathione or something like that, it would be best to avoid that. I was actually getting an ozone therapy treatment. I was recently in Spain and the nurse practitioner, she was pretty well-informed. She asked me if I wanted an IV after the ozone and I said yes, and she gave me a list of things I could have in the IV. And, when she got to vitamin C, she actually said, "We shouldn't do this one because it's an antioxidant and we shouldn't do it right after ozone." Ben Greenfield: Yeah, yeah.

And, that's pretty common practice. The reason I said couple days is because I, I think you draw— drew a good corollary. I haven't thought about it from that angle is research on antioxidants and exercise or some of those other components. I think that kind of builds the case based on principle of our understanding. So maybe you can kind of take the understanding of that and then apply it to ozone, assuming that it's doing a similar thing like it is doing a— it's a similar reaction to ice baths or exercise in the sense that it's a stress response therapy. So you're intentionally using a small amount of stress to create a beneficial response. The reason I said a couple days though is because actually with athletes, they see more of an uptick on day 2. So, approximately 48 hours, they've slept twice at that point. And, that's where they get more of an increase in their anaerobic threshold and then they can run longer and that kind of thing. Sometimes if they do ozone therapy and then they have a big event or exercise the day after, they actually see a little bit of diminishment. And, I think the reason is because they're still in some sort of reparation process.

Ben Greenfield: I didn't realize that about athletic performance. So, if I wanted to get the benefits of ozone and I were an athlete and I was, say, traveling to an event and wanted to harness the performance-enhancing effects of ozone— and I want to ask you about these anyways, this might be a good segue. You have these little capsules. It's ozone, I think it's encapsulated in olive oil or something like that. Would that be something you could actually use as an ergogenic aid, not just for, say, the immune system or as an antiviral or something like that?

It hasn't been researched. Really, the only research around this, and I'm coming at this from the angle of research because that's where I play. I'm not out there, I'm not a physician, I'm not doing some clinical work. So, I really have to base my knowledge off of what the research is saying, which is often out of date and inadequate. That being said, most of it exists around it as an infection, anti-infection type deal where it's being utilized for parasites, stomach infections like Helicobacter pylori. And, that's where it really shines.

Ben Greenfield: You mean for Helicobacter pylori parasites, you mean consuming an ozonated capsule.

Yeah, yeah, you, you swallow the capsule, goes down into the stomach. And then, um, the other issue there is we don't think at this point that it's getting into the lower intestine very well because of the stomach acids. So what we did is we, we have a new one coming out where it'll be microencapsulated and get more directly to, uh, the deeper parts of the colon, uh, and do more release there. We think that'll be helpful for for people with SIBO. So, I can't remember the name of the institute, but Dane Johnson.

Crohn's colitis.

He's been on the podcast. Great guy. Yeah. So, we're going to be trialing it with them and seeing what kind of effect it has there, but we're pretty certain that it'll be a little bit better at getting into the colon.

Why couldn't you just take the capsule and use it as a suppository?

Well, you can, but there's a lot that's there. There's a lot of space in between the mouth and the anus, so there's a long ways for it to travel.

I mean, specifically for the, uh, for the colonic piece, you, you can.

So that's another route to utilize it. Um, I think in the context of, you know, going down the canal, uh, there's going to be some of the gut that might be missed. So the— when you're doing like rectal insufflation, for example, it is helpful with SIBO, but a lot of people aren't going to do that. A lot of people aren't going to do suppositories as well. And so a part of this is like just to make it more known and hopefully look for a route that you don't have to stick up something up your butt.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, many people's buttholes pucker just hearing us talk about it. I think you're right. There's a market friction when it comes to selling products that need to go in the less used hole than the more often administration of oral. These ozonated oil capsules, I don't quite understand that. How do you actually make something like that?

Yeah. I mean, it's literally just taking a base oil and infusing it with ozone gas and then that stabilizes as a peroxide in there. It's not actually ozone oil even though that's what we call it. It'd be more accurately called peroxide oil because that's the component that's actually in there. Now, there is a process to doing this for best practice. People can do it at home and you are going to make ozone oil. It's not going to be as strong, as stable, or as good as professionally manufactured. So really, the only difference we do is that we make that oil really cold because what's happening is a chemical reaction, so it heats up. So, we just make sure that it's really cold and we do it obviously on a big scale too. And that way, you prevent formation of different aldehydes as well. So, if you over-ozonate it, there's too much heat in there, the oil starts to deconjugate more and you get formaldehyde and things like that at really, really, really small doses. But nonetheless, it's better to have ozone oil without formaldehyde in it, so keep it really cold if you do that.

