Chirumbolo's article (2025) points out that ozone therapy (OOT) does much more than just provide antioxidant protection via glutathione: it activates multiple regulatory pathways in the body that promote repair, regeneration and immune modulation. Glutathione remains important, but only as part of this process, not as a substitute for the broader effectiveness of OOT.

OOT works via multiple pathways (“multi-target intervention”), including redox modulation (regulation of oxidative and reductive processes), endothelial (blood vessel wall) repair, increasing the availability of nitric oxide (NO), and immune reprogramming. 

Unlike OOT, intravenous administration of glutathione (IV-GSH) provides only transient antioxidant support without activating upstream adaptive signalling pathways. 

Mechanistic modelling (ODE model: ordinary differential equations) was used to estimate the contribution of the GSH/GSSG system to the total effect of OOT. The sensitivity analysis suggested that this contribution is relatively small: less than 10 % in adults and approximately 2 % in the elderly. 

The recovery trajectories over six months show that OOT quickly leads to almost complete recovery (in the models), while IV-GSH tends to reach a plateau quickly with minimal improvement. 

The authors conclude that OOT is not simply an “antioxidant therapy,” but a systemic bioregulatory treatment — particularly suitable for immune, inflammatory, pain (nociceptive) and degenerative disorders. Glutathione plays a supporting role in this, but cannot replace the multi-pathway action of OOT. 

If you would like to know more, please refer to the article on Pub Med: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40991178/