Heart Attacks: What We Know, What We're Missing, and Where Ozone Therapy Fits In
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the developed world, yet the full picture of what causes heart attacks is still not completely understood.
We do know the basics: a heart attack typically begins with a buildup of atherosclerotic plaque in the arteries. When one of these plaques ruptures, it can trigger the formation of a clot, blocking blood flow to the heart. Decades of research have also established the major risk factors—high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and obesity, among others.
Conventional medicine has made enormous strides in addressing these risk factors. Today’s standard treatments include medications to lower blood pressure, regulate blood sugar, reduce cholesterol, break up clots, and even reopen blocked arteries with stents. These interventions save countless lives every day.
If someone were to have a heart attack, I wouldn’t hesitate to rely on conventional medicine first. In emergency care and acute settings, it’s absolutely life-saving.
But here’s the catch: while modern medicine excels at crisis management, it often falls short in addressing the deeper, underlying causes—things like oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and impaired mitochondrial function.
This is where alternative approaches, like ozone therapy, offer exciting potential. Rather than just managing symptoms or emergencies, ozone therapy aims to address these root imbalances—supporting the body's natural healing processes and potentially reducing long-term risk.
We’re not talking about choosing one over the other—but rather, understanding how integrative strategies might fill in the gaps where conventional care leaves off.
Let’s look at the current literature on this…
A Russian study enrolled 119 patients aged 65–83 with coronary heart disease and stable angina Grades II and III. The patients received a total of six treatments of ozone IV with 200 mL of ozonized saline every other day. 50% of patients stopped experiencing angina attacks, while in 41% the pain was reduced by more than half [1].
The ozone treatment reduced total cholesterol by 10% in 68% of patients, LDL-C by 12.5%, and triglycerides by 22%. Lipid peroxidation byproducts and nitric oxide metabolites went from elevated to comparable to healthy controls. The treatment also reduced platelet aggregation and blood rheology.
The mild oxidative stress and oxygen can help jumpstart the mitochondria that have been damaged from lack of oxygen. It improves the resilience of heart muscles and supports their own repair mechanisms.
Another Italian case report confirmed that ozone autohemotherapy was a beneficial adjunct that protected the heart in a 76-year-old critically ill patient after stenting [2]. This is in agreement with how animal studies suggest that it protects heart and brain tissues from lack of oxygen [3, 4].
To be clear, I am NOT suggesting that anyone use ozone to bypass medical attention, especially with something as serious and deadly as heart disease.
I’m only sharing evidence that ozone therapy can be beneficial for cardiovascular health, especially as you age, and as an adjunct treatment when you’re recovering.
References:
1 Конторщикова, К. Н. and Масленников, О. В. (2022) Ozone therapy in the treatment of elderly patients. Общественное здоровье, экономика и менеджмент в медицине, Общественное объединение «Экономика, менеджмент и психология в медицине», Республика Молдова, Кишинев 36–41
2 Pandolfi, S., Zammitti, A., Franzini, M., Simonetti, V., Liboni, W., Valdenassi, et al. (2017) Effects of oxygen ozone therapy on cardiac function in a patient with a prior myocardial infarction. Ozone Therapy
3 Ding, S., Duanmu, X., Xu, L., Zhu, L. and Wu, Z. (2023) Ozone pretreatment alleviates ischemia-reperfusion injury-induced myocardial ferroptosis by activating the Nrf2/Slc7a11/Gpx4 axis. Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, Elsevier Masson 165, 115185
4 Di Filippo, C., Luongo, M., Marfella, R., Ferraraccio, F., Lettieri, B., Capuano, A., et al. (2010) Oxygen/ozone protects the heart from acute myocardial infarction through local increase of eNOS activity and endothelial progenitor cells recruitment. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, Springer 382, 287–291