Ben Greenfield: Peroxide seems like it's kind of a bad word these days, right? Everybody's talking about lipid peroxides and that's the reason that you would want to potentially avoid something like heated and processed seed oils. So, when you say you've got a capsule and it's not technically ozone, it's peroxide, Describe that to me. What exactly is a peroxide and why would it be beneficial?

Yeah. In this context, my range of understanding on peroxides is as an antiseptic. So clinically, what they see is that chronic wound care, even things like gangrene. I have this physician over in Iran that does limb bagging and that kind of thing. And they'll get really severe cases of— there was one person in particular that needed an amputation due to their gangrene and they just throw a bag on there and got rid of it. So, you can use ozone oil on the skin for severe infections, chronic wounds, things that are not healing up and all that kind of stuff, but has a twofold reaction. One, it stimulates growth. And this is all research, but stimulates growth factors, so it speeds the healing time. And then, it's an antiseptic on two levels. One, that the peroxides themselves are an antiseptic. And then, number two, it stimulates the skin to create more— you actually create hydrogen hydrogen peroxide within your skin as a part of your immune response. So, it stimulates the skin to create more of that. And what they see though, I was recently reviewing this and I think it was 7 or 8 clinical trials. So, it was a systematic review on ozone bagging, ozone oils, et cetera. It was about 60 to 70%, and I can't remember the exact figure, that's why I'm giving ranges, 60 to 70% more effective than the traditional method of dealing with those chronic wound closures really with none of the negative downside of using antibiotics and that kind of thing. 60 to 70% better in the sense that it was way faster and wound closure happened way more often. So, it's really effective as far as wounds care and that kind of thing. But, I mean, we really haven't seen much negative effect with the ozone oils and you're also not taking a ton. So, if there is I don't think that in this context peroxides are all that bad or reactive oxygen species for that matter. They do kind of get a bad name, but you need reactive oxygen species for signaling, for immune response, for all sorts of stuff. And, that's the ecosystem of your body. If I had to boil ozone therapy down into one word, I would say balance or homeostasis because it's not really that the ozone is going in and doing the work, It's actually just causing a stress to your body, but your body then responds to that stress by causing homeostasis, a balancing mechanism. And it's not perfect, but, you know, in the case of like an autoimmune disorder, it quiets it down. Or on the other side, if somebody's immunosuppressed, it brings it up. Well, how does it do that? It's not the ozone. The ozone is a catalyst. It acts on the body, but then your body's intelligence is able to kind of take over from there and cause a balancing mechanism.

Ben Greenfield: So, with the oral consumption or the rectal insufflation of ozone, literally filling a bag with ozone and using a catheter to squeeze ozone into the butt and cause capillary absorption of ozone, I don't do that on a super regular basis. Well, people are going to laugh because my definition of super regular, but I would do something 2 or 3 times a week. Or, if I'm sick or I know I've been exposed to a lot of viral particles during travel, I'll go more often than that, but my theory is that excess use of ozone could have a deleterious effect on the colonic flora or on the microbiome if you were to use it too much. Is that, in your opinion, a credible theory?

I think the way you're doing it sounds right, especially for somebody of your health, your stature, that kind of thing. In certain cases, I think more can be warranted. But there's always some sort of cycling going on. So, it's never every day indefinitely. It's like all the protocols are going to have a cycle built in there because we are causing a stress and we need the reparation process to happen. That's the whole point of it. So, the max that's ever recommended is 5 days a week, but they have done some research on the case of dysbiosis where your microbiome is out of whack. So, you have of overpopulation of certain species and underpopulation of others. And the interesting thing is when they introduced ozone therapy over a control, they were drinking the ozone water and doing rectal insufflation, they saw mostly a resolution in dysbiosis, which is kind of interesting because you would think it to just like nuke the flora that's there to nuke all the population that's there. My theory on why that outcome might happen is that it is a stress response, but it's small enough to where it creates a beneficial response. So, it's not going through and just nuking the entire thing, but it is helping with the immune system. It is helping with the other aspects that are necessary to create a good terrain for the good bacteria to grow back. That being said, if you don't need to do it 5 times a week, in the case of people that are really sick, like I'm really trying to get some sort of immune response from it because that's my number one, I'm really trying to get some sort of anaerobic threshold up or whatever it is, I think 2 to 3 is kind of the perfect regularity for athletics and for maintenance.

