Morozko Mineral Bath Fixes What's Wrong With Hot Tubs
- Thomas P Seager, PhD
- Aug 10
- 11 min read
Updated: Oct 5
Summary
Hot springs all over the world have three characteristics in common: 1) grounding, 2) rich mineral content, and 3) negative oxidative-reduction potential (ORP).
The typical American hydromassage hot tub has none of these qualities, meaning that it fails to provide essential health benefits.
The new 104F Morozko Hydrogen Mineral Bath is designed to fix everything that is wrong with American hot tubs, and deliver an experience that is the next best thing to a hot spring.
What's so healthy about hot springs?
I have visited natural hot springs in several extraordinary locations, including the volcanic mountains of El Salvador, Colombia, and Iceland. I've plunged in the natural hot springs of Big Bend National Park on the banks of the Rio Grande river in the most remote corner of Texas, and hiked up to the mountains outside Provo, Utah to try the warm waters that bubble up from the ancient volcanoes beneath the Rocky Mountains.
The practice of bathing in natural, mineral hot springs is called balneotherapy. It is thousands of years old, common to every culture with access to natural heated waters, and the health benefits related to circulatory disorders, rheumatoid diseases, cancer, and mental health have been well documented (Takeda et al. 2023).
What is it about these natural hot springs that is so healthful and appealing?
The waters in every hot spring I've ever visited have several electrochemical properties in common. They are:
rich in essential minerals, including magnesium, zinc, sodium, potassium, manganese, and other water-soluble elements.
electronegativity, as measured by a negative oxidation reduction potential (ORP), typically governed by the sulfur-sulfate redox couple.
grounded, as in electrically connected to the Earth, meaning they provide an infinite source of instantaneous electrons for rebalancing body charge.
Every single one of these attributes of a natural hot spring corrects a deficit in the human body that is typical of the modern, industrial life style. For example, depleted soils means most Americans no longer get the essential minerals that used to be present in our diet. Chlorinated tap water, chronic inflammation, artificial light, and highly processed, seed oil-derived foods means that most Americans are living in a chronic state of oxidative stress -- i.e., positive ORP. Synthetic rubber shoes, carpets, and automobile tires keep us electrically disconnected from the Earth, allowing a positive charge imbalance to build up in our bodies that causes increased blood viscosity and risk of cardio-vascular events.
The typical hot tub solves none of these modern problems.
Invention of the Modern Hot Tub
Candido Jacuzzi was an Italian immigrant, the youngest of seven siblings, who had a 15-month-old son stricken with painful rheumatoid arthritis in 1943. One of the boy's doctors recommended hydromassage therapy, which helped relieve the child's pain, so they started a program of three sessions a week in the hospital whirlpool.
The problem was that the hospital was a long drive from the Jacuzzi home. There was no such thing as a home whirlpool unit at the time, so Jacuzzi invented a pump that could be dropped into a home bath tub to provide the hydromassage action of the circulating water.
Jacuzzi and his brothers founded a new business, marketing the pump, and eventually entire tubs with heating elements and built-in water jets, for homes, hotels, and spas. In 1966, Jacuzzi also pioneered a marketing technique now called native advertising by inserting his latest home hot tub invention into the script of a Hollywood film called 'The Fortune Cookie' starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. That clever marketing ploy made Jacuzzi a brand that became synonymous with luxury and status -- especially among Hollywood celebrities in trend-setting southern California.
Hot tub sales boomed throughout the 1970's.
The increased popularity also revealed some weaknesses. For example, hot tubs gained a reputation for being bacterial cesspools, notoriously difficult to sanitize. In response, Board of Health standards for public hot tubs have become increasingly strict, mandating levels of chlorination that risk poisoning the bathers.
Other changes in the typical American lifestyle have altered the health context in which people are practicing hot tub hydrotherapy. For example, the 1950's and 1960's preceded introduction of the synthetic rubber running shoe that has now become ubiquitous -- despite the fact that these shoes electrically disconnect people from the Earth. While shoes with leather soles will conduct electrons, synthetic rubber soles will not. As synthetics replaced leather, people have become increasingly out of electrical balance.
Similarly, Jacuzzi invented his hydrotherapy whirlpool before the exponential growth in florescent (and LED) lights and ultra-processed seed oils, both of which promote chronic inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and oxidative stress. Thus, he also preceded the epidemic of obesity and metabolic dysfunction that now plagues as many as 80% of American adults.
In other words, the shortcomings of the original Jacuzzi hydromassage tub used to be unimportant, because people were getting minerals, grounding, and relief from oxidative stress from other sources. Decades later, changes in the technological context of our lives reveal these shortcoming as critical gaps in health and wellness that hot tubs make worse, instead of better.
The time has come to transition away from cheap, fiberglass, chlorinated hydromassage hot tub towards a more natural approach that reconnects Americans with the original, natural hot spring in which the ancient practice of balneotherapy originated.
