106 employees kept daily assessment records of their office environment and health over a 12-week period. Temperatures of about 23 degrees Celsius were associated with increased sensations of stuffiness, discomfort, and unpleasantness, and appeared to produce an increase in the number of complaints of headaches. The office environment was found to be depleted of small negative air ions. The introduction of a negative ion generator increased the subjective rating of alertness, atmospheric freshness, and environmental and personal warmth. Ions reduced the complaint rate for headache by 50% and significantly reduced the number of complaints of nausea and dizziness.

The benefits of exposure to relatively high concentrations of negative ions produced by high density negative ion generators have been well documented over decades. Literally dozens of studies published in respected journals have concluded that negative ions can have a profoundly beneficial effect on both the mind and body. Listed here are some excerpts from just a few of the scientific studies on the subject of negative ions.

The most recent and exciting study was published in the February 1995 issue of “Journal of Alternative and Comparative Medicine”, a journal of the Colombia Presbyterian Medical Centre. The results of this study were also reported on CBS News with Connie Chung.

Researchers Dr Michael Terman (Head of Colombia’s Winter Depression Dept.) and Dr Jiuan Su Terman conducted a study of the impact of negative ion therapy on people suffering from seasonal affective disorder (winter depression) – an illness that is often symptomatically indistinguishable from “all year” depression; researchers believe that the biology of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is very similar to that of “all year” depression, hence, the same antidepressant drugs (such as Prozac) are used to treat both.

The study was conducted in double blind fashion and divided clinically depressed subjects into two groups. The subjects in the first group were treated for 30 minutes a day for 20 days with a low density ion generator that produced only 10,000 ions/cubic centimetre ( the control group). The subjects in the second group were treated for 30 minutes a day for 20 days with a high density ion generator that produced 2,700,000 ions/cubic centimetre (the experimental group). The remission or “cure” criterion used was a 50% or greater reduction in symptom frequency and severity using the SAD version of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale.

The results of this study shocked the medical community: While a low density negative ion generator provided little benefit, a high density negative ion generator gave relief from depression comparable to that given by Prozac and other anti-depressants, without drug side effects.

The following is a transcript from CBS News 2/14/95 6:30-7:00pm Connie Chung. To order your own “official” copy call Burell’s Transcripts on 1-800-777-8398.

Connie Chung: This is the age of wonder drugs and high-tech cures, but alternative treatments, from herbs to acupuncture, have true believers, too, even among some mainstream doctors and researchers. Latest case in point; the wintertime blue. Is it possible that changing the air you breathe can treat those negative vibes and actually relieve depression? Dr Bob Arnot has the story.

Dr Bob Arnot: If the blustery winds of winter blowing across the nation this week are bringing you down, there’s a good reason. Researchers now believe that the ill winds strip away highly charged subatomic particles called Negative Ions from the air around us, contributing to a seasonal form of depression.

Ms Mahala Holmes (patient): As far back as I can recall, I had feelings of dreading winter and … and went through this kind of depression.

Dr Arnot: Doctors at Colombia demonstrated the use of this machine to pump high-density negative ions into the air surrounding Mahala Holmes to treat her depression, known as a seasonal affective disorder.

Ms Mahala Holmes: While I was on treatment, I felt excited, I felt energised. I felt alive.

Dr Arnot: Here’s why. Level of brain chemical responsible for mood, called serotonin, are often lower in cases of season depression. Serotonin levels can be elevated by increased exposure to light or by antidepressants like Prozac. Researchers say negative ions may also increase brain levels of Serotonin.

Dr Michael Terman: (Colombia Presbyterian Medical Centre): People noticed that daytime energy was returning to normal levels. They lost that pressure for increased sleep, the difficulty awakening in time to get to work.

Dr Arnot: A study in the current “Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine” concluded that 58% of patients treated with high-density negative ions had significant relief of their symptoms, almost identical to the number improved with drugs, but without drug side effects.

Dr Norman Rosenthal (National Institute of Mental Health): From a scientific point of view, it’s very exciting. It needs to be replicated.

Dr Arnot: The whole idea of using negative ions as a legitimate medical treatment may seem just a little bit odd. But while many doctors are still highly sceptical about alternative medicines, more and more Americans are turning to them because they haven’t found the satisfaction they want from mainstream medicine. This is not the first study to prove the benefits of negative ion generators. About 15 years ago, a double blind study was conducted at the Air Force Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The study was published in the August 1982 issue of the prominent medical journal “Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine” in an article entitled “Subjective Response to Negative Air Ion Exposure”. The study was conducted as follows, quoting from page 822 of the Journal:

“Procedure: One group of subjects served as controls and was confined to the test chamber for a 6 hour period under air ion conditions typical of an energy efficient building. The second group was similarly confined, but ion generators began operating 2 hours before occupancy and continued all 6 hours of confinement. Generators were masked for all indications of operation, and were also present under control conditions but not turned on. Data from both groups were collected under double blind conditions”.

The results of the study were encouraging, as stated on page 823 of the journal: “Subjective perceptions of psychological state, using individual ‘normalcy’ as standard, reflected significant differences between control and negative ion exposure groups. Prominent perceptions reported were reductions in irritability, depression and tenseness and increases in calmness and stimulation associated with ion exposure.

For psychological state, negative ion exposure appeared associated with feeling better about self, less sensitive and more responsive or innervated (energised)”. In October 1981, a journal article entitled “The Influence of Negative Air Ions on Human Performance and Mood”, appeared in the respected journal, Human Factors. On page 633 of the journal, the abstract of the article reads: “44 female and 12 male 17-61 year olds were tested either in a normal ion environment (control group) or in a predominantly negative ion environment (experimental group). After a 15-minute acclamation period, subjects asserted their psychological state and completed 2 performance tasks.

Results indicate that subjects had faster reaction times and reported feeling significantly more energetic under negative air ion conditions than under normal air conditions”.

Later that year in December of 1981, a study conducted at California State University, Sacramento entitled, “The Influence of Air Ions, Temperature and Humidity on Subjective Wellbeing and Comfort” , was published in the “Journal of Environment Psychology”. The findings were encouraging. On Page 279 of the journal, the abstract of the article states:

“106 employees kept daily assessment records of their office environment and health over a 12 week period. Temperatures about 23 degrees Celsius were associated with increased sensations of stuffiness, discomfort and unpleasantness, but appeared to produce a decrease in the number of complaints of headaches. The office environment was found to be depleted of small air ions. The introduction of a negative ion generator increased the subject rating of alertness, atmospheric freshness and environmental and personal warmth. Ions reduced the complaint rate for headache by 50% and significantly reduced the number of complaints of nausea and dizziness”.

Of course, much of the early research concerning negative ions has been conducted on animals. One of the earliest studies of the effects of negative ions was published in 1935 in the “Journal of Industrial Hygiene” in an article, “The Effect of High Concentrations of Light Negative Atmospheric Ions on the Growth and Activity of the Albino Rat”. In it, researchers Herrington and Smith evaluate the effects of negatively ionised air on the activity of rats as measured by means of an activity wheel.

They found that activity increased significantly with rats subjected to a reported negative ion concentration of 1.2million ions/cc. In 1956, a researcher named J .V. Brady published a study in “Annals of New York Academic Science” which showed that the strength of the conditioned controlled emotional responses of fear and anxiety in animals can be dramatically reduced by the daily administration of the psycho active drug reserpine.

Years later in 1967, a similar study was conducted by Allan H Frey at the Institute for Research, Pennsylvania State University and published in the “Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology”. The major difference was this time, the effect of reserpine was compared to that of negative ion treatment. The study concluded: Results of 2 experiments, the 2nd essentially a replication of the 1st, are in accordance with prediction. The inhibition of response in the animal was reduced by treatment with small negative air ions as it was with reserpine. In other words, when the animals were treated with negative ions, the animals were less inhibited-less likely to experience fear and anxiety. These results are similar to the results of experiments studying the anti-anxiety effects of tranquillisers such as Valium and Xanax.

It has also been shown that in addition to possibly having a profound effect on mood and energy, negative ions may have a strong impact on cognitive functioning. In 1965, in the journal “Psychophysiology” a study, “Behavioural Effects of Ionised Air on Rats” was published. In this study, the effects of negatively ionised air on the mental functioning of rats was tested. Researchers Duffee and Koontz reported on page 358 of the journal: “the water maze performance improved by 350%” showing a dramatic improvement in cognitive functioning.

To support that negative ions also improve the cognitive functioning of humans as well, in April of 1978, in the Science Journal “Ergonomics”, a study was conducted at the University of Surrey, England and published in an article entitled, ” Air Ions and Human Performance”. Once again, the results were encouraging. On Page 273, the article reads:

“Studied the effects of artificial negative or positive ionisation of the air on the performance of psychomotor tasks with 45 18-26 year old healthy males…Three testing environments were used: natural, negative and positive ionisations. Negative ionisation was associated with significant increment in performance as compared to controls”.

In places where mountains are situated to the south, the south winds that blow are parching and unhealthy; where the mountains are situated in the north, their northern winds occasion disorders and sickness…The winds which must pass over mountains to reach cities do not only dry, but also disturb the air which we breathe and the bodies of men, so as to engender diseases. Hippocrates, Regimen II, Chapters 37-38

The reactions between water, land and air during the long slow physical evolution of our planet have greatly affected the course of biological evolution. To a very considerable extent, this interplay is responsible for the emergence of man – a singular product of evolution – and man, in an extremely brief span of time, through his genius for blindly manipulating natural resources, has attained the unique capacity to alter his total environment. While we have begun to express serious concern for the grim consequences of our role as spoilers in disturbing ecological balances in general, our interest is most avidly focused upon those facets of man-engendered pollution which pose the most immediate and direct danger to us.

