This article explores how oxidation, inflammation, antioxidants, and oxygenation intricately influence respiratory health and balance.

Isn't oxidation dangerous? 

Maybe I am breathing too much oxygen?

A recent phone query from a National Institute of Health physician member got me thinking. He was concerned about whether people breathing too much oxygen could be harmed by that.

CO2 narcosis is what it is called. I do not believe this is possible unless artificial means such as hospital ventilators or sometimes overused hyperbaric oxygen chambers are employed. Hyperbaric chamber recipients are given extra antioxidants to offset this.

I have not heard of anyone on bottled or generated O2 24/7 being asked to take antioxidants, but I suspect it may be a good idea even without extra oxygen.

If you are breathing improperly or in an unbalanced way, such as with UDB, you can not uptake oxygen optimally, no matter how hard you breathe. In fact, breathing harder/deeper and more effortful can make your breathing less so instead of more so.

Unbalanced Breathing is more a mechanical breathing/nervous system issue, not an oxygen one.

Read more:Hyperventilation (for more on the nervous system aspects and breathing too often in an unbalanced way.)

Oxidation often gets confused in the good guy-bad guy scenario.

Oxidative therapies such as ozone therapy, ultraviolet blood irradiation therapy, and intravenous hydrogen peroxide therapy can be beneficial for treating a wide range of conditions ranging from viral and fungal infections to joint pain and arthritis.

Oxidative therapies work by stimulating your immune system, enhancing mitochondrial processes, and facilitating healing with virtually no side effects.

Oxidative medicine can be used as a treatment as well as for a preventive, anti-aging health strategy. While some forms of oxidative therapy should be performed under the supervision of a knowledgeable practitioner, others can be done in the privacy of your own home.

1. Aiding cellular function often with an oxidized waste byproduct
2. Killing germs, viruses, and parasites (which are transformed into another type of oxidized waste (see "soot" below) creates a strong anti-inflammatory factor.
3. To stabilize unstable molecules that have only one electron, as with O3 - ozone that gives off an extra electron to a single electron "toxic" molecule to stabilize it into a two-molecule entity. So this reduces waste and allows for constructive use of what might have been a free radical.
4. Being transformed -oxidized- into "soot, smoke or ash" like from your fireplace in the normal process of logs being burned up.  

People take antioxidants like vitamin E, germanium, selenium, COQ10, etc in supplements. This is good if they are eating poorly, breathing a lot more than average, using super oxygenation of some sort, and/or are in a toxic environment.

Eating a majority of raw living foods is also most likely helpful as enzymes in the raw foods are much more efficient at doing the work that the oxygen will have to be sidetracked to try to do.

Eating too much-cooked food causes the oxygen that should have gone to other NORMAL functions (including oxidation) to be used up with a lot of the functions that the enzymes could/should have done.

Below is an adaptation of an article by Dr. Friebot) who has long since passed away. It brings up the low basal temperature and another insight into the standard armpit test but utilizes a medical thermometer for extra accuracy.

In the process of respiration, waste products are exposed to the action of the oxygen in the air, and they are burned up very much as if they were put into a stove, thereby producing body heat. In the living, body heat, whether tangible or not, is continually being generated through the chemical action of carbon and oxygen.

When the blood receives sufficient oxygen to unite with the carbon in the proportion of two atoms of oxygen to one of carbon, carbon dioxide or carbonic acid gas (CO2) is formed, and being in a suitable state, is eliminated. The process of oxidation is complete. The body temperature is maintained at normal (98.6 𝇇F).

The organs perform their functions properly, and the system is in the condition to resist the toxic influences of microbes, the environment, and mankind's excesses. When, however, an insufficient amount of oxygen is received by the blood, carbon monoxide (CO) is formed.

This is NOT readily eliminated and through its poisonous influences, trouble begins. Carbon monoxide is a De-oxidizer. It acts as an irritant to organs; the body temperature falls below normal and the system is incapable of resisting the toxic influences of the various bacteria, environmental and industry-related toxins and DISEASE is the result.