Yeah. Considering that some beneficial bacteria thrive in an anaerobic environment, and the treatment with ozone would create a more aerobic scenario. Akkermansia is one example. I think that it is prudent if you are using ozone regularly either rectal or oral to supplement with specifically an Akkermansia-based probiotic. I just think it's a theory not proven by science, but I think you could risk decimating some of the anaerobic bacterial population. And so, supplementing with that I think would be a good idea. And, you mentioned the oil. And man, your ozonated oil, I put that on cuts, scrapes, bruises, wounds, et cetera. And I mean, it's one of the top things in my first aid kit at home here. But then, you also have the oil designed, I think it's a little weaker and with some essential oils and stuff added to it for oil pulling. I've been using your oil for oil pulling for 3 years. I used to use coconut oil and olive oil to clean the mouth upon waking. I swish and spit after about 5 or 10 minutes. But, tell me about the oil pulling with ozone.

Yeah. So again, we've infused ozone gas into an oil. The thing that we made different about the oil pulling solution And I can't remember, this might have actually been born out of your use for it and other people asking for it and that kind of thing.

Oh, well, by the way, I think it was because originally when I first started, I was using your regular oil and then I told you how I was using it and you guys eventually came out with the oil pulling version.

Yeah, I remember sending an email and saying like, "Hey, that might be a little bit strong." And you're like, "I'm fine." I was like, you know.

And later I discovered the importance of not having too clean of a mouth, right? You do not want to nuke the oral microbiome.

Yeah, yeah. So, what we did is that's made for the skin and primarily for wounds care, right? So, a lot of wound care physicians and clinics are utilizing that for diabetic ulcers and all sorts of stuff. And so, that's what that line was made for. The idea with the mouth is that you do have an oral microbiome. Your microbiome starts there and that's really important for your overall health. A lot of people don't know, but actually over 50% of the metabolites in your system have been modified or synthesized by the microbiome. So, even though it's kind of this parasitic, parasitic, but para-host-like ecosystem that it's not us, it's still really, really important to our health. And so, you don't want to be disrupting that in a negative way and building a negative microbiome or associated with some sort of negative state. So anyway, the idea and a lot of this needs to be fleshed out on the scientific end because there's Like we've alluded to, we don't understand exactly everything that's going on, but there's clinical experience and logic that we're utilizing. And in this event, the idea was that, hey, if you use a peroxide value of 1,200, which is what we use for wound care, that might be too strong for the mouth because we do have a microbiome there and we don't want to wipe it out. Maybe in the case of a severe infection, dentists use it, osteonecrosis of the jaw, all sorts of stuff. But, let's make a weaker one. So, we made it 10 times weaker, a peroxide value of 120 for oil pulling. That way, at least we're not at the 1,200 space. And then, what you can do is you can take a tablespoon, a teaspoon, put that into the mouth and swish it around for 20 minutes. The idea of oil pulling is that we're using that oil to drive it deeper into the tooth. And, the reason it's ozonated is to get rid of bad microbes that are going to be causing tooth decay and things like that. So, the oil draws it into the tooth. That's why you got to swish it for 20 minutes because the teeth are not just this porous substance, they're these little tubules that connect and weave together. And so, that 20 minutes is needed to be able to drive it down further. And then, ozone being an antiseptic is going to help with killing off the infection and hopefully preventing tooth decay. I mean, I don't want to make too bold of claims, but I mean, we've had a lot of people say that got rid of their cavities and that kind of thing. And, I don't know if that's 100% accurate. It's not validated, but it's really good for active infections and being able to wipe those out. That's well understood.