We live in an ocean of air and each of us is inexorably required to breathe in at least ten thousand litres of air every twenty four hours just to maintain life in our bodies. Since we are utterly dependent upon the physical and chemical properties of this air, it isn’t surprising that we are now deeply immersed in exploring all atmospheric parameters. Characteristically, most of our efforts are devoted to the detection and control of those toxic particulates and gases contributed to the ambient air by industry and by the multitude of anthropocentric activities which require the combustion of fuel. Their threat to life is pressing and it is obvious that measures for their abatement must be developed in the immediate future. Other, more subtle atmospheric changes are in progress which, because they are less conspicuous, tend to be put aside for future consideration. Among these one would have to list those phenomena involving small air ions.

Very shortly after the existence of atmospheric electricity was demonstrated by Franklin [1] and by d’Ailbard [2] in the mid 1700′s, several natural philosophers ascribed to it a variety of biological effects. For example, Father Giambattista Beccaria [3] in 1775 reported that “it appears manifest that nature makes extensive use of the atmospheric electricity for promoting vegetation” In this he was supported by Abbe Nollet [4] and Abbe Bertholon [5]. Abbe Bertholon [6] in addition concluded that the course of various diseases of man was influenced by atmospheric electricity. I 1899, Elster and Geitel [7] and J J Thompson [8] independently proved that atmospheric electricity depends upon the existence of gaseous ions in the air. It then became possible to develop generators for producing air ions and equipment for determining their numbers in the air. Using these technical aids, a vast amount of experimentation was undertaken to define the physical and biological properties of air ions. There are ions in the air around us all the time, but changes in their concentration or in the ratio of positively to negatively charged molecules can have marked biological effects on plants and animals. Indeed, ion depletion and charge imbalance may play a significant role in a wide range of human ailments including respiratory infection in office workers and the malaise caused by weather conditions such as the khamsin winds of the near East. Further, artificially generated air ions may prove valuable as a therapeutic modality in the treatment of burns, reparatory disorders, stomach ulcers nd nervous disorders.

Air ion formation begins when enough energy acts on a gaseous molecule to eject an electron. Most of this energy comes from radioactive substances in Earth’s crust and some from the shearing forces of water droplets in waterfalls (Lenard effect) or the friction which develops when great volumes of air move rapidly over a land mass (for example, the foehn, sharav and Santa Anna winds) or from cosmic rays. The displaced electron attaches itself to an adjacent molecule which becomes a negative ion, the original molecule then becoming a positive ions. Molecular collisions transfer the charge, so that positive charges come to reside on molecules with the lowest ionisation potential,while electrons are attracted to the species of greatest stability. Next, small numbers of molecules of water vapour, hydrogen and oxygen cluster about the ions to form small air ions. In normal pollutant free air over land, there are 1500 to 4000 ions/cm3. But negative ions are more mobile and Earth’s surface has a negative charge, so negative ions are repelled from the Earth’s surface. Thus the normal ratio of positive to negative ions is 1.2 to 1.

Certain properties of small air ions are pertinent to this discussion. They readily unite with condensation nuclei and with most classes of air pollutants to form large or Langevin ions. In both cases the biological activity of the small air ions is lost. This is true also of the combination that occurs between small air ions of opposite charge. Further, ions like charge (unipolar ions) repel one another and tend to flow to enclosing surfaces where their ionic nature dissipates. Since they are small and carry a charge, they are deflected by electrical fields. All of these characteristics make it difficult to maintain high concentrations of small air ions and means that air ion densities are significantly altered by the indoor living and air pollution characteristic of urban life.

While the nature of air ions was under investigation by the physicists, vigorous attempts were being made by the life scientists to determine their biological effects. Although the amount of work accomplished by the biologists is a tribute to their industry, it must be admitted that many of the results reported in the literature is not convincing. Several factors in the area of experimental design served to cloak the whole field in an aura of ambiguity. Often experiments were performed with corona discharges as ion sources, neglecting the ozone and oxides of nitrogen sometimes produced along with the ions. Ion densities, temperature and relative humidity were not monitored. Experimental subjects were not grounded; their external surfaces developed high electrostatic charges and in consequence, repelled ions. As a rule, the air was not purified and combination of ions with air pollutants led to widely fluctuating ion densities. Clinicians assessing the value of air ions as a therapeutic modality frequently committed all or some of the errors listed above and in addition, neglected to utilise the double blind cross over technique for ion administration. In view of these omissions, it is not surprising that convincing proof of the role played by air ions as physiological mediators or as therapeutic agents has been slow to emerge.

In addition to these elements of uncertainty in experimental procedures, the evaluation of air ions as biologically active agents has been hampered by the widely cultivated belief that the idea is theoretically absurd. There seems to be something about the term “ion” that provokes incredulity – consider the state of Svante Arrhenius, who first applied it in 1884 to describe atoms and molecules in aqueous solution bearing a positive or negative charge which enabled them to migrate in an electrical field. His doctoral committee thought this idea so bizarre that they accepted his work with the greatest reluctance and granted his degree with the lowest possible grade. The major obstacle to acceptance of this magnificent concept was the requirement that fundamental differences in the properties of charged molecules (ions) and uncharged molecules be acknowledged. In the case of air ions there is no disagreement about the disparate physical nature of air ions and non ionised gaseous molecules, but there is considerable reluctance to grant that this diversity is of biological significance.

At any rate, the essence of the argument against biologically active air ions is this: The maximal ion density one can attain in a closed atmosphere is approximately 1 x 106 ions/cm3, of air. Air contains 2.7 x 1019 non ionised molecules/cm3, so that the ratio of small ions to non ionised molecules is 1:27 trillion. For the reasons already mentioned above, ions have a very brief life span and under the conditions ordinarily prevailing, attainable ion densities usually are considerable less than 1 x 106 ions/cm3, making the final dilution in non ionised air greater by one or two orders of magnitude. From this unquestioned fact, the dubious conclusion has been drawn that the very sparseness of air ions places them beyond the range of biological effectiveness. The merit of this inference is more specious than real, since many biological systems respond to extremely minute chemical and physical stimuli. Two examples suffice to bear out this contention: first, the human eye can detect a flash of light when a single active quantum reaches the retina [9]; and second, the male silkworm reacts to as few as 2600 molecules of the female’s sex attractant pheromone in air containing a concentration of <200 molecules/cm3[10]. One further factor, that of commercial exploitation, has retarded development in the field of air ionisation. During the mid-1950′s air ion generators were sold directly to the public through high-powered advertising campaigns extolling their efficacy in treating a wide range of diseases. The Federal Drug Administration brought these activities to a halt and since then has prohibited the sale of ion generators for any medical application. This unfortunate episode has led scientists and laymen alike to conclude that the whole subject is permeated with mis-representation or even outright fraud.

It is evident then that progress in the field of research devoted to the detection of air ion effects on living forms has been retarded by the very real difficulties attending the performance of meaningful experiments, by an unhappy example of commercial exploitation and by categorical rejection of the whole idea as a matter of principle on the part of many component scientists. The technical obstacles are the major reason that we now are faced with enormous accumulation of data of very uneven quality. The matter of rejection is not so vital, although it is disconcerting at times to find that some of our peers classify the subject with the occult arts.

THE BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AIR IONS

The experimental observations taken as a whole serve to establish the fact that air ions are physiologically active and can produce functional alterations varying from barely discernible to substantial. Further, air ions, are capable of evoking a wide range of response in bacteria, protoza, higher plants, insects, animals and man. Sometimes both positive and negative ions induce essentially the same biological reaction, in other cases they elicit the opposite effects. A few selected examples will be presented to illustrate the range of biological effects of small air ions and the reader is referred to more detailed reviews of the experimental evidence [11, 12, 13].

A brief review of the effects of air ions on micro-organisms reveals that both negative and positive ions (1) inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungi on solid media, (2) exert a lethal effect on vegetative forms of bacteria suspended in small droplets of water, and (3), reduce the viable amount of bacterial aerosols [12].

With mammalian cells in tissue culture, Worden found that Girardi’s human heart cells exposed for fourteen days to unipolar ionised atmospheres and then transplanted into non-ionised atmospheres for an additional fourteen days showed adversely affected growth characteristics and rate of proliferation with positively ionised air; growth was normal with negatively ionised air. Using fibro blasts he obtained statistically significant evidence that negative ions increase and positive ions decrease the rate of proliferation. Furthermore, when the fibro blasts were removed to a non-ionised atmosphere, the cells previously exposed to negative ions continued to divide at an increased rate, while the cells treated with positive ions recovered slowly and eventually attained the normal rate of growth [14].

Over the past nineteen years, the Air Ion Laboratory of the University of California has conducted experiments to detect ion-induced physiological changes in plants and small animals. The subjects were maintained in a controlled micro-environment supplied with pollutant-free air, the sole variable being concentration of air ions in the ambient atmosphere. Soft ß (beta) emission from tritium absorbed on zirconium served to ionise the air without evolving toxic by-products; selection of positive or negative ions was accomplished by applying a corresponding charge to the generator electrode.