So prevalent is subnormal temperature among people "rundown" that nine out of ten will show a subnormal temperature by actual thermometer testing. There have been several reasons given for the subnormal temperatures in recent years. They range from "thyroid insufficiency" to "hypothalamus disorders". These explanations are correct but only to a degree. 

The correct explanation that CAUSES the problem is low &/or inadequate oxidation/oxygen assimilation. Therefore the thyroid, hypothalamus, or other endocrine glands (given as the cause) are hindered in their normal metabolic function, and the subnormal temperature is the result. The correct way to counteract this situation is to restore the oxidative process.

The clinical thermometer is the best means of determining the existence of under-oxidation and should be used routinely. The temperature of one who is under-oxidized will be found to run from a fraction to several degrees below normal.

The person who is under-oxidized and with subnormal temperature will present one or more of the following symptoms-- headache, dizziness, insomnia, constipation, faint feeling, loss of appetite, palpitation of the heart, poor kidney action, sporadic and related menstrual problems, cold hands and feet, etc.

All are due to an impoverished blood supply. From these symptoms, we are justified in rendering an explanation of under-oxidation taking on the definite forms of neurasthenia, liver disorders, kidney disorders, stomach and intestinal woes, female/ sexual malfunctions, melancholia, hysteria, chorea, anemia, chlorosis, and so on. The symptoms or conditions that arise from a subnormal temperature are not only in proportion to the degree of subnormal temperature.

A person off a fractional part of one degree may present as severe a problem scenario as a person several degrees below normal. A sufficiency of an active form of oxygen for the blood means better blood.

Thus better circulation. better assimilation, better equilibrium of body homeostasis i.e., temperature, better vasomotor activity, better digestion, better elimination of waste products, and less chance of auto-intoxication or toxemia, the keynote of all diseases! Simply put, with sufficient available oxygen, there is greater bodybuilding of natural substances and less distraction from infection and disease.

After careful analytical investigation of disease, it has been repeatedly demonstrated- First: One of the most common and important conditions that the person is called upon to correct is the weakness and incapacity produced by an impoverished or diminished blood supply.

Second: Under-oxidation produces poor health primarily because of an insufficient supply of oxygen that makes certain the formation of carbon monoxide, the DE-oxidizer and hemoglobin destroyer and an irritant poison devitalizing the blood and paving the way to a multiplicity for acute and chronic troubles.

It has long been recognized that the atmosphere possesses the properties of blood-building, oxidation, and antisepsis. Ozone differs from atmospheric action only in degree of activity and potency. Ozone's greater activity makes it the greatest blood-building, oxidizing, and antiseptic agent within reach of man.

It has been suggested that a subnormal temperature may be a normal condition for some people. This deduction can be disproven by placing anyone with a subnormal temperature under the active influence of medical-grade Ozone/O3.

The temperature rises back to normal!

Almost all forms of nervous, functional, respiratory, and blood disorders can be successfully corrected by oxidative restoration. The effects are perfectly NATURAL; the nerves being left calm and toned with a feeling of buoyancy and exhilaration (think breath rate below 7 breaths per minute and what more than that can do to overdrive the nervous system).

It stimulates the vasomotor system through the nerve centers, which, in fact is clearly shown to increase the redness/pinkness of skin, a feeling of warmth to the whole body, and waste products are more freely eliminated. Ozone/O3 treatment shows that poor oxidation is the root cause of many disorders because of the fact that when the temperature is brought back to normal, the problems disappear!

Oxidation is the source of Life!! Its lack causes impaired health or disease. It is a cessation..... DEATH!"

Adapted from an article on ozone therapy attributed to The International Association for Oxygen Therapy - Dr. George A. Friebott.

An answer is a holistic approach. Begin with learning to breathe better. No one thing is the all-to-be all, but breathing and Turbo Oxygen System sure are on the top of MY want list.

Learn to breathe so you minimize stress and increase the oxygen cost of breathing.