That's the Morozko Mineral Bath.
Water Chemistry: Minerals & ORP
Chemical analysis of hot springs all over the world shows that they are rich in minerals and typically negative in ORP. For example, the Ministry of Environment in Japan is very strict about the classification and quality of what they call onsen, or hot spring resorts. Approximately 130 million people visit the hot springs in Japan every year, and regulations there require that the water has total sulfur concentration exceeding 1 mg/kg. Furthermore, monitoring of ORP at Japanese hot springs shows typical values are between -300mV and -350 mV, which constitute very reducing conditions (Ioka et al. 2016). The same is true for ORP measurements made in Taiwan (Wen-Fu & Sung 2009) and elsewhere.
In Epsom Salt Makes Ice Baths Better I wrote about advantages of using sulfate salts in ice baths. My focus there was primarily on the transdermal absorption of magnesium, zinc, potassium, or other trace minerals. I cautioned against adding chloride salts, to avoid interactions with ozone and excess corrosion of metallic components, and emphasized the water quality improvements that could be obtained with trace minerals.
The same chemical conditions that are beneficial for the Ice Bath are are even more applicable to the Morozko Mineral Bath. For example, although natural hot springs do contain chloride, hot springs are typically dominated by sulfur chemistry. Thus, Epsom and other sulfate salts are an excellent choice to provide the sulfate mineral content. For example, we can add trace quantities of manganese sulfate to our previous recommendations for magnesium, zinc, and copper sulfate. However, we never recommend iron or calcium. It's important to avoid iron for two reasons: 1) the stainless steel is already made of iron, and contact with the water means that some trace levels of iron will already be present, and 2) most people should avoid accumulating excess iron, as iron promotes premature aging (Mangan 2021). As for calcium, in combination with sulfate it is mostly insoluble and thus is unavailable for absorption and will clog filter media.
When you stay within our chemical recommendations, none of the plumbing components in a Morozko will be harmed by sulfate salts, even at very high concentrations of added Epsom salt.
Grounding
In Grounding Therapy and How Grounded Is Your Ice Bath? I documented the health benefits of maintaining electrical contact with the Earth -- especially with regard to maintaining good blood circulation and avoiding internal blood clots. For example, Andrea Romero is a doctor of Chinese medicine who suffered from persistent Rouleaux syndrome -- an agglomeration of red blood cells that results from charge imbalances in her blood stream. Her condition resisted allopathic therapies, but she was able to resolve her condition by practicing regular cold plunge therapy in her grounded Morozko ice bath.
The typical bathtub is made from acrylic or fiberglass, because these materials are cheap, moldable, and durable. They are also excellent insulators -- that is, they do not conduct electrons from the Earth to the water. Only more expensive metal tubs can ground the water, which is why Morozko uses stainless steel.
By contrast, natural hot springs are in direct contact with the Earth. The water is typically heated by ancient volcanoes while moving underground, and by the time it is pushed to the surface it is of course electrically connected to the Earth from which it came. Therefore, one of the hidden benefits of a natural hot spring is the grounding properties of the water in which you bathe.
When you choose a typical plastic hot tub, your body will miss out on the grounding benefits, and several people have reported to me that they can feel the difference between a plastic plunge and a Morozko. To people who haven't compared them both side-by-side, that might seem far-fetched, but it is consistent with my experience. The grounding connection with the Earth you get from a Morozko is instantaneous -- more than thirty times faster than walking barefoot in the grass. Although you can't see the grounding effect, if you're anything like me, your body will feel it.
Hydrogen: Disinfection Without Oxidative Stress
The biggest complaint about the typical hot tub is toxic chlorine (or bromine). These oxidants are added to hot tubs to keep them disinfected, but in addition to their foul smell, they produce carcinogenic disinfection by-products called trihalomethanes. Moreover, they're a big obstacle to adding hydrogen.
You can't just purchase a hydrogen machine and hook it up to your existing hot tub, because hydrogen and chlorine cancel each other out to make hydrochloric acid. The more hydrogen you add, the less chlorine you'll have, and the more acid you'll make. To run your typical hot tub in a hydrogen mode requires you to deactivate your chlorine supply, switch to hydrogen, and then reactivate (or add) chlorine when you're down. In the Morozko Hydrogen Mineral Bath, we've built in the equipment that lets' you switch from oxidative disinfection to hydrogen therapy by pressing a few buttons, with no additional chemicals to add, ever.
In Ozone Is Perfect for Ice Bath I wrote about the powerful health effects of ozone gas for water purification. Ozone is a chemical rearrangement of atmospheric oxygen into a high-energy, triatomic structure with a unique, clean odor for which the human nose is especially well-equipped to detect. For example, lighting during thunder storms produces ozone that naturally purifies the air.