Plants appear to benefit from increases in both positive and negative ionisation, and we have shown that such ionisation markedly increases the rate of growth of higher plants such as barley, oats and lettuce. With seedlings grown in chemically defined media, we found that unipolar (one charge only) ionised atmospheres containing approximately 10,000 positive or negative charged ions/cm3 increased the rate of growth by as much as 50%(as measured by integral elongation or weight) without altering the protein, sugar, or chlorophyll content of the plant. In marked contrast to growth stimulation elicited by air ions, their removal from the atmosphere resulted in a lower rate of growth, reduced turgor (pressure in plant cells) and the development of soft, fleshy leaves. Chlorophyll production was not affected[15]. Several clues to the biochemical mechanism were uncovered. Positive and negative ions expedite both the uptake of iron and its utilisation of the production of ion-containing enzymes. The ions stimulate the metabolism of the high-energy compound adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the chloroplast’s and augment both nucleic acid metabolism and oxygen uptake. All of these phenomena are consistent with the observed ion-induced increase in growth rate.

Similar results were obtained when silkworm eggs and emergent larvae were exposed to ions of either charge. Hatching began earlier, larval growth accelerated and there was increased synthesis of three enzymes (catalase, peroxidase and cytochrome C Oxidase). Spinning began earlier and cocoons were heavier [16].

Much of the work we have done with animals has been on air ion effects in the respiratory tract and we found that air ions influence survival in respiratory diseases. High concentrations of positive ions substantially increased the death rate of mice infected with measured doses of a fungus (Coccidiodes immitis), a bacterium (Klebsiells pneumoniae) or a strain of influenza virus, all administered intranasally. Ion depleted air (comparable to ion concentrations found in urban environments) also increased the death rate in mouse influenza while a high concentration of negative ions decreased the death rate [17]. In other experiments where the influenza virus was introduced as a fine aerosol, this by-passing the protective mechanisms of the upper respiratory tract, changing ion concentrations had no influence on the death rate. This and other observations suggest that the site of action of air ions is the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract [18].

An Ecological View of Health

MECHANISM OF AIR ION ACTION

With regard to the mechanism underlying the response of animals to air ions, we have worked for several years on the changes in blood levels of serotonin (5-hydroxy tryptamine or 5-Ht), a powerful neurohormone capable of producing profound neurovascular, endocrine and metabolic effects throughout the body. In the hypothalamus 5-Ht participates in various processes such as sleep, the transmission of nerve impulses and in our evaluation, of mood. We found a readily reproducible and significant change in blood 5-Ht levels in mice exposed to air ion densities of 4-5×105 positive or negative ions/cm3. Positive ions raised blood levels of 5-Ht, while negative ions had the opposite effect. Additionally, we found that the brain content of free 5-Ht was responsive to the concentration of ions in the air. Because of the chief metabolic route for removing Serotonin (5-Ht) depends upon the enzyme monamine oxidase, we hypothesised that small negative ions stimulate, while small positive ions block the action of monamine oxidase, thus producing respectively a drop or rise in the concentration of free 5-Ht in certain tissues and eliciting a corresponding physiological response [19].

This general mechanism of air ion action has been confirmed by other investigators. Grant Gilbert at Pacific Lutheran University demonstrated that continuous treatment with negative ions produced statistically significant reductions in emotionality and brain Serotonin levels in rats [20]. Jean-Michel Olivereau of the Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Paris conducted extensive experiments on the endocrine systems and the nervous mechanisms of rats treated for various periods of time with air ions [21, 22]. Employing elegant biochemical and histochemical techniques, he surveyed air ion action on the hypothalamus, the hypophysis, the adrenals, the thyroid, brain metabolism, behaviour, eating, spontaneous activity, psychomotor performance and adaptation to stress. He concluded that air ion-induced alterations in blood levels of 5-Ht account for very significant physiological changes in the endocrine glands and central nervous systems, these, in turn, substantially alter basic physiological processes. A significant facet to Olivereau’s research is his observation that negative ions exert a measurable anxiety lessening effect on mice and rats exposed to stressful situations, a phenomenon noted by several other workers [23]. This response parallels that which follows administration to animals or man of the drug reserpine. Both reserpine and negative ions reduce the amount of Serotonin in the mid-brain and this apparently accounts for the tranquillising action.

Direct and indirect evidence supporting the theory that 5-Ht is an important mediator of air ion action on animals and humans is found in the reports of several investigators [24-25] and is reviewed elsewhere [26,27]. However, there is no reason to suppose that 5-Ht is the sole agent responsible for air-ion induced alteration of physiological function.

Such tentative biochemical probings are really no more than the first step in elucidating the arcane mechanisms when air ions make contact with the tissues of the test organism. Our ignorance extends from the interface between the atmosphere and the cell wall to include the cellular organelles, their component enzyme systems and almost all the tissues and organs of living forms.

When we turn to the matter of air ion dosage necessary to elicit biological responses, the situation is somewhat better. Dosage constitutes a very practical element, for if extremely high ion densities are demanded, there is little likelihood of air ions playing a significant role in nature and the whole topic becomes academic, or at best, is limited to therapeutic applications. If on the other hand, biological effects are associated with such displacements of ion densities or charge ratios as are known to occur in Earth’s atmosphere, or even with relatively small shifts in ion concentration that can be affected by ion depletion or artificial ionisation in ordinary living and working quarters, the subject acquires great interest and importance.

An outstanding example of dependence of physiological response upon dosage has been reported by Bachman and his co-workers [24]. In studying the influence of air ions on the spontaneous activity of rats they noticed a curious zonal response with activity levels falling, rising and peaking then falling again as negative ion concentrations were increased.

Several studies, however, have demonstrated marked biological effects with lower dosage approximating natural conditions (1.5×103 to 4×103 small ions/cm3). In the experiments of Knoll and his collaborators on the effects of ions on simple visual reaction time in humans, ion concentrations of only 2×103 ion cm3 produced a remarkable decrease in reaction time [28]. Delaneau and his colleagues found that relatively small ion dosages, for example, 5×103 to 15×103 ions/cm3 of air effectively influenced the development of gastric ulcers in starving rats [29]. Silverman and Kornblueh were able to detect changes in alpha frequencies of the EEG in humans exposed to only 1.8×103 positive or negative ions/cm3 for thirty minutes [30]. Also, a sudden increase in negative ions or a precipitate drop in positive ions within the atmospheric range of 1×103 to 2×103 ions cm/3 was reported to increase moulting in aphids [31].

In our studies mentioned above on the effect of air ions on the course of mouse influenza produced by intranasal challenge, we found that ion dosage influenced the cumulative mortality rate. Unipolar low densities of positive or negative ions (comparable to indoor and urban environments) increased the rate of death, mid-range concentrations of ions of either charge had no effect, while a reduction in mortality rates occurred when the animals were exposed to high concentrations of negative or to low concentrations of mixed ions with mixed ions with negative ions predominating [17].

Natural Ion Environment
We have already presented evidence that air ion concentrations comparable to those found in nature can modify physiological processes in a variety of living forms under laboratory conditions. Now it seems appropriate to ask, Do air ion-linked phenomena occur in humans outside the laboratory? This question can be answered affirmatively with some assurance in light of recent investigations of large scale weather-related changes in air ion concentrations and charge ratios coupled with concurrent clinical studies.

To begin with, a great deal of work has been done in France, Italy, Germany and the USSR on the ionic environment of spas, particularly those situated near waterfalls. The consensus seems to be that the air in many such locales for whatever reason, contains a high concentration of small air ions with a ratio of negative to positive ions being considerably greater than normal – The Lenard effect. Bio climatologists are inclined to attribute to this fact some of the vis mediatrix of these resorts. This is an attractive hypothesis, but one that is difficult to prove, since many curative modalities are brought to bear on patients simultaneously.

Turning to the adverse effects associated with certain ion environments, there have been long traditions in the folklore of nearly every country that link certain changes in weather with changes in health and behaviour. One such tradition has to do with the winds of ill repute, for example, the Foehn (Southern Europe), Sirocco (Italy), Santa Ana (United States), Khasmin (Near East), and Mistral (France). Wherever they prevail, their victims attribute to them the ability to induce respiratory distress of various sorts, nervousness, headache and a multitude of other ills. So malign is their influence that when they blow, judges deal leniently with crimes of passion, surgeons postpone elective surgery and teachers expect more than the usual fractiousness from their students.

Since the turn of the century, several scientists and physicians have hypothesised that the immediate cause of such malaise is the upset in electrical balance of the atmosphere that precedes or accompanies the winds. This relationship between air ions and disease, tenuous at first, is finding support in the meteorological observations of investigators such as Robinson and Dirnfield who studied the Sharav, a weather complex afflicting the Near East and characterised by persistent wind, a rapid rise in temperature and a fall in relative humidity. Robinson and Dirnfield measured solar radiation, temperature and relative humidity, wind velocity and direction and the electrical state of the atmosphere before, during and after the Sharav. They found that 12 – 36 hours before the characteristic changes in wind, temperature and humidity, the total number of ions increased (from 1500 ions/cm3 to 2600 ions/cm3) and the ratio of positive to negative ions jumped from the normal 1.2 to 1.33. This early shift in ion density and ratio coincided with the onset of nervous and physical symptoms in weather sensitive people and was considered the only meteorological change that could be responsible for the discomfort associated with the Sharav [32].

