Brief History of Deuterium Depleted Water
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 was about the same time Francis H.C. Crick and James D. Watson announced
the double-
helix structure of DNA in 1953, when a gerontology and genetics
graduate student named
Gennady D. Berdyshev at the University of Tomsk in
Siberia (Soviet Union) was urged on
by a olleague, 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 50 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. 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 Tomsk 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 within the mitochondria, sitting
at the end of the Electron Transport Chain (ETC)
bore the final burden for
creating ATP. This protein assembly, spinning at 9000 RPM, has the
structure
and function of a mechanical motor, complete with rotor, stator and magnetic
field.
Boyer christened it “ATP Synthase”. It would be another 40 years, and
the turn of the
millennium, before deuterium’s effect on ATP Synthase would
be uncovered.
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,
and adding a neutron
to the mix. No other element has such an extreme difference in mass
among
its isotopes. 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:
ˇ
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.
ˇ
Experiment #2: Laboratory mice body water was depleted in deuterium
by 30% (105 ppm),
resulting in significantly increased lifespan.
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. Because 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,
published 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 1991 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 patients
generating over 12,000 pages of documented records. His
groundbreaking work put Hungary
on the map as an important center for
research on deuterium depletion.