How Medical Gases Like Hydrogen Affect Your Hormones and Health
- Authors
- Eugene Iv Nazarov, Igor Alb Khlusov, Mami Noda
- Journal
- Medical Gas Research
- Year
- 2021
- DOI
- 10.4103/2045-9912.318863
- Study Type
- clinical
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- Ukraine
- Health Condition
- Endocrine Disorders
- Body System
- Endocrine
TL;DR
Three special medical gases—ozone, xenon, and hydrogen—can help treat diseases by training your body's hormone system to protect itself, kind of like how your body learns to handle a repeated challenge. This discovery could lead to new ways to use these gases as medicine by triggering your body's natural healing responses.
Key Finding
Molecular hydrogen may exert therapeutic effects by modulating the neuroendocrine system and triggering conditioned homeostatic reflexes, similar to the body's learned responses to repeated stimuli.
Summary
This review article compares three medical gases—ozone, xenon, and molecular hydrogen—and proposes that they work by triggering the body's hormone systems (particularly those controlled by the brain and pituitary gland). The authors suggest that when these gases are used repeatedly, the body develops predictable adaptive responses similar to conditioned reflexes, which may explain their potential therapeutic effects.
Practical Takeaway
This is a theoretical review without new experimental data or human trials, so it cannot support specific health claims about hydrogen water. While the proposed mechanism is interesting, it remains speculative and would require rigorous clinical studies in humans to validate whether hydrogen water actually produces these hormonal effects in practice.
Abstract
Among medical gases, including gases used therapeutically, this review discusses the comparative physiological activity of three gases - ozone (O3), xenon (Xe) and molecular hydrogen (H2), which together form representatives of three types of substances - typical oxidizing, inert, and typical reducing agents. Upon analysis of published and proprietary data, we concluded that these three medical gases can manipulate the neuroendocrine system, by modulating the production or release of hormones via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal, hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid, hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axes, or the gastrointestinal pathway. With repeated administration of the gases over time, these modulations become a predictable consequence of conditioned homeostatic reflexes, resulting in regulation of physiological activity. For example, the regular activation of the unconditioned defense reflex in response to repeated intoxication by ozone leads to the formation of an anticipatory stable conditioned response, which counteracts the toxic action of O3. The concept of a Pavlovian conditioned reflex (or hormoligosis) is a brief metaphor for the understanding the therapeutic effect of systemic ozone therapy.