Hydrogen Patch Improves Skin Healing and Collagen Production
- Authors
- Marina Safonov, Jing You, Jihyung Lee, Vladimir L. Safonov, Diana Berman, Donghui Zhu
- Journal
- Engineered Regeneration
- Year
- 2020
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.engreg.2020.05.001
- Study Type
- Cell Culture
- Outcome
- Positive
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- United States
- Health Condition
- Wounds
- Body System
- Integumentary
TL;DR
Scientists have created a skin patch that produces healing hydrogen gas to improve skin repair by reacting aluminum with water.
Key Finding
Skin cells exposed to hydrogen gas from the patch showed increased cell survival, higher collagen production, and improved cell migration in laboratory experiments.
Summary
Researchers developed a patch that generates hydrogen gas through a chemical reaction when exposed to water, then tested whether this hydrogen could help skin cells in laboratory dishes. They found that skin cells exposed to hydrogen showed improved survival, produced more collagen (a protein that gives skin structure), and moved more efficiently—all signs that could support wound healing. However, this was only tested in cells grown in dishes, not in living people or animals.
Practical Takeaway
While this early laboratory research suggests hydrogen may support skin cell function, it's important to note this was only tested in cultured cells, not in human skin or living organisms. Much more research—including animal studies and human clinical trials—would be needed before any conclusions about real-world effectiveness for wound healing or skin health could be drawn.
Abstract
Molecular hydrogen recently attracted lots of attention in biomedical community because of its abilities to modulate signal transduction, protein phosphorylation, and gene expression that enable its anti-inflammatory, anti-allergy, and anti-apoptotic activities. However, controllable and local delivery of hydrogen molecules to tissues still remains challenging. Here, we propose a new method of delivering molecular hydrogen directly to human skin cells by designing a hydrogen-generating patch that releases hydrogen in surrounding environment as a product of chemical reaction of aluminum and carbon hydroxide in presence of water. We show that in the presence of molecular hydrogen the cells viability, expression of collagen, and migration efficiency of cells increase, thus suggesting that hydrogen can be used to promote better and faster healing of skin issues such as wounds and bruises.