This conclusion is supported by the extensive studies of Professor Felix Sulman and his colleagues in Jerusalem. They designate as the “Serotonin Hyper function Syndrome” the cluster of signs and symptoms that afflict a considerable segment of the population a day or two before the onset of a hot dry wind characteristic of the Sharav. Individuals in this category suffer from insomnia, irritability, tension, migraine, amblyopia, oedema, palpitations, precordial pain, respiratory distress, hot flashes, tremor, chills, diarrhoea, polyuria, vertigo etc. These patients display an increased output of Serotonin in the urine and they experienced relief when treated with negative ions or with Serotonin blocking drugs [33,34]. There exists then, a scientific basis for accepting the tradition that the winds of ill repute can produce malaise in humans, that air ion imbalance is the direct meteorological incitant and that the proximate cause of the irritation syndrome is the positive air-ion-induced hyper secretion of Serotonin. Supporting laboratory evidence for the adverse effect in humans of air ion imbalances comes from a well controlled double blind experiment by Winsor and Beckett in which volunteer subjects developed a dry throat, husky voice, headache, itch or obstructed nose and a reduction in maximum breathing capacity when exposed to nasal inhalation of positive ions in concentration of 3.2×104 ions/cm3 [35].

AIR IONS AND THE HUMAN URBAN ENVIRONMENT

In modern urban life, man often faces ion conditions far different from natural ion balances, with a significant depletion of small air ions and a markedly increased ratio of positive to negative ions commonly encountered. A fourteen day study in 1971 by B. Maczynski and others showed that in an office containing four people the small air ion concentration dropped as the day went on, falling on the average to only 34 positive ions and 20 negative ions/cm3 [36]. Central heating and air conditioning, smoking, the usual household activities of dusting and cooking all combine to lower levels of small ions in indoor environments. Further, the static electricity generated by the widespread use of synthetic fibres in clothing and room furnishing as well as stray electric fields add a different dimension to the indoor climate which is not conducive to the preservation of small air ions [37].

The effects of air pollution on air ions in the ambient atmosphere are also marked. As stated earlier, the small physiologically active air ions readily combine with gaseous and particulate pollutants to form large (Langevin) ions that are considered physiologically inert. A test in a light industrial area of San Francisco by J C Beckett in 1959 showed a small ion count of less than 80 ions/cm3 as compared to levels of 1500-4000 small ions/cm3 found in fresh unpolluted air [38]. The fundamental reaction is disarmingly simple: man- atmospheric pollutants; atmospheric pollutants + small air ions – air ion depletion.

That this progression has attained significant magnitude is evidenced by the fact that small air ion levels far at sea – normally very constant – are becoming appreciably lower with time, as air pollutants drift out from land. Thus wile very few of our activities add small air ions to the air, much of what we do cumulates in ion loss. The question then amounts to this: Will the smogs, hazes and invisible pollutants we generate with a lavish hand so reduce the small ion content of the atmosphere that plants, animals and man must suffer the harmful consequences?

Although the early results of ion depletion very likely will be unimpressive compared to the immediate and dramatic action of known toxic components of polluted air, this alone should furnish little solace. We have every reason to be aware from past experience that adverse effects may follow continued exposure to a small amount of a minor irritant (for example, organic solvents) or the long term deprivation of an essential metabolic requirement (for example, trace elements or vitamins). People travelling to work in polluted air, spending eight hours a day in offices or factories and living their leisure hours in urban dwellings inescapably breathe ion depleted air for substantial proportions of their lives. There is increasing evidence that this ion depletion leads to discomfort, enervation and lassitude and loss of physical and mental efficiency. This syndrome appears to develop quite apart from the direct toxic effects of the usual atmospheric pollutants.

Physicians and environmental engineers have long suspected that the inimical effects of “dead air” in crowded rooms are due to ion depletion. In 1939, three Japanese Scientists, S Kimura, M Ashiba and L Matushima showed that if temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels were all kept within ranges considered suitable for human comfort, but the ion level was reduced, individuals suffered from such as perspiration and depression. Further, these symptoms were promptly relieved when normal ion densities were restored by the use of ion generators [39]. Recently, a team of Soviet scientists tested the effects of varying ion conditions on humans employing an impressive battery of tests to measure cardiovascular functioning, reaction time and blood chemistry. They concluded that any enclosed compartments with “conditioned” air such as a space capsule, are likely to be depleted of ions and have a considerable excess of positive ions and that prolonged stays in such an ion environment is detrimental. The Soviet scientists recommended that ionisation in such environments be increased to a more normal 2000 ions/cm3 and that the addition of negative ions be alternated with positive or bipolar ionisation [40]. The effect of various ion concentrations and charge ratios on human performance, reaction time, vigilance and psychomotor tasks is suggestive but inconclusive and has been reviewed elsewhere [41].

ARTIFICIAL ION GENERATION: CLINICAL APPLICATIONS

So much for the potential role of an air ion-depleted environment in man’s future. There remains the more promising consideration of the environmental and medical applications of artificially generated air ions. At present, there exists several means of artificially producing air ions, including corona discharge and tritium generators. These ion generators make it possible to re-establish natural and optimal microclimatic conditions in living and working quarters. Eventually air ion standards for comfort and health may be established, just as we now have set limits for temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide levels, etc. It may also be possible to make available, highly beneficial ion-rich micro environments that could serve various hygienic and therapeutic functions. However, the development and use of this technology must go hand in hand with efforts to reduce air pollution from industry, automobiles and tobacco smoke, which effectively interfere with attempts to create a balanced ionised atmosphere.

If the results of our experiments with respiratory disease in mice can be extrapolated to man, we might expect that the ion depleted air of our offices and factories would lower resistance to influenza and perhaps other infections. Conversely, inhaling a mixture of air with, say, 4000 ions/cm3 and with negative ions predominating, should increase resistance. A recent study in a Swiss bank indicated that this is so. In the test, 309 volunteers worked for thirty weeks in an area where the air was treated to develop a high ratio of negative to positive ions, while 362 controls, worked in untreated air. During the test, the ratio of days lost because of respiratory illness in the two groups was an incredible 1 to 16 [42].

Finally, one can look at some medical applications of high ion concentrations. Kornbleuh and his colleagues have used negative ion therapy successfully for burn patients. Hospitalised patients were treated for 1 to 1.5 hours a day and out patients for twenty five to thirty minutes, to negative ion concentrations as high as 10,000 ions/cm3. Pain, restlessness and incidence of infection were reduced and healing promoted [43]. This application may be related to Serotonin hypothesis of air ion action. Burn patients present increased levels of Serotonin (5-hydroxtryptamine) in damaged tissues and in the blood and Serotonin is known to be associated with pain under some circumstances. We have shown in laboratory animals that inhalation of negative ions increases the conversion of Serotonin to 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid (a physiologically inactive metabolite) and this reaction may be involved in the relief of pain reported by burn patients treated with a high concentration of negative ions.

Another instance of laboratory observations coinciding with clinical usage is to be found in our work at the university of California and that of Palti, De Nour, and Abrahamov at Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. Smith and Krueger noted that the inhalation of positively ionised air by small animals contracted the smooth muscle of the tracheo-bronchial tree and decreased the operational efficiency of the mucus escalator, effects that could be duplicated by the intravenous injection of 5-HT; negative ions had the opposite effect[44]. Palti and his colleagues found that exposure to positive ions increased the respiratory rate and degree of bronchospasm in infants with asthmatic (spastic) bronchitis while treatment with negative ions produced an opposite and therapeutic effect. The negative ion therapy terminated the spastic attack after a much shorter period than that required by the conventional mode of treatment and, in addition, no adverse side effects common to the drug therapy, were observed with the negative ionisation. Further, since the subjects in this experiment were infants under the age of one year, the possibility that the observed effects were due to physiological factors was minimised [45].

P C Boulatov, a Soviet investigator, has summarised his experiment work over the past thirty five years involving the treatment of over 3,000 bronchial asthma patients with high concentrations of negative ions. He has reported that after a short period of temporary exacerbation there followed substantial improvements in the general state of the patients, a normalisation of the blood picture, improved respiratory function and a reduction in the frequency and intensity of attacks of bronchial asthma [46]. Kornbleuh, the pioneer American investigator of air ion phenomena and his co-workers obtained temporary relief of acute hay fever symptoms in patients treated with high concentrations of negative air ions. They speculated that the mode of action might be due to some physical and/or chemical effect on microscopic airborne contaminants such as dust, spores, bacteria and pollen or to a direct physiological action on the respiratory tract [47].

More recently, Dr A P Weaner reported on a closely related therapeutic modality: electro aerosols in which minute water droplets act as a vehicle for electric charges. This therapy used extensively in Germany and the USSR has reportedly been applied with success in the treatment of respiratory disorders and various manifestations of autonomic dysfunction such as migraine, nervous tension and depression [48]. Wehner also reviewed the work of K H Schulz who found that negatively charged aerosols seem to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and therefore can help to restore autonomic balance in cases of an overstimulated activation. From these observations, Schulz postulated that the effect of the ions would depend on the state of activation of the autonomic nervous system and further, that if the proper charge of ions is administered to a given ion “type” individual a normalisation of autonomic functioning would occur [49].

In line with this theory were the findings of Monaco and Acker, who performed a large number of tests on a group of Psychiatric patients and a group of non-patients. In the psychiatric patients, negative ionisation decreased systolic blood pressure, increased skin resistance and increased pulse finger volume, indicating increased parasympathetic nervous system activity. For the non patients, only a significant decrease in pulse finger volume occurred, indicating slight increase in sympathetic nervous system activity. Thus, it appears that the negative ions had a normalising influence, lowering activation of the psychiatric patients and increasing the activation of the non-patients [50].

Noting the relationship between air ions and neurohormones and following the reports that negative ions produce a sedative effect, R Ucha Udabe, R Kertesz and L Franceschetti at the Catholic University in Buenos Aires tried treating a large number of patients suffering from psychoneurosis and anxiety syndromes. Sessions varied from fifteen minutes to two hours and the number of treatments from ten to twenty. These authors were very impressed with the conspicuous disappearance of simatic complaints and claimed favourable results in 80% of their patients [51]. M Deleanu also claims success in the treatment of gastro duodenal ulcers in animals and man using relatively low dosages of air ions (5000 to 10,000 negative ions/cm3 and 1000 to 2000 positive ions/cm3) [52].

