Hydrogen Gas Shows Promise as Natural Athletic Performance Enhancer
- Authors
- Tyler W. LeBaron, Ismail Laher, Branislav Kura, Jan Slezak
- Journal
- Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
- Year
- 2019
- DOI
- 10.1139/cjpp-2019-0067
- Study Type
- clinical
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- United States
- Health Condition
- Exercise-Induced Inflammation
- Body System
- Muscular
TL;DR
Hydrogen gas might be a special supplement that could help athletes recover from intense exercise by reducing damage and inflammation, while keeping all the good benefits of training—unlike regular antioxidant supplements that can actually backfire. Scientists think it's worth more research because it could be a game-changer for both super-fit athletes and regular people who exercise too hard.
Key Finding
Hydrogen gas may act as a 'redox adaptogen' that reduces harmful inflammation and oxidative stress from excessive exercise while preserving the beneficial cellular adaptations that normally result from training—a property that conventional antioxidant supplements do not have.
Summary
This review examines hydrogen gas (H2) as a potential aid for athletes and exercise. Hydrogen has been shown to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress (cellular damage from unstable molecules), which can occur during intense exercise. The authors propose that hydrogen might help reduce harmful effects from excessive exercise while preserving the beneficial adaptations that come from regular training, unlike conventional antioxidant supplements which can actually interfere with exercise benefits.
Practical Takeaway
This is a review article proposing a theory rather than reporting new experimental results, and no human trials are described. While the concept is intriguing, this represents early-stage thinking rather than evidence ready for practical application. Definitive research in athletes would be needed before hydrogen water could be recommended as an ergogenic aid.
Abstract
H2 has been clinically demonstrated to provide antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, which makes it an attractive agent in exercise medicine. Although exercise provides a multiplicity of benefits including decreased risk of disease, it can also have detrimental effects. For example, chronic high-intensity exercise in elite athletes, or sporadic bouts of exercise (i.e., noxious exercise) in untrained individuals, result in similar pathological factors such as inflammation, oxidation, and cellular damage that arise from and result in disease. Paradoxically, exercise-induced pro-inflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species largely mediate the benefits of exercise. Ingestion of conventional antioxidants and anti-inflammatories often impairs exercise-induced training adaptations. Disease and noxious forms of exercise promote redox dysregulation and chronic inflammation, changes that are mitigated by H2 administration. Beneficial exercise and H2 administration promote cytoprotective hormesis, mitochondrial biogenesis, ATP production, increased NAD+/NADH ratio, cytoprotective phase II enzymes, heat-shock proteins, sirtuins, etc. We review the biomedical effects of exercise and those of H2, and we propose that hydrogen may act as an exercise mimetic and redox adaptogen, potentiate the benefits from beneficial exercise, and reduce the harm from noxious exercise. However, more research is warranted to elucidate the potential ergogenic and therapeutic effects of H2 in exercise medicine.