Yeah. None of this is medical advice. Speak to your medical professional, but I can tell you when I went in for a cleaning, I don't do a lot of dental cleanings, but it'd been 3 years and I went in They were terribly impressed, like no gum bleeding, really clean teeth. And besides brushing, one of the main things I was doing was oil pulling every day for about 10 minutes. Now, quick shout-out here speaking of the oral microbiome, Superteeth is a great company. They have a prebiotic-based toothpaste and these little oral probiotic dissolvable lozenges. And so, if you want to maintain your oral microbiome and you are concerned you might be affecting that somehow with even a reduced concentration ozonated oil for oil pulling. That's a good company to look into for the oral microbiome. Now, what about water, Mike? Drinking ozonated water, I think that was one of the first ways that I used ozone when I started to set up this home ozone kit that you sent to me. Walk me through why someone would drink ozone water. And maybe this would also be a good time to introduce how you could do something like that using a kit in your own home.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. So, I've only ever talked about it in the context of active infections in the stomach because I think that's where it's really well— it's well shown to be really good for that. So, like we said, Helicobacter pylori and things like that. Nonetheless, I have a couple hundred reviews on my website of saying it helped with my energy or whatever it is. So, it's definitely doing something. But yeah, so you can infuse ozone gas into water. You do want to use distilled water because you want the least amount of minerals within the water for it to retain the ozone. As you know, you're not supposed to drink a lot of distilled water. You're not drinking much of the ozone water, but people will drink anywhere from 4 up to 16 ounces a day. And that is a form of ozone therapy. While the research kind of shows that it's primarily utilized in, like I said, stomach infections, parasites, and things of that nature, it does seem to have a positive effect. And I don't know exactly what it's doing. Maybe it's having a similar mechanism as the IV ozone or the rectal insufflation, but I've seen everything from people who have chronic fatigue. I don't really want to say cancers, but people with cancer might have alleviation of certain symptoms. Specifically, the negative symptoms they get from chemotherapy is big. So, you get a huge antioxidant response, cell protective response that seems to make people feel better when they're going through that kind of stuff. So, I don't have a great answer because my answer is primarily around the stomach infections that are there, but a lot of people find benefit for other stuff. I just don't know where to place that exactly. And how to categorize it.

Ozone and heat and hyperbaric all increase the cytotoxicity of chemotherapy. And in many cases, people use those as adjuncts to increase the efficacy of chemo or even decrease the required dosage. Again, not medical advice, but those are two things, oxygen and heat, that increase the cytotoxicity of chemotherapy to cancer cells. So I think you could be on to something there.

That's, that's why I got into this industry is because my brother had cancer. So I was just trying to find things that would be helpful for him. Hyperbaric oxygen was the first thing we came across from a guy at our church that, you know, he was using it for his wife, was really helpful. And so started to do hyperbaric oxygen, and he was at Johns Hopkins too, which is kind of the poster child of cancer care.

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah. And, um, you know, at the time I wanted to become a physician, so that was kind of my plan, is like, so I looked up to these people, but We said that we've been doing the hyperbaric oxygen, we've seen a significant improvement in critical thinking, his energy, his sleep, his pain has been reduced, all this kind of stuff. And, they're like, "Oh, that's a nice placebo effect you have over there." That's kind of their attitude towards it. And, this was 11 years ago and this, again, how I got into ozone. But, it was kind of a little bit you tilt your head and like, "What?" This was hugely helpful for him and you guys don't care, you're kind of like, "Oh, well, you're doing some fake stuff over there." And, it's like, "Well, no, he's had an actual outcome from this." And, at that point, had many open brain surgeries and various things. And so, it kind of got me thinking, is there other stuff out there that would be really helpful for Matt that we don't know about? Anyway, long story short, that's how I came into ozone.

Wow, I didn't know that. That's interesting. Yeah, hyperbaric exercise with oxygen therapy, intermittent hypoxic therapy, and ozone would all be ways that you could increase the oxidation effect of oxygen or ozone. So, that's interesting. The water, let's say somebody wants to make it at home, walk me through the equipment necessary.