This is only a brief review of some of the developing areas of clinical research, but based on the evidence surveyed in this paper, it appears that air ion investigations constitute a legitimate and promising branch of biological research. As more information is acquired about the mechanisms underlying the reactions between air ions and living systems, we should be able to evaluate more clearly than at present the importance of air ions in nature and assess their potential for clinical and non clinical applications.

The harmful positive ion (kation) is a particle that loses an electron. The healthful negative ion (anion) gains an electron in the valency orbit; that is it increases the ability to absorb and utilise oxygen and reduces any excess of harmful serotonin.

These two small invisible electrified particles have an effect on our physical and mental well-being and we are constantly bombarded with negative and positive ions eg. polluted air. The negative ions make us feel good, they destroy harmful bacteria. The positive ions make us feel bad (TV. screen produces positive ions).

If the positive ions occur naturally in sufficient numbers, for instance during the onset of the commonly known hot and dry desert winds, the winds cause depression, nausea, insomnia, irritability, lassitude, migraine, asthma attacks, and also affect the normal function of the thyroid glands. Biochemically speaking, the body becomes exhausted and this can lead to an increase in accidents, violent crime and suicides. These can be counteracted with the beneficial negative ions.

The negative ions contribute to the feeling of well being. They reduce the number of active harmful bacteria in the air; the severity of illness; in general they have a stimulating effect also on plant growth like rainwater, which has an abundant source of negative ions. For instance, a shower will re-ionise and has a tonic effect on the body, just like rainwater which clears the air.

Therefore the surroundings of a water-fall, fountains, showers and the breaking surf of sea spray have a much more stimulating effect on the body and mind.

Remember that emotional stress produces serotonin. According to Dr Irving Oyle, serotonin is “the ultimate downer” while norepinephrine is the “ultimate upper”.

An excess of positive ions also affects the neurohormone adrenalin which responds to external stress and our five senses control the production of adrenalin hormone. This universal phenomena is a primeval ancestral link, for ion-charged air around breaking or splashing water which attracts us and makes us feel good.

The ions affect our body chemistry eg. serotonin which plays an important role in the working of the brain; is a neurohormone.

For instance: Negative ions cut down the serotonin level and act like a beneficial natural tranquilliser. An excess of serotonin in brain leads to an exaggerated sense of physical and emotional well-being (euphoria), that follows with a state of (lassitude) then to the electrical change from rhythms of the cerebal cortex (over arousal) and finally irritability, anger and violence.

If anyone is exposed to a high level of negative atmosphere, within half an hour serotonin appears in the urine; that is the disposal of excess serotonin.

These experiments can be tested at home under a shower (supply of negative ions).

Note: Hydrotherapy is based on re-ionising of the body, that is increasing the negative ion supply.

Every individual, either consciously or unconsciously must continue to make the effort to attract this natural energy from the cosmetic storehouse. The YANG or positive magneton attracts the negative ions in the body. The YIN or negative magnetron attracts the positive ions in the body.

An equal strength of YIN and YANG magnetron will automatically balance these interplay of ions.

This interplay of ions happen in the body itself but not in the atmosphere. Therefore to clear the air one has to use a negative ioniser.

The Magneton Bio-Rhythm Inductor (healing frequency) combined with the Magneton disc (body ion-balancer) and the negative ioniser (air-cleaner), will balance the strain of external stress and tension. This combined treatment uses existing Natural Healing Forces.

Acupuncture points are ion absorption points, therefore the body can be re-ionised through Magneton metal radiation techniques or acupuncture needling. It enhances the body’s ability to utilise oxygen properly and vitamins also have a similar effect.

Negative ion devices prevent horses from stall-walking, a syndrome characterised by horses endlessly oscillating their heads from side to side. Similar phenomena such as hypertension can be observed with human beings who wear an excess of clothing especially if made of synthetic fabric. All movements obviously increase ionic flow by causing friction with immobilised ionic particles in an electro-magnetically shielded environment.

Under normal conditions the body balances the ionisation by means of nasal cycle eg. taking the breath in through the left nostril negatively ionises the air and the right nostril positively ionises it. Note: running water also produces negative ions.

Dimethylsufoxide (D.S.M.O.) (CH3) acts biologically as a weak donor of electrons when applied externally and a similar dramatic relief of pain. It has local analgesic properties and is absorbed through intact skin. Cortisone (C21H28O5) is also a weak electron donor in tissues.

Observations according to James Beal of N.A.S.A. – 1974

Interesting observations with regard to bio-chemical deviations experienced by astronauts suggest that they may be related to abnormalities in environmental electro-magnetics.

Frequent ventricular contractions (P.V.C.’s), loss of Calcium and a decrease in red blood cell volume of up to 20% have been observed as were certain intestinal gaseous disturbances.

Mice placed in a de-ionised environment showed a generalised physiological deterioration – became ill and died in 24 days. Cold electron emission from acupuncture points might, under these circumstances, be a biological effort to replenish the atmospheric ionic concentration which is necessary to enable the current flows induced by external electro-static and electro-magnetic fields. Body electrical balance then would require elimination of kations eg. Ca+ and K+. Biological systems thus understandably attempt to normalise external environments at the expense of internal electrical reserves, such as Calcium and Potassium.

CONCLUSION: without ions we could not aborb oxygen in the quantities needed to live.

BIOLOGICAL FIELDS AND STRESS

In summary, a general observation of the Biological Fields and stress would lead one to believe that life’s cognising functions lie within the parameter of a biological field. These biological fields may be affirmed to become defective during emotional or physical stress which, if prolonged, subsequently result in cellular disease.

Acupunctural augmentation (increase) of ionic flows to counteract such defective biological fields relieves pain because it is really within these fields that pain is experienced. Similarly, anaesthesia can be produced. Cellular disease is remedied therefore as cells begin to conform to overlying biological fields.

This correlation of psychological stress to biological fields and physical disease is most intriguing.

Acupuncture needles in the mid-forearm cure headaches and needles in the big toe produce anaesthesia for dental extractions. Presumably the mechanism is due to their effects on and within the intricate, continually cognising, biological field. The function of the acupuncture needles is supported by observations of physics, geophysics, biology, biophysics and psychiatry.

THE MINIATURISED BIO-RHYTHM INDUCTOR

The highlight of the Bio-Rhythm Inductor is a new approach of Simple Extra Low Frequencies with oscillating magnetic pulses. Frequency pulses, according to Professors W Ehrmann and W Ludwig at the University of Freiburg and Tubingen, have a resonance to specific body tissue in harmony with the particular patient. It is also in harmony with the numerical philosophy of acupuncture and the theory has more connection with the electrical physiology phenomena (nerves can receive 2500Hz). With a higher wave frequency, the muscle may go slightly into spasm and the feeling of numbness and heaviness – this is a normal reaction.

One may observe the muscle, tendon and joint moving together. This has a relationship to the nerve meridian – muscle and tendon functions.

The reaction at the local muscle will follow the frequency of the wave induced by the magnetic pulse. If the dosage of stimulation is correct, the patient after treatment will be relieved of his syndrome. The body function will be in harmony and he will feel comfortable and full of energy. This treatment is suitable for patients who are scared of acupuncture needling or other treatment.

NOTE: IMPORTANT – One must determine the condition of the patient when determining the degree of stimulation ie. disease condition – acute, chronic, internal or external. Weak magnetic waves can alter brain rhythms. The body itself is a system of electric-magnetic energy.

THE BIO-RHYTHM INDUCTOR

Some basic phenomena on which the Bio-Rhythm Inductor is designed and operated.

An appreciation of some electro-magnetic bio-physics helps to explain acupuncture observations of the past and its relevance also to electro-magnetic low frequency pulse units. Electric currents flow through the acupuncture meridians in the human body; they originate from cellular metabolism and ionic atmospheric and geomagnetic forces and result in electrically measurable force fields about the human body. Electro-magnetic energy can adversely affect these fields, resulting in subjacent cellular derangement’s or disease.

Sub-atomic Particles: The relationship between electrons and magnetic fields.

Moving a wire relative to a magnetic field produces an Electro Motive Force which tends to drive a current (ie. Flowing electrons) within the air in a direction at right angles to the magnetic field. This relationship is involved in all electric motors and generators.

The ion is an electrified particle as in H+ = Hydrogen and OH- = Hydroxyl ion.

H+ Kation (+) is an atom that has lost an electron. Therefore it has a positive charge.

OH- Anion (-) are a pair of atoms that have gained an electron, therefore they have a negative charge.

H+ and OH- are electrified and behave in magnetic fields in exactly the same way that electrons circulate in wires – except that in having more mass, they move more slowly and H+ ions move in the opposite direction to OH- ions.

The way ions tend to behave in magnetic fields, one way or the other, depends upon the ionic charge, and the North/South orientation of the magnetic field. For example, this charged particle/magnetic field relationship shows promise of finding commercial application in generating electric power. Some 50% efficiency can be achieved by driving charged particles (ie. ions) through magnetic fields. Known as M.H.D. or Magneto Hydro Dynamics, this phenomenon also appears to have distinct bio-logical implications. For example, red blood cells rotate on their flat axes in-vivo; in-vitro they will rotate if a magnetic field is applied.

In-vivo = (lively) natural

In-vitro = (sliding) external force applied.

