Diabetes is a life-long condition where your blood sugar levels are so high that it can lead to grave problems with your health.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)3, diabetes is the leading cause of adult blindness, lower-limb amputations, and kidney problems that often lead to kidney failure. It is also the seventh leading cause of death in the US. Diabetic foot ulcer is the most common disease among the Diabetic patients.
What Is Diabetes?
To understand diabetes, you need to know how digested food is broken down into glucose and released into your bloodstream. Whenever your blood sugar level goes up, it signals the pancreas to release a hormone called insulin. This hormone allows all the glucose from your blood to be converted to energy, which fuels the cells.
When a person has diabetes, it can mean one of two things – the body does not make enough insulin or the body cannot use the insulin that the pancreas generates. Sometimes, a person can have prediabetes where the blood glucose is higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.
If not managed, diabetes can lead to serious health complications, which may include nephropathy, neuropathy, retinopathy, foot damage or ulcer, skin and bone infections, and cardiovascular diseases.
What Are the Types of Diabetes?
Diabetes can be classified into three types: Type 1, Type 2, and gestational. Of these, types 1 and 2 are the most common since gestational diabetes develops only among pregnant women who have not had a previous diagnosis of diabetes.
Gestational diabetes often goes away as soon as the baby is born, but it increases both the mother and child’s chances of acquiring type 2 diabetes later in life.
Type 1 diabetes happens when your body generates insufficient amounts of insulin. This disease is thought to be triggered by an autoimmune reaction where the body attacks itself by mistake, thereby preventing it from producing enough insulin.
There simply is no way for anyone to prevent themselves from acquiring a type 1 diabetes. For this reason, those who suffer from type 1 diabetes need to take insulin for the rest of their lives to survive.
On the other hand, those who suffer from type 2 diabetes cannot use their insulin properly and therefore cannot regulate their blood sugar within normal levels. Unlike type 1 diabetes, though, type 2 diabetes can be avoided by living a healthy lifestyle.
Who Can Get Diabetes?
The exact cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown, but it is usually diagnosed among young kids and teens. Those at risk of acquiring type 1 diabetes are those who have a family history of the disease. Only a handful of the population suffers from type 1 diabetes.
A majority of diabetics suffer from the type 2 form. People who have prediabetes, are obese, have a family history of type 2 diabetes, are physically inactive, or suffer from gestational diabetes are at high risk of developing the disease.
How Is Diabetes Diagnosed?
The best way to determine whether you are diabetic or not is to get your blood sugar level tested. There are a number of tests that you can undergo to confirm whether you have diabetes and what type it is. Some of these blood tests would require you to fast beforehand.
If your doctor suspects that you have type 1 diabetes, they might order some additional blood and urine work to determine the antibodies and ketone levels.
Is There a Cure for Diabetes?
Unfortunately, diabetes can only be managed but never cured. Some health programs exist to provide help and support to people suffering from the disease. These health programs mainly aim to help them live a healthier lifestyle by keeping their diabetes in check.
Learning how to control diabetes is vital as it can save you a lot of time, money, and effort from going to the hospital for emergency visits. Furthermore, diabetes management can avoid or delay any serious health complications that diabetes may cause.
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What Health Complications Can Arise From Diabetes?
Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to complications like diabetic foot. It happens when the high glucose content in your blood damages the nerves in your legs and feet.
This is often characterized by the lack of feeling in the lower limb regions. It can also happen when blood glucose leads to poor blood circulation in your arms and legs (peripheral vascular disease).
Those who suffer from diabetic foot are more likely to develop gangrene, which may lead to limb amputation
Diabetic Foot Complications
Diabetic foot5 can take many forms — from the presence of abscess to amputations. Diabetic foot is often characterized by skin discoloration, swelling and pain in the lower limbs, open sores that heal slowly, fungal nail infections, and unusual foot odor.
Since the nerve and blood vessels are often damaged, a diabetic foot often leads to skin and bone infections that are difficult to treat. Some infections also create pockets of pus that will require draining. These can lead to tissue death, which would require complete removal of the damaged part through amputation.
For the most part, these complications can be treated by taking antibiotics. However, a less invasive and less toxic treatment is available for those who are unwilling to or cannot take medications: ozone therapy.
What Is Ozone Therapy?
Ozone therapy10 is the process of administering medical ozone gas into the body to treat a wound or disease. Medical ozone gas is well-known for its biological effects on the living cell. Clinically, ozone gas is produced by hooking up a tank of pure oxygen source into an ozone generator.
While ozone cannot cure diabetes, the gas can help combat the long list of complications that arise from it.
Medical ozone gas can be administered in three ways: direct injection of the gas into the affected tissue, intravenous fusion with ozonated blood, and intramuscular administration using ozonated water.
Although studies on the efficacy of ozone therapy as treatment for diabetes are still ongoing, their initial results are simply outstanding. The treatment just needs to be administered by certified professionals to ensure the patient’s safety.
Ozone therapy is especially good in dealing with skin and tissue repair as well as in healing the wounds brought about by a diabetes complication.
Ozone therapy is especially good in dealing with skin and tissue repair as well as in healing the wounds brought about by a diabetes complication.
