3.8 BILLIONS YEAR AGO
HISTORY OF DEPLETED DEUTARIUM WATER
In the first sixty seconds following the Big Bang, the first element was
created. That element was hydrogen, made simply of one proton and one
electron. The temperature was 1 billion degrees. Electrons and positrons
annihilated to make photons, while protons and neutrons combined to make
deuterons, - a proton and neutron pair. Almost all of the deuterons then
combined to make helium. Primordial matter was thus separated into two
unequal parts: one quarter helium, three-quarters hydrogen.
The process, however, was not completely thorough; as the universe cooled a
small percentage of deuterium nuclei remained as they were, unpaired and
isolated, trapped between hydrogen and helium. Most became the source of
star energy along with hydrogen. The deuterium atoms that survived the
stellar furnaces eventually combined two-to-one with oxygen atoms to create
water, now found in seawater and fresh water on Earth. There are in fact
about 6 drops (300 milligrams) of deuterium in each liter of water on our
planet.
13.79999 billion years to 1932 when Harold C. Urey and his colleagues
Ferdinand G. Brickwedde and George R. Murphy at Columbia University proved
the existence of deuterium. Before their discovery it was believed hydrogen
contained one proton and one electron. This rare heavier isotope of hydrogen
with an added neutron doubles the weight and has a mass of 2. Deuterium had
gone undetected by physicists perhaps because it only made up 0.0149% of all
hydrogen in the Universe, or 1 heavy water molecule for every 3300 of
regular water molecules in seawater.
Some physicists suspected the existence of a second isotope of hydrogen as
early as 1913, and Urey was keen prove it true once and for all. With
certainty, he knew it must exist because something between the atomic weight
and the mass spectrographic value of hydrogen simply did not add up. And
with Brickwedde’s help at the Cryogenic Laboratory at the National Bureau of
Standards they unlocked the mystery and proved its existence. The excitement
of what they had discovered created a brisk back and forth on what to name
it: barogen, haplogen, diplogen, deutium and dygen were suggested.
Eventually they settled on deuterium (from the ancient Greek deúteros
meaning second). To single proton hydrogen, that makes up 99.98% of all
hydrogen they gave the name protium.
In 1934 Dr. Urey won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this monumental
discovery that would usher in the atomic age. Concentrated deuterium, i.e.,
heavy water was the missing piece needed for nuclear reactors and the making
of atomic bombs. It can be stated that because of Urey, Brickwedde, and
Murphy, the world would never be the same.
Urey’s mentor Gilbert N. Lewis, professor of chemistry at Berkeley, was the
first to create pure heavy water via electrolysis in 1933 shortly after Urey
proved its existence. And subsequently he was the first to observe that this
heavy water when frozen would sink instead of float like normal water ice. He
also observed it strongly delayed the reproduction of microbes and retarded
the growth of seeds.
A new era of research, focusing on this newly discovered hydrogen isotope,
deuterium, was ushered in. Soon after professor Lewis' heavy water
observations, Oscar W. Richards, a researcher at the Osborn Zoological Lab
at Yale University showed that the splitting process of sugar with yeast is
nine times slower in heavy water. What looked and felt like normal water was
something altogether different.
From 1934 to 1939 H.G. Barbour and his colleagues from the Pharmacology
Department at Yale initiated the first systematic study on the effects of
heavy water on mice. Between 1933 and 1939 there were 216 published English
language studies on the biological effects of deuterium, all arriving at the
same observation: heavy water was an impairment on life. The experiments
replacing normal water with just 30% heavy water caused bacteria, plants,
and animals to die in a matter of days. More research needed to be done, but
as World War II approached, heavy water became increasingly difficult to
obtain for further study because of the great demand in the military sector.
Biological research on deuterium was stifled and gradually faded away until
the 1950’s.
