How Gut Bacteria Use Hydrogen to Impact Digestive Health

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

Read the full abstract on PubMed