The direction of red blood cell rotation in-vitro reverses if the field is reversed, an observation precisely to be expected of a body presenting ionic surface charges.

Seemingly, the electron spinning while orbiting the atomic anatomy is somewhat similar to our Earth’s rotating while orbiting the revolving Sun.

When radio energy (electro-magnetic waves) is applied to substances at proper frequencies, it causes the electrons to resonate. The frequency at which resonance occurs is also dependent upon the magnetic field strength. In other words, at any fixed radio frequency, electrons may be made to resonate (echoing) by adjusting the magnetic field strength. This phenomenon is called E.P.R. (Electron Para-magnetic Resonance). Electrons therefore may be spinning faster or slower, resonating at different frequencies, switching orbits, with associated emission and/or absorption of light energy (Photons). Medicine of course is acutely interested in the pH (hydrogen ion concentration) of the blood, always seeking to keep it in its balance. When the Bio-rhythm electro-magnetic field pulse is used, and be restored to their correct in-vivo rotation.

Each living cell appears to be a tiny battery generating its own current by chemical action, ie. the Sodium/Potassium Pump. When ions are in motion, they are invariably associated with magnetic fields; these fields have electro-magnetic qualities, therefore underlying the variations in these fields there are tissues of varying activity and resistance.

Extra-ordinarily active tissues are associated with more intensified fields and inactive tissues with diminished fields. There is definitely a relationship of diseased tissue to magnetic fields, so that when an oscillating magnetic pulse is applied at the right frequency and penetrating strength, cellular metabolism through correction of red blood cell rotation is re-established at the proper level. (Phagocytes activity is stimulated at frequencies of 1 – 4 Hz).

It is likely that cold electron emission from acupuncture points or reflex areas may be a biological effort to replenish external atmospheric ionic concentrations outside the body, and as this requires discharge of certain kations eg. Ca+ and K+, the depletion of internal mineral reserves may result.

In summary, a general observation of bio-logical fields and stress, would lead one to believe that life’s cognising functions lie within the parameter of a bio-logical field.

Biological fields may be affirmed to become defective during emotional or physical stress, which if prolonged, subsequently results in cellular disease.

Electro-magnetic augmentation of ionic flows to counteract such defective biological fields, relieves pain, because it is really within such defective fields that pain is experienced. Similarly analgesia can be produced.

According to Robert O Becker, the presence of life regulating organisms is based upon electronic conduction mechanisms; he also proved that such systems can be used in a clinical fashion by applying appropriate levels of externally generated electro-magnetic energy; eg. the oscillating Bio-rhythm inductor.

Cellular disease is therefore remedied as cells begin once more to conform to their overlying biological fields.

The frequency used for dilation and constriction depends on the blood vessel sizes, so one should allow a random sweep through the range required, say 5 minutes for each frequency.

Certain frequencies have proven results in eliminating the specific problems listed.

• 8Hz and below causes vaso-dilation (enlarged blood vessels)
• 12Hz and above causes vaso-constrictions (narrowing of the arteriolar lumen)
• 0.87-3 Hz = for tendons and muscles, nerve system in harmony with blood and lymph.
• 2 Hz = used where there is inflammation or infection.
• 3-8 Hz = central and peripheral nervous system where distribution is to the skin of the superficial structure of the body which is a branch of C.N.S.
• 1-4 Hz = counteracts infections. It stimulates phagocytes and the immune system. Phagocytes engulf and digest foreign particles which are harmful to the body.
• 4-8 Hz = dating effect counteracting muscular spasm.
• 8 Hz = Is an analgesic tonic and is stabilising (stops pain)
• 5-13 Hz = the human brain’s electrical activity in the alpha and high theta range. A case can be made that human beings evolved within mimie and are dependent upon the earth’s electro-magnetic phenomenon.
• 8-16 Hz = analgesic, tonic and stabilising, relieves tension and chronic tension eg. headache or directly to organs.
• 16 Hz = specific for rheumatic complaints. It responds to a range of frequency; use 16 Hz for a chronic case.
• 16-32 Hz = generally stimulating. Also has a recuperating effect on patients who are stressed and have low vitality.
• 32 Hz = stimulating and tonifying.
• 1-32 Hz = generally for acute pain syndromes or compulsive disorders, eg. obesity, alcoholism and drug addiction.
• 64 Hz = short burst on Lo points.
• 2000 Hz = removes cravings for methylphenidate in the addict.

Connie Chung, co-anchor: This is the age of wonder drugs and high-tech cures, but alternative treatments, from herbs to acupuncture, have true believers, too, even among some mainstream doctors and researchers. Latest case in point: the wintertime blues. Is it possible that changing the air you breath can treat those negative vibes and actually relieve depression? Dr. Bob Arnot has the story.

Dr. Bob Arnot: If the blustery winds of winter blowing across the nation this week are bringing you down, there’s good reason. Researchers now believe that the ill winds strip away highly charged subatomic particles called negative ions from the air around us, contributing to a seasonal form of depression.

Ms Mahala Holmes (patient): As far back as I can recall, I had feelings of dreading the winter and I was depressed during the winter.

Bob Arnot: Doctors at Columbia demonstrated the use of this machine (The VI-2000 High Density Negative Ionizer is Shown and Visually Seen) to pump high-density negative ions into the air surrounding Mahala Holmes to treat her depression, known as seasonal affective disorder.

Ms Mahala Holmes: While I was on treatment, (Ms Holmes is SEEN using the VI-2000 High Density Negative Ionizer) I felt excited, I felt energized. I felt alive.

Bob Arnot: Here’s why. Level of brain chemical responsible for mood, called serotonin, are often lower in cases of season depression. Serotonin levels can be elevated by increased exposure to light or by antidepressants like Prozac. Researchers say negative ions may also increase brain levels of serotonin.

Dr. Michael Terman (Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center): People noticed that daytime energy was returning to normal levels. They lost that pressure for increased sleep, the difficulty awakening in time to get to work.

Bob Arnot: A study in the current “Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine” concluded that 58 percent of patients treated with high density negative ions had significant relief of their symptoms, almost identical to the number improved with drugs, but without drug side effects.

Dr. Norman Rosenthal (National Institute of Mental Health): From a scientific point of view, it’s very exciting. It needs to be replicated.

Bob Arnot: The whole idea of using negative ions as a legitimate medical treatment may seem just a little bit odd. But while many doctors are still highly skeptical about alternative medicines, more and more Americans are turning to them because they haven’t found the satisfaction they want from mainstream medicine…… Dr. Bob Arnot, CBS Evening News, New York.

Call them air purifiers, but antidepressants might be a better name for those electronic gizmos that pump negative ions (invisible electric charges) into the air and are touted as good for everything from allergies to weather-related mood changes.

Michale and Jiuan Su Terman, research psychologists at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University, have set out to test the effects of industrial strength [high density] ionizers on “Seasonal Affective Disorder.”

In the first of several planned trials, 25 people with winter depression sat in front of the machine for a half hour upon awakening for 29 days. About half the subjects received a low level of the negatively charged air, and the other “millions of ions” more than standard purifiers generate; explains Michael Terman. “The higher dose was as effective as light therapy or antidepressants for the disorder and did not cause side effects.”

REDWOOD CITY- A case of the blahs at work may really be a case of the “VODS.”

Workplaces where video display terminals are used are subject to contamination with discomforting positive ions, according to a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration.

VODS stands for Video Operator Distress Syndrome, and the troublesome malady is not uncommon among the millions of workers who use computer video display terminals.

Charles Wallach, consultant to the Food and Drug Administration on the effects of working with electronic video equipment, told reporters in the San Mateo County Hall of Justice and Records pressroom how to beat a case of the VODS.

Wallach, 64, works in Washington, D.C. He has served as a consultant to many government agencies and industries to create a more healthy indoor working environment.

The cause of the VODS, Wallach said, is a high electrostatic charge generated on the face of a video screen’s cathode ray tube. Government standards protect the intrinsic safety of cathode ray tubes. Wallach said, but the VODS nevertheless still can do bodily harm.

“This charge, which may quickly reach many thousands of volts when the tube is energized, is not in itself a hazard. The tube merely creates the hazard within the foot or so of air space between itself and the operator’s face,” Wallach said.

Those who work too close to the face of a cathode ray tube or who work before a terminal for too long a time typically experience increased fatigue levels, eye strain, blurred vision, skin rash, headaches, back pains, irritability, anxiety, depression, an d general apathy.

While the cause of these symptoms may also be a depleted bank account, domestic troubles or a tyrannical boss, they can be caused by the computer terminal, Wallach said.

The culprits that cause the VODS are positive ions or charged molecules of air, created at the face of the video display terminal.

What are needed in the workplace, Wallace explained, are negative ions. In contrast to positive ions, negatively charged molecules of air, or negative ions, promote a sense of well-being for people.

“Every place people like to be is rich in negative ions,” Wallach said.

Video display terminal operators need their negative ions.

“In weighing the evidence, I am convinced that the aero-electrostatic qualities of an indoor environment are the most significant single factor in the control of unavoidable indoor air pollution,” Wallach said.

Most commonly, offices need to install equipment to generate negative ions in the air above the video terminal operators. The devices typically look like small bristle brushes used to clean glasses or test tubes. They are suspended from the ceiling at t he end of long rods.

At the northern Santa Clara County Communications center in Palo Alto City Hall, negative ion generators were installed on the ceiling over the dispatchers about a year and a half ago.

Cliff Almeida, operations manager at the communications center, said Monday that the ionizers have definitely filtered out pipe and cigarette smoke.

But he declined to speculate whether the ionizers created a better working environment with less stress.

