Oxygen Multistep Immunostimulation — A New Concept for Improving the Immune State in Cancer Patients

Abstract

Oxygen Multistep Immunostimulation (OMI) represents a further development or a special branch of the Oxygen Multistep Therapy (OMT) which was inaugurated about 5 years ago. Although a book on the latter was published already in its 3rd edition (1), this more or less empirically found method seems to be still widely unknown, so that it will be useful to resume briefly its main features. The starting point of our investigations was an observation made by Loew and Thews as early as in 1962 (2) on the age-dependency of the arterial oxygen partial pressure (p_aO₂) measured in a representative part of the working population in West Germany. As can be taken from the original graph (Fig. 1), the p_aO₂ decreases with progressing age and amounts only to about 70% in old age as compared to values detectable in juveniles. Since the degree of saturation of hemoglobin depends on the arterial oxygen partial pressure the oxygen supply of all tissues must be proportionally suboptimal at lowered p_aO₂. The oxygen supply becomes, therefore, the limiting factor as to energy production in all tissues and, hence, the primary cause of multiple discomforts, several ailments and diseases in old age. The inner vessel walls seen to be one of the primary points of attack. Oxygen-deficient endothelial cells begin to swell resulting in blood flow reduction so that a vicious circle emerges (Fig. 2). In brief, there are many reasons for permanently improving the oxygen supply in aged humans. Until very recently, however, the age-dependent decrease of the arterial pO₂ was considered to be irreversible and refractory.