Summary
Dr. Sydney McElroy and Justin McElroy take a deep dive into the history and science of hydrogen peroxide therapy on this medical history comedy podcast. They trace H2O2 from its isolation by French scientist Thernard in 1818, through Father Richard Wilhelm's promotion of it as a cure-all in the 1980s, to Dr. Charles Farr's IV infusion protocols. The episode provides a skeptical but entertaining look at hydrogen peroxide's journey from chemistry lab to medicine cabinet. Sydney explains the actual science: while H2O2 does kill bacteria in lab settings, the concentrations and contact times needed don't match real-world wound care applications. She notes that studies have never proven it decreases infection rates in wounds, that repeated use can cause blisters and slow skin healing, and that the CDC only recommends it for disinfecting inanimate surfaces. The episode serves as a valuable counterpoint to proponent claims.
Key Points
- Hydrogen peroxide was first isolated in 1818 by French scientist Louis Jacques Thernard
- The brown bottle contains only 3-6% H2O2 in water, not pure hydrogen peroxide
- Pure hydrogen peroxide would explode if heated to boiling, unlike water
- Father Richard Wilhelm and Walter Groetz popularized H2O2 therapy as a cure-all in the 1980s
- Dr. Charles Farr promoted IV hydrogen peroxide infusions for emphysema and cancer
- H2O2 kills bacteria in lab settings but real-world wound care evidence is weak
- Repeated use can cause blisters and may slow new skin formation
- The body naturally uses H2O2 inside peroxisomes to kill pathogens and signal white blood cells
- The CDC recommends hydrogen peroxide only for disinfecting inanimate surfaces
Key Moments
H2O2 is not just fancy water
Sydney explains the chemistry of hydrogen peroxide and why comparing it to water is misleading. Pure H2O2 would explode if heated to boiling, and the brown bottle is only 3% H2O2 in water.
"if you heated uh pure hydrogen peroxide to boiling it would explode so that's a big difference you know right between it and water"
The cure-all history of hydrogen peroxide therapy
The hosts trace how Father Wilhelm and Walter Groetz turned hydrogen peroxide into a cure-all movement in the 1980s, claiming it could treat everything from arthritis to cancer to hemorrhoids.
"Hydrogen Peroxide joyfully relieves asthma, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, emphysema, cancer, the common cold, herpes, candidiasis, angina, malaria, gingivitis, tumors, warts"
What the evidence actually shows about H2O2
Sydney reviews the actual evidence on hydrogen peroxide for wound care, finding that it doesn't decrease infection rates, can cause blisters with repeated use, and the CDC only recommends it for inanimate surfaces.
"You know, my baby eats sometimes lucky charms doesn't make it good for humans and also doesn't cure cancer and cure cancer she just likes the marshmallows every once in a while um the reality is that you know we haven't done giant studies on if hydrogen peroxide cures cancer. There you go. They're not out there. We really haven't even done huge studies on like pouring hydrogen peroxide on a cut to see if it works better than not. We've done some studies. I'm not saying we haven't done any, but you're not going to find giant bodies of research on whether or not it should be in a first aid kit or not. I don't know if that's just because in truth it's probably not that harmful. So. Right. And it's cheap. It's so cheap that it's like not worth figuring it out. It's not worth figuring it out. Like if it's not really hurting anybody. But it might not be helping them either. does like i said it does kill some bacteria in vitro meaning in the lab but in vivo meaning in real life in your body in in humans it's it's less convincing as to whether or not it really works um the a lot of the problem has to do with time and concentration so when we kill things with hydrogen peroxide in a lab we might be be using a stronger hydrogen peroxide. And it may be like 10 minutes that we're exposing it to it, or 15 minutes or 20 minutes even. Which nobody does. Nobody does that with hydrogen peroxide. So that could be part of the problem. And even then, you'd still be better with something like, I don't know, neosporin or something like that, right? Probably, yeah. Yeah. I mean, depending on the situation, but yeah. It doesn't appear to, one of the big concerns is, does it slow wound healing? So if you use it once, probably not. Repeated uses of it, they have seen some evidence that it can cause blisters to form. So maybe it's not so good for new skin that's trying to grow back. As I mentioned, that's why I tell people when they're trying to heal a wound, don't just keep dumping hydrogen peroxide on it. You could be slowing down that new skin formation. But overall, it doesn't maybe doesn't slow the healing of a wound, but it also doesn't make it heal any faster. And they've never really proven that it decreases infection rate or the bacterial load inside a wound. So what is it doing? Nothing really. And like I said, in some studies it caused blisters to form. It may be actually damaging some of the tissue, some of the cells. It is just on a side note, it is something that is naturally occurring in your body. So when people say that, like they're that's true inside some cells in your body they have little compartments that house hydrogen peroxide they're called peroxisomes those little compartments and they'll like take in these cells are sneaky they'll take in bacteria or viruses or something and then that little peroxisome will open up and kill it with hydrogen peroxide and kill the cell too um so yes your body does use. It also uses it to send some signals inside your body to like call white blood cells to sites of infection or something. So it is useful inside the human body in trace amounts, but that doesn't necessarily mean we need to bathe in it. It has been used, as people have mentioned, in dentistry for a long time to whiten teeth. And there are even like trays that you can put. Sure, yeah. To fight periodontal disease of hydrogen peroxide where you can like put it up against your gums. But it holds it there for a while. That's one thing to think about to like kill bacterial like films that can develop and stuff. If you look at like what does the CDC recommend it for, it is an effective disinfectant when used on inanimate surfaces. So if you want to wash your counter with it or whatever, that's fine. And we use it in there not as much in the US maybe in terms of medical equipment, like an operating room or something like that. But a lot of other countries, you still find that hydrogen peroxide is used to clean things, clean equipment. But you got to be really careful. because if you're going to clean something that then is going to be used on the human body with hydrogen peroxide, you've got to wipe it all off because they've seen cases of like cleaning an endoscope that's used for a colonoscopy, the camera that goes up inside the colon, cleaning it with hydrogen peroxide and then not rinsing it off well enough and it caused like a colitis and inflammation. Great. And then you should be careful using it inside your mouth because it can damage mucous membranes. That's why you shouldn't use it in your mouth. You shouldn't douche with it. You shouldn't use it as an enema. I mean, at least at home. If your dentist is using an appropriate solution of it, that's one thing, but you shouldn't just be like nonstop using hydrogen peroxide unsupervised so it let me know i'm over generalizing here but or i am generalizing i should say uh but i mean it it sounds like not that effective but probably not that harmful but again just to reiterate probably not that effective like if i want to dump something in a cut, there are worse things, but there are probably better things."