Yeah. So, if you're just doing water, they don't actually need to buy from me. You can go on Amazon and just get an ozone generator for $50 to $100, somewhere in there. I haven't checked the prices lately. But, you can take that machine and then put it into distilled water and then ozonate it for 20 to 30 minutes. But essentially, it'll be a little machine. It has a tube attached to it that goes into glass. It does need to be glass, so you don't want to use plastic or anything like that because ozone would break down the plastic. And then, ozonate it for a period of 20 minutes and then you'll have ozone water that you can then drink. You do have drink it pretty much, maybe not right away. Usually when I drink it, I'll ozonate it and then I'll wait for 20 minutes because the half-life of ozone at room temperature is approximately 30 minutes, which means after a couple hours, there's not going to be much ozone in there. So, you have to use it quickly. That's why you can't sell bottled ozone water. They'll use it in a purification process, but there's no ozone in it by the time it gets to you. So, that's why you have to make it on site. In all situations whether it's gas or water. Ozone oil is the exception because it stabilizes. But yeah, the reason you can just get that on Amazon and do that is because just to make ozone water doesn't require a laboratory-grade piece of ozone equipment like we use. And that's used more as the therapeutic stuff like the insufflations, the IV ozone, all that kind of stuff, you want something that's really, really pure. The thing with those machines that are $50 to $100, one, they don't use pure oxygen, which is required for all ozone therapies, fine for water. But number two is they, you know, their criteria for the components that are within the machine is really low because it's just intended to be water purification. So they'll put all sorts of components in those machines that are not actually compatible with ozone. So, in the instance you use a brass fitting, which is pretty common in those machines, there might be a little bit of brass that's coming off as that gas is going into the water. So, while not ideal, it is a really expensive way if I had an active infection and I had $50 to $100, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and do that because that's where my capacity is.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. But, you also need— anybody who's been in my living room, my downstairs living room, they walk in, there's a giant canister of medical-grade oxygen. On the counter connected to one of your units. But, even for these Amazon units, you still have to also somewhere in your local area purchase a medical-grade oxygen canister that feeds into the unit and then the tube coming out the other end, the unit makes the ozone from the oxygen and then the tube coming out the other end, that's what would go into water, for example.

Ben Greenfield: Well, those ones actually, they just like your laundry unit run on ambient air. So, they have a little pump inside that pulls because the air is 21% oxygen.

And like you said, you don't need it super concentrated for something like just water.

I mean, if there's an active infection and money is not an object, yeah, I'm going to get the more pure stronger one because the machines that we make are more pure, they're stronger than what you're going to get out of that. But again, going back to that $50 to $100 price point is kind of tough to beat. So, you can get a really inexpensive, it's not going to be as strong, definitely not going to be nearly as pure, but you can get an effect there.

Ben Greenfield: If somebody ordered one of your home kits because they want to do, let's say, some of the more advanced protocols we'll talk about here in a second, they would still need to go to their local medical supply outlet or anywhere else that would sell medical-grade oxygen canisters and get one of those, right?

Yeah. Anytime you're doing any sort of ozone therapy outside of the water, you need a pure oxygen. The reason for that is because, like I said, the ambient air is 21%, which means that 79% of the air is not oxygen. And then within the generator, we have what's called a reactor, and that puts a really high frequency into the gas. And basically what it's doing is it's deconstructing the molecules in there and then recombining them. So in the case of when we're using like a pure gas, like 99.9% oxygen, it's just deconstructing oxygen and then combining it back into ozone. And we can control the rate at which that happens. But when you introduce ambient air, you're doing that with all the molecules in there. Not just the oxygen. So, you're creating some mixtures that wouldn't be ideal to put, not only not ideal, just not safe to put directly into the body. Going into water and drinking the water, that's a little bit of a different reality because we're made to be able to consume a lot of stuff that isn't— I mean, people are eating cheeseburgers every day for years and they're still kicking. So, there's a little bit more resilience there.

Yeah, yeah, we are not endorsing the frequent eating of cheeseburgers on this show, but you make a good point. Depending on the homemade burger with grass-fed, grass-finished beef and some real cheese, I'm all over that.

Yeah.

So, the insufflation, we brought up that word a few times. And, in celebration of this podcast and also as a part of my regular health routine, I got up this morning, I went into the basement, I flipped on my oxygen canister, I turned on the unit, I set it for the proper amount of ozone, which I'd love for you to get into at some point. And then, I filled a bag with ozone, took about 60 seconds, and then I connected that bag to a rectal catheter. I squeezed the ozone into the rectum, did my rectal insufflation, and that absorbed ozone into my bloodstream. And then, I'm off to the races. And sometimes, I do fart and it smells like ozone afterwards, which is a nice clean fresh fart smell. The insufflation though, you can do, from what I understand, nasal, ear insufflation. My wife, for yeast in the past, has done vaginal insufflation. So, insufflation, if I'm not mistaken, does that just mean you're taking ozone and you're putting it into a hole in the body?

