oxygen scam....do our cell tissues really benefit?

[pippo]

Hi, people.

 

Wondering if the highly touted "drinking hydrogen peroxide" actually adds any usable oxygen for our body tissues. A friend of mine loaned me the book:

 

hydrogen peroxide scam

 

I started reading and while it has some interesting reading, it is touting this peroxide drink as a cure all, and reeks of theytypical scam publication, with no footnotes, no credentials of the author, no nothing science publications usually have. I started thinking, hmmmm, they say to add 3 drops of 35% H2O2 in a glass of H2O. Man, that cant amount to a whole lot of O2 even if it was O2 and not just atomic oxygen, which, I believe, is NOT usable in our tissues. Even if you drank some oxygen, I think like any gas, you would quickly burp it up like when drinking soda/beer, and you have to belch up the CO2 gas . Right?

 

he says that our body does not get enough oxygen, and that our lungs only extract 15% of the oxygen we breath. Sounds like evolution has screwed up and its a good thing this book was written.....lol

 

Thanks!

Edited April 6, 2010 by Mr Skeptic
more appropriate name for URL

[Mr Skeptic]

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_drink_diluted_hydrogen_peroxide

In 2006 the FDA released a warning against claims (scams) involving human consumption of 'food grade' Hydrogen Peroxide. This is a scam by people who want to make money off other people who either don't have common sense or don't know how to use the Internet.

[Greippi]

Considering hydrogen peroxide is highly damaging to our cells, this product can only do more harm than good.

We have mechanisms in place to remove reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as this, which can cope with small amounts produced naturally by cells as a byproduct of normal oxygen metabolism. But of there's too much of it around obviously it can't all be "mopped up", and ROS can go around causing damage - a major contributor to the process of ageing.

 

he says that our body does not get enough oxygen, and that our lungs only extract 15% of the oxygen we breath. Sounds like evolution has screwed up and its a good thing this book was written.....lol

Indeed. Last time I checked I was still alive.

[insane_alien]

the human lungs only remove 15% of the oxygen you breath in because

 

1/ thats enough to saturated the blood under normal conditions, and when you're heart is beating faster(and there's more blood flow) then your lungs will absorb more oxygen than normal.

 

2/ to absorb significantly more with the same level of oxygen saturation your lungs would need to be much much bigger. to halve the remaining capacity (which is for all intents and purposes negligble anyway) you'd need lungs with twice the area which means pretty much twice the volume without changes to the structure of the lungs.

[CharonY]

Drink H2SO4!!! It has double the oxygen than O2!!!!!!!

Seriously, that has to be one the dumbest scams around.

[pippo]

Thanks, people. I had a hunch.

 

Now, on the tech point of the H2O2 being drunk, what, chemically, happens to the peroxide? Does it become (with the heat of your innards being about 98.6 F) H2O + O-? Or does it stay as H2O2?

 

Thanks again!

[Mr Skeptic]

We have an enzyme, peroxidase catalase, to break down H2O2 into H2O and O2 (seeing as the H2O2 is highly toxic).

Edited April 6, 2010 by Mr Skeptic
mixing up my enzymes -- thanks CharonY

[CharonY]

There are a number of enzymes protecting from reactive oxygen species, among them a couple in the family of peroxidases. However it is catalase (also a member of that family) that converts H2O2 to water and oxygen. The enzymes actually termed peroxidases result in H2O and an oxidized donor. A basic enzyme for oxidative stress response is the gluthathione peroxidase. The net result is 2H2O and oxidized glutathione.

Edited April 6, 2010 by CharonY

[UC]

One really nice side effect of this scam is that you can buy highly pure 35% H2O2 at "health food" stores. It's costy though.

[pippo]

One really nice side effect of this scam is that you can buy highly pure 35% H2O2 at "health food" stores. It's costy though.

 

right, uc. But thats what puzzles me, at least, as far as their motive for diseminating misinformation/bunk. H2O2 35% is expensive, but those guys that sell it dont make such a high margin on it. I know cuz I am in the lab reagents business, and am somewhat privy to some info. here, health food stores sell it at about 40$ per gallon. Thats not really big bucks.

 

Its not like the 90's scam on the colloidial elements/metals in a quart. That stuff went for about $20/qt, and THAT , I can tell you, is almost pure profit, AND its a non hazardous product, which can ship UPS way cheaper.

---

Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

We have an enzyme, peroxidase catalase, to break down H2O2 into H2O and O2 (seeing as the H2O2 is highly toxic).

 

Thanks Mr Skeptic. So, since you have me interested,

 

1) even though after enzymatic activity on peroxides O2 is released, it is NOT a benefit to the body, despite the energy it took the body to make it available?

 

2) what , biochemically does peroxide do to the body/tissues/metabolism? Screw up the Krebs cycle? ATP? Intercellular functions?

 

You see, I got to get back to this guy, my friend, with as most concrete logic why this idea he is enamoured with is trash.

 

Thanks!

Edited April 7, 2010 by pippo
Consecutive posts merged.

[Fuzzwood]

Peroxide can rapidly form radicals and damage the DNA in such a severity that it can result in cancer.

[CharonY]

While the Q is addressed to skeptic I will provide some quick answers.

1) No benefit is gained, the disproportionation is a defensive mechanism. Under normal conditions H2O2 is accidentally formed during respiration. Mostly due to leaking of electrons out of the ubiquinon pool.

