How Gut Bacteria Use Hydrogen to Impact Digestive Health

Authors
Journal
Gut Microbes
Year
DOI
10.1080/19490976.2018.1546522
Study Type
clinical
Peer Reviewed
Yes
Country
New Zealand
Health Condition
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Body System
Gastrointestinal

TL;DR

Your gut bacteria produce hydrogen gas, and other bacteria eat that hydrogen and turn it into different chemicals—some good, some bad for your health. Scientists think controlling these hydrogen-eating bacteria could help treat belly problems like irritable bowel syndrome.

Key Finding

Three functional groups of hydrogen-consuming gut bacteria coexist in the human digestive tract and convert hydrogen into different compounds that may influence gastrointestinal health and disease.

Summary

This review examines how hydrogen gas produced by gut bacteria is used by other bacteria in the human digestive system. Three types of bacteria consume this hydrogen and convert it into different compounds: hydrogen sulfide, methane, and acetate. The balance between these three groups may influence digestive health, and research suggests that too much hydrogen sulfide or methane production could be linked to conditions like irritable bowel syndrome.

Practical Takeaway

This is a review article summarizing current knowledge about gut bacteria and hydrogen metabolism, not a study testing hydrogen water or a specific intervention. It suggests that understanding hydrogen metabolism in the gut may eventually lead to new treatments for digestive conditions, but much more research is needed to determine how to safely target these bacteria.

Abstract

Hydrogen plays a key role in many microbial metabolic pathways in the human gastrointestinal tract (GIT) that have an impact on human nutrition, health and wellbeing. Hydrogen is produced by many members of the GIT microbiota, and may be subsequently utilized by cross-feeding microbes for growth and in the production of larger molecules. Hydrogenotrophic microbes fall into three functional groups: sulfate-reducing bacteria, methanogenic archaea and acetogenic bacteria, which can convert hydrogen into hydrogen sulfide, methane and acetate, respectively. Despite different energy yields per molecule of hydrogen used between the functional groups, all three can coexist in the human GIT. The factors affecting the numerical balance of hydrogenotrophs in the GIT remain unconfirmed. There is increasing evidence linking both hydrogen sulfide and methane to GIT diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome, and strategies for the mitigation of such health problems through targeting of hydrogenotrophs constitute an important field for further investigation.