Yep, into a body cavity.

Okay. So, besides rectal insufflation, what are some other ways that someone could insufflate if that's a word?

Yeah, I think you named them, which is ear insufflation, nasal insufflation, vaginal insufflation, rectal insufflation.

Okay. So, vaginal and rectal is pretty straightforward. You just fill up the tube and you use the catheter. How do you do the ears?

Vaginal has a little bit of a different protocol than that because the epithelium line, it's a little bit different, so the absorption rate is different. So they actually do a consistent— you can do it with just a catheter.

I don't know. I don't have a vagina. My wife does it, so I might be misunderstanding the way that she does it. So, you can describe if you want.

I've gotten flack for talking about this stuff before because I also share that in common with you. I do not have a vagina either. Or uterus. But, I've read a lot of research on it, worked with a lot of clinicians. Demonstrating what it is that they do. But yeah, so I mean, I hate to say this, but it kind of looks like a little dildo. It's like this little piece that goes into the vagina. It's small, but that essentially stays in there and then they continuously put a small amount of ozone gas. So, this is not a large volume, but a small amount is kind of pumping in there. And that's a process of 4 to 10 minutes. Again, this is best practice versus what you said using a catheter. That's fine. You're probably just not going to get as much of the intended effect as you're looking for. And then, you asked about nasal and ear insufflation too, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

So, nasal insufflation, I never teach anybody how to do that because, again, you can't breathe ozone gas and the likelihood of you breathing it in when you're doing an insufflation is really high. But, I can explain how I personally have done it.

There's a trick. There's a trick. You taught it to me. Tell us in.

Yeah, yeah. So how I have personally used, uh, insufflation— and again, this isn't my favorite thing, uh, because it's, it's kind of, it's an irritant, right? So when I'm pushing it into the nasal cavity, um, for me it does not feel good. Other people love it, and that's, that's fine. Um, I, I think there's just the reality of some different responses there. So my response is that I usually get draining then thereafter. So, and if I have a cold That's really the only time that I do this. If I had a nasal infection, this would be my number one thing to go to.

Or mold issues, right?

Yeah. If there's mycotoxins and various things that are in the nasal cavities, this is a really good way to get it up there. So anyway, I take in a deep breath, fill up my lungs all the way so I can't pull in any more air. And then, from the ozone generator, I extract into a little syringe and it doesn't have the needle on it. Syringe is just the part that actually holds the gas, not the needle. And then, that I put into one of my nostrils. And again, I have my lungs all the way full so no more air can come in. I'll push half of that syringe in one side and then half in the other. And then, I wait 5 to 10 seconds and then I just blow out all the air. From my lungs through my nose, through my mouth, both at the same time, just blow it all out. And, that way, no ozone is getting breathed into my lungs. And, that's how I mitigate it from going into my lungs.

Right. By the nature of holding your breath, you're essentially closing your glottis. And then, once you breathe out, essentially, the ozone is hitting the nose. And, how long did you say you retain it for?

5, 10 seconds because that's my personal comfort level. I've seen some clinicians do it for 30 seconds. But, I'm a little bit more sensitive when I drink the ozone water, I do that. So, that's why I'm a little bit shorter on my timeframe with it. It's just how my body responds to it. So, I generally do not very strong ozone water and I don't hold it for very long, but people will hold it for longer. Again, that might cause you, especially if you have some buildup in there, to drain for a couple hours, so you'll be blowing your nose. Afterwards though, it feels pretty dang good because all of a sudden things are cleared out.

Clean as a whistle. Clean as a whistle. I actually hadn't messed around with ear insufflation much, but I was at a health event and a nurse practitioner was administering ozone and she didn't ear insufflation. It's kind of like when you don't realize what feeling good actually is and then you do something to feel good and you're like, "Oh, this is what having energy actually feels like." She did both my ears and all of a sudden, my hearing went clear as a bell. It's this feeling like a warm sensation going into your ears. I believe all she did, and correct me if I'm wrong, is fill a syringe with ozone from the ozone generator. And then, once that syringe was filled with ozone, she just injected it into either ear. That's how you do it, right?