It was about the same time Francis H.C. Crick and James D. Watson announced
the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, that a gerontology and genetics
graduate student named Gennady D. Berdyshev at the University of Tomsk in
Siberia (Soviet Union) was urged on by a colleague, Boris N. Rodimov, a
biophysicist, to investigate a very peculiar anomaly concerning lifespans of
the Soviet population. While the average percentage of centenarians in all
of the Soviet Union was less than 10 per one million, in certain areas of
Siberia there was a striking number of centenarians – 324 per one million
people, and furthermore, most of the population of Altai and Yakutia enjoyed
great health and vitality well into their old age. Knowing that these
regions were uniquely provided with pristine glacial-melt water from high
altitudes, he was motivated to investigate this factor as a possible common
denominator of the longevity of their inhabitants. Scientists focused on the
possibility that some unique and unrecognized water characteristic might be
involved - a mystery hidden perhaps in ancient glacial ice.
The first experiments consisted of mining permafrost at a depth of 20 meters
and melting water that had lain as ice for 300 million years. In the lab, it
was observed that water stimulated cell division and slowed down aging. When
the institute could no longer pay for the extraction of ancient ice they
evaluated Siberian snow from their own vicinity, and to their surprise it
had a similar effect. The theory of deuterium depleted water was beginning
to take shape.
The experiments done by V.M. Muhachev at the Tomsk University in 1959 to
1960 convinced his colleagues that even a small dose of deuterium distorted
the chemistry of hydrogen bonding and inhibited sub-molecular processes. By
1960 Berdyshev had enough information to conclusively link the longevity of
the Yakuts and the Altaians with the consumption of glacial melt water. The
researchers from Tomsk discovered that ancient ice, high latitude mountain
snow, and glacial runoff were 15-20% depleted in deuterium compared to what
became known as the Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (VSMOW), which is
155.76 ppm at the equator. As a matter of historical record, the findings
were first published in an agricultural journal in Omsk in 1961.
No sooner had Berdyshev, Rodimov, Muhachev, et., al discovered this
rejuvenating water, that a Level 6 nuclear disaster occurred at the Kyshtym
nuclear power plant in the southern Ural Mountains, the third largest
nuclear disaster in history! Berdyshev and his colleagues provided their
newly discovered “miracle melt water” to a number of the victims and they
were saved. It wasn’t until after the Soviet Union fell that the Russians
declassified the disaster as well as how deuterium depleted water was used in
medical treatment.
In 1966 Rodimov and his Biophysics Department chair I.V. Toroptsev were
allowed to publish their work in English for the benefit of researchers and
scientists everywhere. With their groundbreaking findings in Biological
Role of Heavy Water in Living Organisms they put Siberia on the map.
They became the very first scientists to show how water depleted in deuterium
had a positive biological effect. In the mouse experiments, they observed
the increase of heavy water to 3% caused offspring to have a 20% lower birth
weight, 3X smaller adult size than the control group, and the inability to
reproduce a third generation. In another experiment, mice consuming glacial
melt water had greater sexual activity and grew faster and bigger than the
control group. These experiments were repeated in many Soviet institutions
with different animals and plants. Considering that deuterium had only been
discovered 30 years before, this was a monumental breakthrough. A secret of
longevity had just been revealed!
Coincidentally, around the same time, one of the greatest revelations in
biology was taking shape by Paul D. Boyer, a molecular biologist with UCLA.
He discovered that tiny protein nano-motors with in the mitochondria,
sitting at the end of t
By the early 1960’s it was clear that deuterium, although a hydrogen
isotope, was something altogether “different” both biochemically and
biophysically, being twice the mass of protium due to the addition of a
neutron which is absent from normal hydrogen. No other element has such an
extreme difference in mass among its isotopes. Nevertheless, the
understanding of how deuterium functions at the cellular level was yet to be
discovered.
While the Russians were doing their research and making quiet breakthroughs,
Americans were also hot to blaze a deuterium trail. It was 1963 when John F.
Thomson of the Medical Research division of Argonne National Laboratory in
Illinois wrote the definitive 152-page treatise entitled Biological
Effects of Deuterium. The work of his colleagues Joseph J. Katz and
Henry L. Crespi reinforced the biological implications of deuterium, noting
early on in Deuterated Organisms Cultivation and Uses, published in
1966 that deuterium affects the shape of proteins and the replication of
DNA. Laboratory mice experiments were conducted in which their normal body
water was altered in the percentage (%) of heavy water, yielded the
following results:
Experiment #1: Laboratory mice body water was increased in concentration of
heavy water to 30%. It proved to be fatal to the mice in a matter of days.