Indoors there are very few ions and the balance is mostly positive ions. This is because negative ions exist for a short length of time. They are destroyed by air pollution while hot electrical discharges such as sparking, electric motors, furnaces, etc., generate an excess of positive ions.  The movement of air over metal ductwork strips the air of negative ions.

Negative Ion Generators, or Air Ionizers, need to produce large amounts of negative ions to restore the ion ratio. By adding negative ions to the environment, the airborne particles will take on this electronic charge and be attracted to oppositely charged particles which will become heavy enough to settle to the ground by gravity, or the charged particle will be attracted to grounded objects such as the floor. This is known as the Cohesion Effect. In either case the particles have been removed form the air so they are not breathed in.

Nearly all static discharges are high imbalances of positive ionic energy. The addition of negative energy in the form of negative ions helps to balance the excess positive ionic energy within the environment, thus reducing static discharges.

Negative Ion Generators are most useful in the winter months or during summer months when the doors and windows are shut and the air conditioning is on.

Researchers believe that through control of the electrical charges in the air we breathe, our moods, energy and health can be markedly improved. Condensed from The Rotarian., byRobert O’Brien

One sweltering day in Philadelphia this summer a man sat before a small metal box resting atop a hospital file cabinet. It was plugged into an ordinary wall socket. A doctor flipped a switch. Inside the box a small fan whirred; the box hummed distantly, like a high-tension wire, and gave off a faint, sweetish odor. Soon the man felt alert, magically refreshing, as though he’d been taking deep gulps of sparkling October air. The doctor turned the machine off, switched on another that looked just like it. The air grew quickly stale. The man’s head felt stuffy. His eyes smarted. His head began to ache. He felt vaguely depressed and tired.

With this simple experiment, the scientist-Dr. Igho H. Kornblueh, of the American Institute of Medical Climatology- demonstrated the effect that atmospheric icons can have on human beings. The first machine generated negative ions; the second, positive ions.

The air around us is filled with these electrically charged particles. They are generated in invisible billions by cosmic rays, radioactive elements in the soil, ultraviolet radiation, storms, waterfalls, winds, the friction of blowing sand or dust. Every time we draw a breath they fill our lungs and are carried by the blood to our body cells. They appear to have a lot to do with such varied things as our moods, why cattle grow skittish before a storm, why rheumatic joints “tingle” when the barometer falls, and how ants know in advance that it’s going to rain, in time to block their tunnels.

Falling barometric pressure and hot, dry, seasonal winds, such as the Alpine fohn and the Rocky Mountain chinook, for example, pack the air with an excess of positive ions. Not everyone is affected; healthy young people swiftly adapt to the change. But countless others are distressed. The aged come down with respiratory complaints, aching joints; asthma sufferers wheeze and gasp; children grow cranky and perverse; crime and suicide rates climb.

The Positive Effect of Negative Ions On the other hand, a preponderance of negative ions spices the air with exhilarating freshness. We feel on top of the world. Dr. C.W. Hansell, research fellow at RCA Laboratories and an international authority on ionization, illustrates the effect with a story about his ten-year old daughter. “We were outside, watching the approach of a thunderstorm. I knew that clouds of negative ions were filling the air. Suddenly my daughter began to dance across the grass, a radiant look on her face. She leaped up on a low boulder, threw her arms wide to the dark sky, and cried, ‘Oh, I feel wonderful!’”

Negative ions “cure” nothing that we know of, at most afford relief only so long as one inhales them. Many doctors doubt their therapeutic effects. But there is a growing army of people who swear by them.

“Total Relief” At the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate Hospital and at Northeastern and Frankford hospitals in Philadelphia, Dr. Kornbleuh and his associates have administered negative- ion treatments to hundreds of patients suffering from hay fever or bronchial asthma. Of the total, 63 percent have experienced partial to total relief. “They come in sneezing, eyes watering, noses itching, worn out from lack of sleep, so miserable they can hardly walk,” one doctor told me. “Fifteen minutes in front of the negative-ion machine and they feel so much better they don’t want to leave.”

It was RCA’s Dr. Hansell who, in 1932, stumbled upon the behavioral effects of artificially generated ions. He noticed a startling swing in the moods of a fellow RCA scientist who worked beside an electrostatic generator. Some days the scientist finished work alert and in bubbling good spirits. On other days he was rude, ill-tempered, depressed. Dr.Hansell investigated, found that the scientist produce negative ions, morose when it was producing positive ions. A few months later, reports of ionization research in Europe confirmed the strange experience.

A few years ago atmospheric ions became suddenly important to military researchers in environmental medicine. How would they affect men locked in submarines? In space ships; What were the possibilities of ion therapy? Research programs multiplied, with fantastic results. Effective Pain-Killer

In Philadelphia Dr. Kornblueh studied brainwave patterns and found evidence that negative ions tranquilized persons in severe pain. In one dramatic test he held a high density negative ionizer to the nose and mouth of a factory worker who had been rushed to Northeastern Hospital with second- degree burns on his back and legs. In minutes the pain was gone. Patients are left in the room for 30 minutes. The treatment is repeated three times every 24 hours. In 85 percent of the cases no pain-deadening narcotics are needed. Says Northeastern’s Dr. Robert McGowan, “Negative ions make burns dry out faster, heal faster and with less scarring. They also reduce the need for skin-grafting. They make the patient more optimistic. He sleeps better.”

Encouraged by this success in burn therapy, Dr. Kornblueh, Dr. J.R. Minehart, Northeastern’s chief surgeon, and his associate Dr. T.A. David boldly tried negative ions in relief of deep, post-operative pain. During an eighth- month test period they exposed 138 patients to negative ions on the first and second days after surgery. Dr. Kornblueh has just announced the results at a London congress of bioclimatologists. In 79 cases- 57 percent of the total- negative ions eliminated or drastically reduced pain.

“At first,” says Dr. Minehart, “I thought it was voodoo. Now I’m convinced that it’s real- and revolutionary.”

Experiments by Dr. Albert P. Krueger and Dr. Richard F. Smith at the University of California have shown how ionization affects those sensitive to air-borne allergens. Our bronchial tubes and trachea, or windpipe, are lined with tiny filaments called cilia. The cilia normally maintain a whiplike motion of about 900 beats a minute. Together with mucus, they keep our air passages free of dust and pollen. Krueger and Smith exposed tracheal tissue to negative ions, found that the ciliary beat was speeded up to 1200 a minute and that mucus flow was increased. Doses of positive ions produced the opposite effect: ciliary beat slowed to 600 a minute or less; the flow of mucus dropped.

Counteracting Cancer In experiments that may prove important in cancer research, Drs. Krueger and Smith also discovered that cigarette smoke slows down the cilia and impairs their ability to clear foreign, and possibly carcinogenic (cancer- inducing), substances from the lungs. Positive ions, administered along with the cigarette smoke lowered the ciliary beat as before, but from three to ten times faster than in normal air. Negative ions, however, counteracted the effects of the smoke. Observed Dr. Krueger, “The agent in cigarette smoke that slows down the ciliary beat is not known. Whatever it may be, its action is effectively neutralized by negative ions, which raise the ciliary beat as well as in a heavy atmosphere of cigarette smoke as they do in fresh air.”

Mood Alteration How do ions trip off our moods? Most authorities agree that ions act on our capacity to absorb and utilize oxygen. Negative ions in the blood stream accelerate the delivery of oxygen to our cells and tissues, frequently give us the same euphoric jolt that we get from a few whiffs of straight oxygen. Positive ions slow down the delivery of oxygen , producing symptoms markedly like those in anoxia, or oxygen starvation. Researchers also believe that negative ions may stimulate the reticulo-endothelial system, a group of defense cells in our bodies which marshal our resistance to disease.

Dr. Krueger predicts that we shall some day regulate the ion level indoors much as we now regulate temperature and humidity. Ironically, today’s air-conditioned buildings, trains, and planes frequently become supercharged with harmful positive ions because the metal blowers, filters and ducts of air-conditioning systems strip the air of negative ions before it reaches its destination. Says RCA’s Dr. Hansell, This explains why so many people in air- conditioned spots feel depressed and have an urge to throw open a window.”

Air-conditioner manufacturers are designing new systems that increase negative ionization. The American Broadcasting Co. will equip its new 30-story New York City headquarters with ion control. Two national concerns, Philco and Emerson Electric, already have ion-control air- conditioning systems on the market. RCA, Westinghouse, General Electric and Carrier Corp. have similar products under study or development.

We still have much to learn about atmospheric ions. But researchers believe that these magic bits of electricity, under artificial control, will soon be helping millions to healthier, happier, more productive lives.

By John Heinerman, Ph.D.
Foreward by Lendon Smith, M.D.

Section One: Vitamins of the Air

Approximately half-a-century ago, a certain woman living in a large, crowded city contracted tuberculosis. Doctors did what they could for her without any avail. They gave her a morbid prognosis of inevitable death and she was consigned to a gloomy existence without any hope or reason to live.

Deciding that she would at least die in more pleasant surroundings, she moved from the big city to a humble log cabin in a pine forest somewhere in the State of Maine. For an entire Winter she stayed there, busying herself with things that kept her mind happy and occupied.

By next Spring she noticed a peculiar thing about her respiratory state of health. Virtually all of her symptoms of her former disease had abated. Going to several medical doctors and a local hospital for various checkups, she was pronounced free of TB. Her recovery was later chronicled in a national best-seller entitled, I Lived in the Woods.

It wasn’t anything in her diet that promoted such a remarkable turnaround in her incurable disorder. Rather it was what she breathed every few seconds that accomplished the most good for her.