That's one way you can do it. Again, you talk to 100 ozone practitioners, there's going to be 100 different ways to do it. So, we actually, like you have your headset on right now, We have a set that looks like that except it can connect up to the ozone generator. And then, that way, you're getting a small amount of gas going in but continuously going in. And then, the reason that it's a headset like what you have is because we actually have a destruct built around it. So, the ozone goes in and then that excess ozone as it's coming out, it's going through this carbon material and turning it back into oxygen so that you're not breathing it.

Ben Greenfield: Oh, interesting. So, you literally have a set of headphones. They're ozonating headphones?

Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that. You just do that 2 to 4 minutes.

Is that a new addition to the HomeKit?

I mean, I've had a variation of that for 8 years, 9 years, but the headset is newer. I think we've had that for a year that actually has the carbon material on there. That was a big upgrade because the number one complaint is like, "I like doing it, it's helpful, but I can smell it, so I have to have a fan on, window open," that kind of thing. So, I just didn't want to hear that complaint anymore. I got annoyed.

Ben Greenfield: What's the main reason someone would do an ear insufflation?

Ear infections are— it gets rid of them like that, number one, but just head, nose, and throat infections because the ears are connected to the eyes, connected to the nasal cavities, connected to the throat. There are little tubules in there that connect everything up. And so, you do kind of get a head response to it. So, the number one benefit outside of active infection that I hear about is people with Lyme. Like brain fog and that kind of thing. It's a little bit tough to say though because Lyme is, I think the diagnosis of it can be challenging. But brain fog, I've had a lot of cases. There was one guy who did a study on, I think it was, I can't remember the cause of the hearing loss. I think it was not age-related, it was something else, but some sort of hearing loss. That he actually saw a beneficial response on hearing loss when he utilized ozone. So again, it's one of those things where we're just causing that stress and the body seems to respond. There's actually even a cool study on IV ozone where they're looking at microcirculation in the brain and hypoxic parts of the brain. And so, they're just doing IV ozone, but then what they saw was the part that was hypoxic and needed the oxygen, Actually, the microcirculation got better, but then you would go, "Well, what about all the other?" It didn't respond. The other parts of the brain that didn't need it didn't have that vasodilation improvement, oxygen delivery, all that kind of stuff. And, it makes it look like ozone is really intelligent. It's not the ozone, it's you that's intelligent, your body, but it does seem to be a really good catalyst for a lot of stuff.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. And, a lot of the stuff we're talking about as far as things you can easily do at home relatively safely, That's way different than these blood treatments you get at a clinic. I mean, I did, I think it might have been with your unit. I had a doctor come over and he just basically put a catheter in my arm. He drew a few 30cc syringes of blood out. He then passed it through ozone and then put it back into my body. It's almost like a home ozone treatment, which you could technically finagle together with your devices if I'm not mistaken. But of course, I do not recommend doing something like that at home. A lot of these more hefty blood-based treatments we briefly mentioned where literally the blood comes out, gets ozonated, sometimes passes through a filter, goes back into your body, or they draw a syringe of blood out, ozonate that, and then put it back into your body via catheter. Those are more of the type of things you definitely would want to do at a medical clinic. But, I'm assuming that you're not opposed to blood ozonation treatment. Right, Micah?

No, not at all.

Okay. So, the thing with these home units is the actual amount of ozone you're using. I have an adapter attached to my oxygen tank. When I do rectal insufflation, I think I just use the number you sent to me. I put it like 1/4 and then I turn your unit up to 8 and go for 60 seconds. I think that gives me a value of 40 What's the measurement in, gamma units?

Gamma is the word that we use. It's actually micrograms per milliliter.

Okay. So, gamma is equivalent to mg per L. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, how do people know what gamma unit to use whether they're doing ear, rectal, nasal, et cetera?

Yeah. Just go to metaskill.com/guide and there's a guide that you can download.

Like meta, like medical, like MetaSkill?

Yeah.

Di-skill.com/guide. I'll add it to the show notes. I'll put it in the show notes. Okay. So, you go there and it tells you what gamut to use.

Yeah, even for different things. So, if it's biohacking versus a chronic issue versus ear versus rectal, all the different things are in there. It's a really nice protocol guide, has access to videos, QR codes, links directly in it if you're looking on your computer, further resources for reading when you want to understand something. That goes through all the different specs on what to do, when, how, et cetera.

Okay, super useful. Another term people might not be familiar with that you mentioned earlier is bagging or limb bagging for whatever, athlete's foot, fungal infections, topical wounds, et cetera. How do you do that?