Because ozone degrades into pure oxygen, rather than cancerous by-products, and ozone is a more powerful sanitizer, it is preferable to chlorine. However, at the high temperatures typical of hydromassage hot tubs, ozone degrades quickly. Sanitation without chlorine therefore requires special attention to ozone generation, injection, and water mixing for which most hot tub manufacturers and many regulators lack expertise. Moreover, when too much ozone is added to water, some of it will escape into the air where it might irritate the bronchial tubes or lungs of people bathing. Fortunately, the experience Morozko gained from pioneering the use of ozone for ice baths has equipped us to optimize the ozone-based treatment system in the mineral bath -- but just replacing chlorine with ozone is insufficient. To replicate the electro-reductive ORP of natural hot springs, a powerful reducing agent must be introduced.
The ideal reducing agent is hydrogen.
Clinical studies in humans and animals under chronic oxidative stress indicate that drinking or bathing in hydrogen water has a beneficial therapeutic effect (e.g., Tanaka et al. 2022). Gary Brecka referred to "thousands" of studies like those in his recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast #2304.
In my video response Brecka, I pointed out several reasons to be skeptical of a hydrogen cold plunge:
Hydrogen and ozone neutralize one another. You can't get the benefits of both at the same time.
People who cold plunge regularly do not suffer from chronic oxidative stress, and are unlikely to obtain the benefits of hydrogen bathing documented in the literature. For example, when scientists in Serbia compared hydrogen bath therapy to ice packs for healthy athletes who experienced ankle injuries, they found no statistical difference in recovery between the two methods (Javorac et al. 2021).
Nonetheless, it is true that the natural hot springs all over the world are dominated by reductive electrochemical conditions -- i.e., negative ORP. Moreover, those who do not cold plunge, but enjoy a hot tub instead, will not be getting the relief from chronic oxidative stress that the cold plunge provides. Therefore, the logical place to introduce hydrogen first is not in the Morozko Ice Bath, but into the Morozko Mineral Bath.
To overcome the challenge of the ozone and hydrogen electrochemistry neutralizing one another, we must separate them in time. That means an ozone cycle that sanitizes and purifies the water, followed by an on-demand hydrogen cycle that makes the mineral bath reductive for bathing. It takes about twenty minutes to go from an ozone dominated to a hydrogen-dominated cycle, and longer to cycle back. To achieve the hydrogen cycling in the Morozko Mineral Bath, we build both ozone and hydrogen generation systems into the unit and operate them on separate controls. That means that the earliest adopters will have to manually make the switch themselves when they're ready to take advantage of the hydrogen option.
The Next Best Thing to Natural Hot Springs
There is nothing like the Morozko Mineral Bath anywhere in the world right now. The closest approximation is a hydrogen generator that you can put next to your home bathtub and use to create a drain-and-fill, one-time hydrogen bath. That's not a bad option, but it's not grounded and if you want the minerals, you have to add them yourself every time you bathe, because the existing hydrogen generators do not have an ozone sanitation cycle. Thus, Morozko Mineral Bath is the only machine in the world that allows you to have a hydrogen, hydromassage hot tub with minerals, on demand, just by touching a few buttons.
The implications of the Morozko Mineral Bath for hydrotherapy technology may be enormous. The Mineral Bath is the greatest innovation in the hydrotherapy business since we first invented a cold plunge machine that makes its own ice. The hydrogen option opens up some of the anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative stress benefits of hydrotherapy, without the necessity and discomfort of the cold. Plus, it maintains the original hydromassage benefits that motivated Jacuzzi in the first place.
References
Ioka S, Muraoka H, Matsuyama K, Tomita K. In situ redox potential measurements as a monitoring technique for hot spring water quality. Sustainable Water Resources Management. 2016 Dec;2(4):353-8.
Javorac D, Stajer V, Ratgeber L, Olah A, Betlehem J, Acs P, Vukomanovic B, Ostojic SM. Hydrotherapy with hydrogen-rich water compared with RICE protocol following acute ankle sprain in professional athletes: a randomized non-inferiority pilot trial. Research in sports medicine. 2021 Nov 2;29(6):517-25.
Mangan D. Iron: an underrated factor in aging. Aging (Albany NY). 2021 Oct 6;13(19):23407.
Takeda M, Nakamura H, Otsu H, Mimori K, Maeda T, Managi S. Hot spring bathing practices have a positive effect on mental health in Japan. Heliyon. 2023 Sep 1;9(9).
Tanaka Y, Xiao L, Miwa N. Hydrogen-rich bath with nano-sized bubbles improves antioxidant capacity based on oxygen radical absorbing and inflammation levels in human serum. Medical Gas Research. 2022 Jul 1;12(3):91-9.
Wen-Fu C, Sung M. The redox potential of hot springs in Taiwan. TAO: Terrestrial, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. 2009 Jun 1;20(3):4.
About the Author
Thomas P Seager, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University. Seager co-founded the Morozko Forge ice bath company and is an expert in the use of ice baths for building metabolic and psychological resilience.
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