Body Makes Its Own Hydrogen: A Natural Antioxidant for Brain & Liver

Your body naturally makes a tiny amount of hydrogen gas through bacteria in your gut, and scientists found that this hydrogen acts like a bodyguard that protects your brain and liver from damage. This discovery could lead to new ways to treat injuries and diseases where cells get damaged from lack of oxygen.

Hydrogen gas demonstrates antioxidant and protective properties against tissue damage from interrupted blood flow, and the body naturally produces hydrogen through intestinal bacteria.

This paper reviews evidence that hydrogen gas has antioxidant properties (meaning it can neutralize harmful molecules called free radicals) and can protect brain and liver tissue from damage caused by interrupted blood flow. The authors note that the human body naturally produces small amounts of hydrogen through bacteria in the intestines, and suggest that this internally produced hydrogen may act as a natural antioxidant.

This is a review article presenting a hypothesis rather than new experimental data, and no human studies are mentioned. While it suggests hydrogen may have protective effects, much more research—including human trials—would be needed before any health claims could be supported. The natural hydrogen produced by intestinal bacteria is present in very small amounts, and it's unclear whether this has meaningful health effects.

Recently,Ohsawa et al. provide evidence that inhaled hydrogen gas has antioxidant and antiapoptotic activities that protect the brain and liver against ischemia-reperfusion injury. In fact,there is some endogenous hydrogen produced by intestinal bacteria within animal and human.The concentration…

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