Yeah, that one's super easy. So, it's a bag that's specifically made for this, but I've even known like I there's this conference. I always kind of giggle at it because I love those guys, but they're kind of old school, meaning that, you know, '80s, '90s, etc. It was really hard to get good ozone equipment. So what did they do? They made it in their garage. I remember this one guy, really, really nice guy, you know, he's like, I got this new ozone analyzer that I'm selling. I'm like, oh cool, I'd like to see it. He brings up this toolbox that had this LED screen. So he had rigged up this toolbox to via ozone analyzer.

Sounds like your hot tub experiment.

Yeah, yeah, kind of. And then, yeah, so they would just use actual trash bags and things like that. We have better stuff now where it's ozone-resistant, easier to use, more comfortable, nicer, all that kind of stuff. So anyway, these bags are especially made for it, not 100% necessary but definitely an improvement. And you put those over the area that's affected. Affected. So, whether that's an infection, non-healing wound, graft versus host, whatever it is, you put it over that area and then that's connected to the machine and it just blows the ozone gas right in there. Now, in the case of if it's on the torso somewhere that you can't put a bag over, we have these cups that if you've ever done cupping kind of look like that but they're not creating a negative pressure, you just put it on the affected area and it does the same thing. It just blows the ozone gas right over it. And again, that's doing a couple of things. That's growth factors, so speeding healing time and cutting infection. And it does that tremendously. If it gets approval at some point, it's probably going to be up that alley because that's like— it is just poster child for wound care.

Amazing. And then, how long do you leave that bagged around a limb?

20 to 30 minutes typically if there's an active infection.

Okay. So, let's say I have athlete's foot. Having been wearing my sandals in the shower at the gym, I could literally just bag my foot and leave it on there for 20 or 30 minutes.

Yeah. Personally, I'd probably use the ozone oil, but if it was bad enough, I probably would throw the bag on there too. And I'm just kind of impatient. I don't like running errands and that kind of stuff, so I don't want something around me for 20 minutes unless I have to.

Yeah. And I'll include information at BenGreenfieldLife.com/O3Podcast. These home kits? Like, somebody orders it, what, I get the headphones, I assume, the water generator, pretty much everything except the oxygen tank. And, if I wanted the full setup at home, how much am I looking to spend?

Around $1,800 all the way in for everything that's going to last you indefinitely. There'll be some small stuff here and there that you might have to replace like the catheters. You probably are not going to use the same one for for the rest of your life.

Yeah, you're not going to use the same rectal catheter for 10 years.

I mean, I'm not going to stop you either. I'm not the police on that.

Proceed at your own risk. Okay. So, that's honestly considering you'd be using this on a regular basis for you and your family if you have one is kind of a pretty potent addition to a home first aid kit. I mean, like I said, I use mine weekly. I think it's a pretty good investment. And then, you have the ozone for the washer too. So, This is fantastic. So, BenGreenfieldLife.com/O3Podcast to check out Micah's website and what he does. And, like I said, I've learned most of what I know about ozone from Micah and he's known for making pretty good products. So, Simply O3 is the name of the company. Anything else you want to mention or share with people, Micah?

No, I appreciate it. I really enjoy ozone. Ultimately, what I care about is is, yeah, but it's not because of— I mean, I do nerd out on it, but I want to see people get better. I'm here to move the needle on medicine and I feel very, very strongly about that. That's what motivates me because it means that my brother lived 16 years beyond projection. So, I had him for a lot longer than anticipated and I'm really, really thankful for that. But, for me, this work and all the other stuff that I'm doing. Uh, you know, I want grandparents to be around for grandkids, uh, parents for kids. And ozone isn't the cure-all, but it's one tool in the toolbox. And I'm working on a lot of stuff, uh, within ozone, outside of ozone, that I think could help people. So yeah, uh, people can check out my Instagram too. It's @maikahforhealth if anybody's interested.

Maika for Health. Check them out on the Instas, and I'll link to that too. Maika, thank you so much, man. You're doing good work.

Yeah, yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.

All right, folks, the show notes again are at bengreenfieldlife.com/o3podcast. Not zero three podcast. Zero is not oxygen. O3 podcast. Check it out. Have an incredible week. To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks, and content to become the most complete, boundless version of you, visit bengreenfieldlife.com.

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