 

2) H2O2 belong to the family of reactive oxygen species. It is especially involved in the Fenton reaction which generate extremely harmful hydroxyl radicals that readily react with about anything. This leads to DNA and protein damage, among others and harm the cell about anywhere it encounters it.

 

To make it short, your body makes a good effort to prevent you from creating these nasty buggers. It is a bad idea to intentionally flood it with it.

 

I recommend reading up on oxidative stress, ROS and Fenton reaction for this topic.

[Mr Skeptic]

I'd credit CharonY, he's the expert. I'll probably mix up my enzymes again. Hydrogen peroxide would go about oxidizing your body if it didn't have something to react with first. We're made of fragile chemicals... We do have sacrificial chemicals to react with oxidizers first, either produced ourselves or stolen from other species (all those antioxidants they say to eat, including vitamin C).

[pippo]

While the Q is addressed to skeptic I will provide some quick answers.

1) No benefit is gained, the disproportionation is a defensive mechanism. Under normal conditions H2O2 is accidentally formed during respiration. Mostly due to leaking of electrons out of the ubiquinon pool.

 

2) H2O2 belong to the family of reactive oxygen species. It is especially involved in the Fenton reaction which generate extremely harmful hydroxyl radicals that readily react with about anything. This leads to DNA and protein damage, among others and harm the cell about anywhere it encounters it.

 

To make it short, your body makes a good effort to prevent you from creating these nasty buggers. It is a bad idea to intentionally flood it with it.

 

I recommend reading up on oxidative stress, ROS and Fenton reaction for this topic.

 

Thanks, Y! Let me check this out as you suggested. meanwhile, I think I have enough to hit my buddy with. Its time he wakes up to reality.

[John Cuthber]

CharonY is not perfectly correct in saying that the body avoids making these nasty chemicals. Generally it does so but, sometimes it makes them deliberately.

It makes these aggressive chemicals so it can use them as weapons.

 

Does anyone really them getting about indiscriminately?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_burst

[Mr Skeptic]

Other fun stuff you can do with hydrogen peroxide:

http://www.tecaeromex.com/ingles/peroxidoi.html

 

Tell your buddy he's drinking rocket fuel

[CharonY]

Well, yeah, phagocytes are producing them in peroxisomes and they are part of plants self defence against bacteria, too. There are also some more exotic reactions that require H2O2 in low amounts, but drinking it would not benefit either effect. Baseline is that ROS have to be controlled within cells and lack of it is one of the reasons why some organisms cannot stand oxygen.

[pippo]

OK, this could get a little complex...its been 30 years since biochem class for me. Isnt it safe to assume since peroxide is toxic to bacteria/molds/(viruses?), that is likewise, logically is also toxic to our "good" tissues?

 

I know this is a simplistic generalization.

[John Cuthber]

It's an oversimplification, but yes. On the whole, if something is bad for bacterial cells, it's bad for human cells too. A few exceptions like penicillin are used as antibiotics.

[pippo]

It's an oversimplification, but yes. On the whole, if something is bad for bacterial cells, it's bad for human cells too. A few exceptions like penicillin are used as antibiotics.

 

Thanks, John.

[CharonY]

Whether something harms a certain cell type depends largely on how specific the underlying reaction is. ROS target DNA, proteins and to a certain amount also lipids and can therefore harm all cell types. Viruses are not cells but basically nucleic acids encapsuled in proteins, therefore slightly different rules apply.

[pioneer]

Years back I used H2O2 as a mouth rinse. By accident, I drank some of it. All it did was give me gas, because the H2O2 broke down in my stomach. I think I was using 5%.

 

Years later, I used H2O2 to clean a small surgery cut that had stitches. Anywhere the cut was actively healing, the H2O2 would fuzz and give off O2 gas. As areas began to heal. they would stop giving off gas.

 

I often wondered, what was in the active healing areas, which breaks down H2O2? It was a cool visual. I could see the healing distribution within the cut over time, by observing where the strongest and weakest O2 fizz was and where the strong fizz decayed and weak fizz stopped.

[CharonY]

H2O2 does not heal, it sterilizes (by creating oxidative stress). Infected/wounded areas bubble usually because of the catalase found in serum (seeping in from the wound) and possibly blood cells. In addition fungal and some bacterial infection may also be catalase positive. But then they have to be there in quite some numbers.

[pippo]

Ive quit reading the book"one minute cure". I will advise my buddy to donate the gallon of peroxide to my lab. At least, I can use it to clean permanganate residue, right? LOL

[pippo]

Hmm, before I threw the book out, I glanced at it one more time and found this:

 

Clinical Studies

 

In the 1950s Dr. Reginald Holman tested H2O2 on rats implanted with Walker 256 adenocarcinoma tumors. Their drinking water was replaced by a dilute solution of hydrogen peroxide. The optimal concentration was reported to be 0.45 percent, and complete disappearance of the tumors was reported to exist from fifteen to sixty days. (9)

 

In 1982 Winifred Wirth reported on the effective use of oral H2O2 in the treatment of laboratory mice infected with Ehrlich carcinoma. Effectiveness was judged by the decrease in mortality and the delayed onset of palpable tumor incidence. (18)

 

I googled lots of other "studies" and man, a lot of PhD's/Doctors in the past were into this stuff. Im no sympathizer with pharmaceuticals, as I believe they are just out for themselves-the empire and all.....A drug for everything. (They are one of the biggest if not the biggest spender on TV ads today)

 

Cant it be that , like white blood cells, H2O2 can be good AND yet sometinmes develop into a bad situation?