Some studies even claim that ozonating the blood can help reduce the oxidative stress in the cell, which triggers the development of type 2 diabetes. However, this claim needs to be backed by more clinical trials and studies.
Ozone Therapy as Cure for Diabetic Foot Ulcer
Diabetic foot ulcer is one of the most common diabetes complications that is also the most expensive and most difficult to treat.
A clinical study4 on two hundred patients suffering from diabetic foot ulcer showed that everyone who underwent ozone therapy experienced 100% wound healing and closure, with the average healing time at around 15 to 180 days from the start of the treatment.
Although the study on the efficacy of ozone therapy as treatment for diabetic foot ulcers is still at its infancy, there are already positive results12 that point to the potential benefits of using this method.
Some studies2 also aim to determine ozone therapy’s molecular pathway mechanism by which it releases its endogenous antioxidant effects, which are useful for activating the body’s immune functions and suppressing the inflammatory processes often experienced by diabetic patients.
Summary
Diabetes is a chronic disease that should not be ignored. Although prevention is always better than cure, there are people who are simply more prone to developing it. Age, genetic history, and lifestyle all play a part in the development of diabetes.
When this happens, it would be impossible to reverse as there is no cure. The only thing a person can do is to learn to manage their diabetes and to prevent it from spiraling to further complications.
Uncontrolled (or undiagnosed) diabetes can lead to several health complications, even death. While you cannot cure diabetes, you can still treat the complications that may arise from it. Ozone therapy is a safe, effective, and non-invasive way to combat any infection caused by a diabetes complication. Studies conducted on patients with diabetic foot ulcers showed great promise in correcting the infection.
In conclusion, undergoing ozone therapy can potentially save you from expensive medications and the possibility of emotional and psychological pain of amputation.
If you are considering ozone therapy as an adjunct therapy for diabetes complications, you should consult with your health provider to get proper guidance on how medical ozone should be administered.
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References
- Alpan, A. L., Toker, H. & Ozer, H. (2016). Ozone therapy enhances osseous healing in rats with diabetes with calvarial defects: A morphometric and immunohistochemical study. Journal of Periodontology, 87(8),982-989. doi: 10.1902/jop.2016.160009
- Braidy, N., Izadi, M, Sureda, A., Jonaidi-Jafari, N., Banki, A., Nabavi, S. F., & Nabavi, S. M. (2017). Therapeutic relevance of ozone therapy in degenerative diseases: Focus on diabetes and spinal pain. Journal of Cellular Physiology, 233(4), 2705-2714. doi: 10.1002/jcp.26044.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, June 11). Diabetes. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/basics/diabetes.html
- Izadi, M., Kheirjou, R., Mohammadpour, R., Aliyoldashi, M. H., Moghadam, S. J., Khorvash, F., Jadari, N. J., Shirvani, S., & Khalili, N. (2019). Efficacy of comprehensive ozone therapy in diabetic foot ulcer healing. Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome , 3(1), 822-825. doi: 10.1016/j.dsx.2018.11.060
- Kushmakov, R., Gandhi, J., Seyam, O., Jiang, W., Joshi, G, Smith, N.L. & Khan, S. A. (2018). Ozone therapy for diabetic foot. Medical Gas Research, 8(3), 111-115.
- Mehraban, F., Seyedarabi, A., Ahmadian, S., Mirzaaghaei, V., & Moosavi-Movahedi, A. A. (2019). Personalizing the safe, appropriate and effective concentration(s) of ozone for a non-diabetic individual and four type II diabetic patients in autohemotherapy through blood hemoglobin analysis. Journal of Translational Medicine, 17(1), 227. doi: 10.1186/s12967-019-1973-5
- Menendez-Cepero, S., Leon, O. S., Martinez, G., & Alvarez, H. (2018). Ozone Therapy in diabetes and its complications [abstract]. Proceedings of the 5Th WFOT Meeting. 2016 Nov 18-20, Mumbai, India. Journal of Ozone Therapy, 2(2). doi: 10.7203/jo3t.2.2.2018.11127
- Ozone Hospital. (n.d.). Ozone therapy diabetes. Retrieved from https://ozonehospital.com/ozone-therapy-diabetes/
- Rapone, B., Ferrara, E., Corsalini, M., Converti, I., Grassi, F. R., Santacroce, L., Topi, S., Gnoni, A., Scacco, S., Scarano, A., & Delvechio, M. (2020). The effect of gaseous ozone therapy in conjunction with periodontal treatment on glycated hemoglobin level in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus: An unmasked randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(15), 5467. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17155467
- ReGeneStem. (n.d.). OZONE THERAPY. Retrieved from https://www.regenestem.com/ozone-therapy-basics/
- Schwartz, A., Bardales, H. G. R., 7 Talbott, B.(2019). Ozone therapy in the treatment of the neuroinfectious diabetic foot. Case report. Ozone Therapy Global Journal, 9(1), 135-143
- Wen, Q. & Chen, Q. (2020). An overview of ozone therapy for treating foot ulcers in patients with diabetes. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 360(2), 112-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjms.2020.05.012
