Hyper-Oxygenated Water Speeds Up Healing

Ninwa writes "Wired News is reporting on a new discovery by Occulus Innovative Sciences: Super-oxygenated water that significantly decreases healing time of wounds, burns, and diabetic ulcers. 'Oculus said the solution, called Microcyn, may prove effective in the fight against superbugs, crossover viruses like bird flu and Ebola, and bioterrorism threats such as anthrax.'"

Comments

H202

[Anonymous Coward]

People have been using H2O2 on wounds for YEARS!

Re:H202

[mattdev121]

This is not a joke,

H2O2 is more commonly known as Hydrogen Peroxide, and IS commonly used as an antiseptic. It's one of the cheapest forms of disinfectant available and can be found at any local wal-mart or drug store.

Re:H202

[bsdbigot]

Two chemistry majors walk into a bar. The bartender says to the first, "What can I get for you?"

"H2O."

"And you," asks the bartender?

"I'll have an H20, too."

The second guy died.

Interesting

[Nasarius]

Nice if true, but there's been a lot of kookery about water.

The phrasing on the Oculusis website is a little suspicious, too.

provides a moist environment to help promote healing

It seems it's already for sale, even though it's still in testing. They're also extremely vague about how it works, and apparently it also cures cancer. Suspicious.

Oxygen-rich salt water.

[jd]

Well, most people living on or near the coast have used something very similar, as far back as records go and probably a good bit beyond.

The idea of using osmotic pressure to treat wounds is as old as time itself, with salt being rubbed into wounds, very literally, as a means of treating them. The use of osmotic pressure is also commonly used in dialysis machines.

I believe that some forms of cancer/tumor therapy involves creating a severe enough osmotic pressure that the cells involved rupture. However, I couldn't tell you exactly which therapies these were.

I don't know whether you'd be able to make a targetted therapy - that would depend on the targetted cell either having a higher concentration or a different ratio of salts, so that you could create an environment in which healthy cells were fine but hostile cells were unable to survive. There's nothing in the article to suggest that this would be the case.

It is certainly NOT the case with something like ebola, which is a virus. Viruses are not cellular, they are simple RNA strands with a protein coating. What would you create the pressure against? There's no salt water mix in there and no semi-permeable membrane to fracture.

Salt is effective against viruses only insofar as that nothing would survive in the general vicinity (therefore there's nothing the virus can use to spread from) and the blood would be soaked into the salt. Antivirals are, as a general rule, nothing quite so simple.

(Having said that, RNA is a single molecule and single molecules can act as a dipole with a unique absorbtion frequency. It may be possible to develop treatments which "shatter" viruses by transmitting at the virus' absorbtion frequency, but we're talking about a very complex molecule which may not act as a simple dipole. As far as simple treatments go, that's about as simple as you're going to get. Salt packs won't cut it.)

Thank god...

[softspokenrevolution]

Man, with all that anecdotal evidence I sure am convinced. Thank god we have news services like Wired to deliver these releases from companies, becaues that damned JAMA would never let this one out of the bag.

What's that I smell?

[ChuckleBug]

This is setting off my bullshit detector big time. There has been so much nonsense lately about "pentawater," and homeopathic solutions that contain no active agent but supposedly retain a "memory" of it, not to mention the bottled water that's supposed to be charged up with extra oxygen (Dissolved O2 in water will just lay in your stomach and do nothing). Until they can come up with some chemical details and studies, I'm not ready to buy this.

The super-cheezy presentation doesn't really help, either.

But wait there's more...

[pyrrhonist]

Oculus said the solution, called Microcyn, may prove effective in the fight against superbugs, crossover viruses like bird flu and Ebola, and bioterrorism threats such as anthrax.

It's also a floorwax and a dessert topping!!!!

Re:the active ingredient may not be bull-shit

[wronskyMan]

for hypochlorous acid, it is

An oxyacid of chlorine (HClO) containing monovalent chlorine that acts as an oxidizing or reducing agent.

(from PubChem); and sodium hypochlorite is just bleach; when dissolved the chlorite ions will form acidic solution; so HClO+NaOCl=bleach in water, which is a common disinfectant but would probably be a bad idea to drink.

Re:the active ingredient may not be bull-shit

[Muhammar]

Bleach. Quite normal Chlorox bleach but less alkaline, less salty and more diluted. As alkalinity of common chlorine bleach is what keeps bleach stable and alkaline desinfectant is undesireable, they had to come up with way to stabilize bleach at neutral pH.

Most of the "scientific" explanation of their technology is a nice example of salesman gobledygook:

"Microcyn(TM) technology is a pH-neutral, super-oxidized water that contains "oxidizing species" generated by the electrolysis of sodium chloride and water. During this patented multi-chamber electrolysis process, these molecules are pulled apart and ions are formed. While this process in the past would typically produce an effective, yet unstable product, the revolutionary Microcyn(TM) technology enhances this process by selectively retaining specific species to produce super-oxidized water that has an extended shelf life. The ions retained by the Microcyn(TM) technology are the basis for innovative wound management products."

Basicaly, they found a useful formulation of a common bleach. Since using bleach for wound disinfection is not patentable, they have to dress it up as a magic technology.

If you look up the background of the management and advisory board, they have a lot of people from surgery and wound infection involved, so I think they maybe have something useful. Also, they are moving ahead with a cancer drug candidate - my guess is that they have licenced this drug in. Maybe they are just one of these virtual companies with a management/scientist ratio >10:1.