Experiment #2: Laboratory mice body water was depleted in deuterium by 30%
(105 ppm), resulting in significantly increased lifespans.
Ten years later in 1974, again at Argonne National Labs, British scientist
T.R. Griffiths, at the 2nd International Conference on Stable Isotopes,
proposed the theory that deuterium might be the primary cause of aging. In Possible
Roles of Deuterium in the Initiation and Propagation of Aging and Other
Biochemical Mechanisms and Processes he states, “Deuterium adversely
affects the shape of enzyme molecules which are involved in DNA
replication.” He observed that deuterium being more electronegative than
hydrogen, twice as heavy, and having different atomic binding properties
than normal hydrogen (protium), interfered with DNA replication. When DNA
repair enzymes contain deuterium in a position reserved for protium, they
have a potential for participating in an error reaction, thereby
compromising DNA replication and repair. The following year, in 1975, J.D.
Gleason and I. Friedman, replicating the Russian findings on plant growth,
publishing the first American study on using deuterium depleted water (DDW)
to increase the growth of grains. This small but significant publication in
NATURE magazine paved the way for a new generation of scientists to try and
understand deeper the function of deuterium in the biology of living things.
When the Hunza people of northern Pakistan were investigated for their
increased longevity and lack of illness it was determined that the deuterium
content of their water, from the glaciers of Mt. Ultar, was about 133 ppm, a
deviation of 16% from the 155 ppm global standard. A 16% reduction may not
seem significant, however, Griffiths’ theory further predicted that the
adverse biological effect of deuterium is proportional to the square of the
concentration. And that is the reason we now know that even a slight
depletion of deuterium has a great biological benefit. By the 1990’s pivotal
research was being furthered in Romania and Hungary.
W. Bild and colleagues at the Romanian University of Medicine and
Pharmacology showed that mice exposed to a sub-lethal dose of 8.5 grays of
radiation had a greater survival rate on deuterium depleted water. Mice
consuming water that was reduced to 30 ppm of deuterium had a 61% survival
rate whereas the control group consuming plain tap water (150 ppm) had a
survival rate of only 25%. The test group also maintained normal white blood
cell and red blood cell platelet counts as compared to the control group
which did not. The same two groups of unfortunate rodents were also infected
with pneumonia and the test group showed an intensification of immune
defenses not seen in the control group. The scientists concluded that mice
with lower levels of deuterium in their systems would benefit from less error
prone cell division and more effective repair of radiation damaged DNA. It
was proof yet again that deuterium depleted water had some unknown and
seemingly miraculous biological effect. These animal tests were carried out
for the sole purpose of evaluating the effects of deuterium depletion for
patients undergoing chemotherapy.
This, along with the work of Hungarian Nobel-prize winner Albert
Szent-Gyrgyi, inspired the work of Gabor Somylai, a doctor and molecular
biologist who in the early 90’s undertook the most extensive clinical trials
of deuterium depletion yet completed, his data published in 1998, in the
paper The Biological Effects of Deuterium Depletion and his 2001
book Defeating Cancer. Somylai’s double-blind clinical trials showed
first that deuterium depleted water was free of any side effects and second,
the survivability of his test group was significantly better than those
cancer patients in the control group. He showed that consuming deuterium
depleted water was an excellent complementary adjuvant to conventional
radiation and chemotherapy. Between October 1992 and the spring of 1999, Dr.
Somylai and his team administered some 350 tons of deuterium depleted water
to approximately 1,200 patents generating over 12,000 pages of documented
records. Currently, in 2019 Somylai has 2,222 case studies on deuterium
depleted water. His groundbreaking work put Hungary on the map as an
important center for research on deuterium depletion.
“Today we
stand at the gateway of a quantum leap in our biology. Thanks to the
pioneers herein, radical life
extension
has a powerful new ally.”
