Does ozone alleviate AIDS diarrhea?

Five patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) or AIDS-related complex (ARC) and intractable diarrhea were treated with daily colonic insufflations of medical ozone (oxygen/ozone mixture) for 21-28 days. The daily dose of ozone (O3) ranged from 2.7 to 30 mg. Three of the four patients whose diarrhea was of unknown etiology experienced complete resolution, and one patient had marked improvement. The fifth patient, whose diarrhea was due to Cryptosporidium, experienced no change. No consistent change in the absolute number of helper (CD4) or suppressor (CD8) lymphocytes was detected, and no obvious changes were seen in the PO2 or the results of routine hematologic and blood chemistry studies. Patients had mild to moderate local discomfort during ozone administration early in the course of treatment, but no adverse systemic effects were observed. The results of this series suggest that medical ozone administered by rectal insufflation is simple, safe, and effective. Should this simple treatment be used routinely to treat chronic intractable ARC/AIDS diarrhea?

Ozone inactivates HIV at noncytotoxic concentrations.

The inactivation of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and cytotoxic properties of ozone-treated serum and serum-supplemented media were examined. The titer of HIV suspensions in human serum was reduced in a dose-dependent manner when treated with total reacted ozone concentrations at a range of 0.5 to 3.5 micrograms/ml-1. Complete inactivation of HIV suspensions was achieved by 4.0 micrograms/ml-1 of ozone in the presence or absence of H-9 cells. In contrast, cellular metabolism, as measured by MTT dye cleavage, and DNA replication, as measured by BUdR incorporation, were enhanced in H-9 cells grown in media treated with quantities of ozone that completely inactivate HIV. The permissively HIV-infected cell line HXB/H-9 was cultured in ozone-treated media for six days with culture supernatants being sampled and assayed on alternate days for HIV p24 core protein. HIV p24 was reduced in all treated cultures compared to control cultures, with an average reduction of 46% [p24].