Ozone therapy recently hit the headlines as one of the many treatment options being examined to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, but it is also showing great promise in the treatment of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Treatments that are safe, non-invasive, economical and effective are the holy grail of the medical world. However, such therapies do exist. According to a recent review paper, oxygen-ozone therapy could be an effective treatment for early-stage aging-specific neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease [2].

Longevity.Technology: Because neurodegenerative disease usually develops in mid to later life, the incidence of such disorders is expected to increase exponentially unless effective and affordable treatments can be found to either cure or slow down the progress of these conditions.  

The paper, written by leading scientists in Italy, suggests that rather than treating certain diseases individually, therapies should concentrate on treating a set of linked conditions. Authors, led by Catia Scasselati of Biological Psychiatry Unit, IRCCS in Brescia, Italy, say: “Contrary to a hitherto linear approach that considered one disease, one medicine, to date there is a need for a new concept of therapy condensed as ‘several diseases, one medicine’.”

This sentiment echoes a growing body of opinion that suggests the key to developing effective treatments for aging is to treat aging itself rather than treating each individual condition or disease associated with growing older.

Professor Brian Kennedy, former president and CEO of California’s Buck Institute for Research on Aging, for example, told Longevity.Technology that: “I think we should actually try to treat aging for a change”. Meanwhile, a study in Canada and the US, suggested that using compounds to target the aging process could be an effective way to treat neurodegeneration.