In a past issue of Soviet Life magazine (April 1969, p. 43), a leading Russian biologist, Nikolai Kholodkovsky made the following highly interesting observations: “The air we breathe in the woods or in gardens contains vitamins given off by plants.” His studies had shown that in each cubic meter of air there are several milligrams of volatile substances, including vitamins.

Two of the nutrients emitted from the tree bark and needles of fragrant pine odoe, he discovered, were vitamin C and a form of bioflavonoid called proanthocyanidins. Because bioflavonoids and ascorbic acid often appear in combination with each other in plants, they form powerful antioxidant effects.

The woman who previously suffered from TB obviously benefitted from the forest air charged with vitamin C, which the research of twice Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling has shown to be outstanding for fighting viral infections of any kind. But the bioflavonoid with it, the proanthycyanidins, also deserves considerable merit for the prevention and treatment of many infectious diseases. This vital nutrient is better known by its trademark name of Pycnogenol, based on the clinical research of Dr. Jack Masquelier of the University of Bordeaux in France, who discovered it in the bark of the French maritime pine tree which grows in the Les Landes pine forest along the Atlantic coast of southern France.

Both of the powerful antioxidants, which Kholodkovsky first reported on over two decades ago, are extremely useful for controlling the deadly activity of a group of compounds within the body called free radicals. These scavenger molecules are lacking an electron and roam through the body at random, robbing normal molecules of their electrons. In doing so, free radicals create a great deal of havoc and mischief with the body’s delicately structured biochemistry. What antioxidants do is to curb or check this destructive action.

Thus, it was that this woman’s particular health condition, which the doctors had completely given up hope of ever curing, was unwittingly reversed by her geographical relocation into another environment totally charged with nutrients in the air. It was, in a very real sense, these “vitamins of the air,” which had healed her lungs of this ravaging disease.

All too often we’re inclined to thick of vitamins as only coming from food or health food supplements. But the very definition of the word “vitamin” suggests otherwise. “Vitamin” is really a composite of two separate words with different meanings to them: but when linked together surely do present a compelling argument for considering the air we breathe in a nutritional light.

Now “vita” comes from the Latin word for “life”. And an “amine” is defined by dictionary experts as “any of various compounds derived from ammonia by replacement of hydrogen by one or more univalent hydrocarbon radicals.” Which is a fancy way of saying in cruder terminology that a vitamin is essentially a “life gas” or for our purposes here, “life air”. Thus, it would be linguistically correct to assert that a vitamin is, indeed, an “air nutrient” as given by the formula definition above.

Section Two: Inhaling Minerals For Health [ Top ]

A very popular self-help manual by James F. Balch, M.D. and his wife Phyllis has become a favorite of the health food industry within the last several years because of its total emphasis on food supplement consumption as a ready Prescription for Nutritional Healing (the title of their book). On page 17 they identify macro (bulk) and micro (trace) minerals as coming from soil, plant foods, meat, and, of course, mineral supplements in tablet, capsule, liquid, and powder forms. But nothing is ever siad by them or any other nutritionists concerning minerals from the air!

You don’t need a college education to figure out that if we aren’t supplied with hydrogen and ixygen in sufficient quatnities, we’re going to die within a matter of minutes. These two trace elements are considered to be micro minerals without which the body could not function and would readily perish in no time at all.

Beyond them, however, are other minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, and zinc, which the body depends upon for the normal maintenance of good health. Because of massive advertising by the health food industry and the single-mindedness of scientific opinion, consumers are led to believe that the best source for minerals is food and food supplements. Very little is ever said about water, let alone air, as being potential contributors of minerals.

This realization first dawned upon me in the early summer of 1979 when I accompanied a delegation of scientists and lay people to the Soviet Union for several weeks. Our trip was arranged for by the Citizen Exchange Corps out of New York City and Boston and the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. A colleague and friend of mine who accompanied me on this historic trip was the late Professor Emeritus Walter McCain of the University of Connecticut at Storrs. Because he could speak Russian fluently, I had opportunities available to me that many of the others in our group didn’t have to do some investigative research in health institutes we visited along the way.

Dr. McCain and I spent an afternoon on Monday, June 4th by ourselves touring the “Central Scientific Research Institute of Health Resorts and Physical Therapy” located on Kalinin Avenue in Moscow. Dr McCain knew the directors in the institute from a previous visit – - Drs, Victor G. Yasnogorodsky and Dr, Vasily M. Bogoljubov.

While giving us a personal tour of this large facility, we became very intrigued by a room with a sign on the door reading “Climate Therapy” in Russian. Inside we were shown rather curiously engineered devices designed to mimic different types of air quality for specific ailments. For instance, tuberculosis sufferers were recommended a machine simulating “mountain air”; asthma sufferers were prescribed a machine generating warm, dry, desert’like air; while emphysema patients and those experiencing chronic lung inflammation were put on a machine yielding an air reminiscent of a sea coast.

They told us that the success of these machines and the airs they simulated from different environments in nature, was due largely to the mineral ions found in each of them. I, of course, had always been familiar with air ions in general, and knew from published scientific research that positive ions (posions) could make a person feel crummy and sick, while negative ions (negions) stimulated vibrant health and left you with an exhilarated feeling. But this was the first time I had ever heard them referred to as “mineral” ions.

My introduction to this radically different concept of air minerals was something of a new experience for me. And, just like the Wonderland into which Alice tumbled gehind the Looking Glass, I became more “curioser and curiouser” as our trip continued.

The real clincher, though for vitamins and minerals from the air. came to a head in the oil producing city of Baku beside the Caspian Sea, in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaidjan (now a newly self-declared nation of its own). There we had ample opportunity to learn a great deal more about the benefits of nutritional air at the Zone Z’drovia, or Zone of Health.

On Friday morning, June 9th, our group visited this remarkable midical clinic situated just inside an ancient stone wall ssurrounding the oldest part of the city. Here we discovered to our utter delight and astonishment, a wide range of natural therapies available for a host of illnesses. Some of those therapies, as I look back on that time through the pages of my well-kept journals, were a little on the exotic side.

Take phytotherapy, in which young and old alike with problems ranging from hypertension and chronic bronchitis to fatigue disorders and heart disease spent an average of ten minutes or so sniffing the fragrances of laurel, geranium, or rosemary (the fragrance of the geranium, we were told, is especially good for “acute headache, neuroses, high blood pressure and insomnia”). And, if that sounds a little bizarre, consider this: those plants were being “fertilized” with mineral water, glucose and even drugs – - including common aspirin!

This course of treatment, I learned, differs from the popular European and American aromatherapy in one important respect. The former utilizes the whole living plant, while the latter uses just the natural aromatic essence extracted from it. The concept is basically the same as whether you derive your essential nutrients from food or from food supplements. Common sense dictates that the first is always better for you than the second, because the nutrition you’re ingesting is complete and alive!

We were informed by Dr. Abdul Kuschev, the clinic’s Director of Medical Science, that the ultimate benefit to their version of phytotherapy lay in the fact that the patient obtained his or her necessary minerals from the invisible air ions emitted from different garden herbs. These, he stated through an interpreter, were what made patients feel better by solving their problems nutritionally – - through nutrition from the air!

These things brought me full circle a couple of years later while watching the “Tom Snyder Show” on television in my home on December 9th, 1981 at 12:25 a.m. His guest was an exceedingly thin fellow named Wiley Brooks (then age 48) from Boulder, Colorado. Mr. Brooks was exceptionally unusual in that he claimed to obtain all of his nourishment from just two things – - namely air and water! He styled himself a “breathairian” who lived by breathing his “food” insteac of eating it in the conventional way the rest of us do.

He said that the key to understanding his off-the-wall philosophy was found in Genesis 2:7, which he quoted from memory: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the groung, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

When asked what the difference was between those in self-imposed starvation and himself, he continued: “The difference between me and hunger strikers [imprisoned members of the terrorist organization the Irish Republican Army] in Belfast is that they quit eating to die, while I quit eating to live better!”

He added: “I’ve discovered by breathing pure mountain air in the high Colorado Rockies that I’m able to obtain just about all of the nutrients my body could ever want; the water I drink to keep myself from dehydrating, supplies the rest.” He joked by saying that the hardest problem he now faced with this new change of healthful lifestyle was when his old friends and acuaintances invited him out to dinner. “I’ll usually tell them, ‘you go ahead and eat and I’ll just step outside for my snack – - a few breaths of fresh air!”

However ridiculous or extreme this may seem to some readers, it does underscore a significanttruth: air contains many of the vitamins and minerals our bodies need in trace amounts in the form of very minute, beneficially charged molicules known as negions. This is the food we inhale from air near the ocean, in the tops of the mountains, by a waterfall, after a good rain and thunderstorm, and in our bathroom showers. This is the nourishment which will belp us to retain youghful vitality and enfoy longer life. It is the type of air the Antediluvians breathed before the Great Flood.

Section Three: Prehistoric Atomosphere [ Top ]

Something in the Bible used to puzzle me for years until my research into negions was the great discrepancy in age differences between pre-Flood and post-Flood man. Genesis informs us that the Antediluvians enjoyed astonishing longevity rates reahing into many centuries and, in some cases, almost climaxing a complete millennium before their expirations. Whereas, we find the age of men in Abraham’s time diminishing considerably to the point that a few who managed to live beyond 150 were considered to be very old.

But part of the solution to this vexing problem for scholars may be found in the words of the great.

Question: Is there such a thing as Ionized Water that is charged Negative Ions?
Answer: Absolutely. And it’s the Most Beneficial Thing a Person can Possibly Put in their body.