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Berdyshev, by now a distinguished
gerontologist and chair of the genetics department of Taras Shevchenko
National University in Kiev, started the new department of Juventology. His
work no longer a sensitive national security matter, he and his colleagues
built three industrial machines to recreate glacial melt water able to
reduce deuterium levels by 30-40% (90-105 ppm). These engineering
masterpieces separated deuterium out of water using freeze and thaw cycles,
taking advantage of the fact that heavy water freezes at a slightly higher
temperature. It was also publicized that people without access to deuterium
depleted water could do something similar at home calling it the “Melt Water
Cure”. The instructions called for performing repeated freeze and thaw
cycles using a household freezer. By removing the water that freezes first
repeatedly, a 5% reduction was claimed to be achieved. This protocol became
very popular in Russia and many other countries from the 1990’s until today.
However, it was only marginally effective as deuterium levels using this
method could not be reduced significantly enough to make a major difference.
By the beginning of the 21st century it was well understood among
researchers that consumption of deuterium depleted water protected DNA from
damage. But it was not yet known how. Thanks to man’s insatiable desire to
uncover the mysteries of life it was only a matter of time until this puzzle
would be solved.
In 2006, Russian chemist Igor A. Pomytkin and his colleague O.E. Kolesova
published the study Relationship between Natural Concentration of Heavy
Water Isotopologues and Rate of H2O2 Generation by Mitochondria. They
were able to show that whatever mechanism allowed heavy water to damage the
cell and vice-versa allow light water to keep it healthy was happening
somewhere within the mitochondria. The study showed that heavy water
inhibited mitochondria’s ability to produce hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) which
acts as messenger molecules sending signals to regulate oxidative stress.
Pomytkin’s work would lead him to the same conclusion about deuterium’s
effect on ATP as was published the following year.
“Olgun’s
findings may be hailed as one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st
century and one of the greatest oversights of biology.”
The year 2007 marks the occasion of the most monumental discovery in the
short history of deuterium science. Abdullah Olgun, a medical doctor,
biochemist, pharmacologist from the Department of Biochemistry and Clinical
Biochemistry at Gülhane School of Medicine in Ankara, Turkey published the
paperBiological Effects of Deuteronation: ATP Synthase as an Example.
Devoted to the study of the mechanisms that cause aging, it took him an
exhausting two years of research as well as having to obtain another degree
in medical mathematics to show for the first time how deuterium caused its
damage. It occurs in last step of the Electron Transport Chain, within the
ATP Synthase nano - motor. Olgun determined that roughly every 15 seconds a
bare deuteron (a proton – neutron pair), for which there is no open
receptor, impinges on the fast spinning nano-motor, causing it to jam,
stutter and ultimately break down. Olgun further explains in the paperDeuteronation
and Aging, published the same year in the Annals of the New York Academy
of Science that this is one of the key and primary causes of aging! The
mystery of how deuterium damaged life was finally revealed! The Nobel Prize
worthy significance of Olgun’s findings may be hailed as one of the greatest
discoveries of the 21st century and one of the greatest oversights in
biology.
At the time, only a handful were keen to take notice and register the
gravity of this breakthrough. One person that got the picture right was
Anton Chernopiatko, a Russian businessman, scientist and deuterium depletion
enthusiast who co-authored with Pomytkin and Oxford scientists the 2015
study, Deuterium Content of Water Increases Depression Susceptibility:
The Potential Role of a Serotonin-Related Mechanism. Having embraced the
importance of deuterium depletion from an early age, a lifelong quest was
about to manifest. Chernopiatko, now having definitive proof of deuterium’s
role as a biological Trojan horse, took over the task to advance light water
production beyond laboratory and research purposes and construct a factory
to produce light water on a commercial scale.
Whereas Berdyshev in the 90’s had created an industrial process for reducing
deuterium by 30-40% using a refrigerated process, it was at the turn of the
millennium that the first vacuum rectification column exclusively for the
production of light water was developed by Dr. Igor Selivanenko at the
Institute of Fine Chemical Technologies in Moscow. Applying principles from
decades of heavy water separation to the removal of light water, this was a
much more efficient process that could remove 97% or better of heavy water.
In 2008, Chernopiatko, having purchased intellectual property from
Selivanenko and having taken a number of years to improve upon it with his
technologist Alexander Emalianov began, in 2012, the construction of a plant
in the Russian countryside commercializing the technology developed at the
Institute in Moscow. A decade of prototyping, industrial engineering, hard
work and luck yielded the first dedicated facility in the world to produce
90%+ DDW continuously.