Hydrogen Therapy Shows Promise for Severe Viral Infections and Organ Failure
- Authors
- Ming Yang, Zheng Zhang, Bo Gao, Lihua Liu, Taohong Hu
- Journal
- SOJ Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
- Year
- 2017
- DOI
- 10.15226/sojmid/5/2/00170
- Study Type
- clinical
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- China
- Health Condition
- Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome
- Body System
- Immune System
TL;DR
Scientists think hydrogen gas might help sick people recover from severe flu and other viral infections by calming down the body's extreme inflammatory response, rather than by fighting the virus itself—which could be a totally new way to treat these dangerous conditions.
Key Finding
This is a hypothesis paper proposing hydrogen-rich saline as a potential treatment for viral infection complications, not a study with actual results from patients or clinical trials.
Summary
This paper proposes that hydrogen-rich saline (a salt solution containing hydrogen) could be a new treatment for multiple organ dysfunction caused by severe viral infections like influenza. The authors note that most damage from viral infections comes not from the virus itself, but from the body's inflammatory response and oxidative stress (cellular damage from unstable molecules). They suggest hydrogen may help by reducing inflammation and oxidative stress, but they have not yet tested this idea in patients.
Practical Takeaway
While the theoretical reasoning about hydrogen's anti-inflammatory properties is based on existing research, this paper presents only a hypothesis—no clinical evidence yet exists that hydrogen water or hydrogen-rich saline helps with viral infections in humans. Anyone considering hydrogen therapy should wait for actual clinical trial results before expecting therapeutic benefits.
Abstract
Hydrogen, a non-cytotoxic molecule, is one of nature’s most simple elements [1,2]. Recent studies revealed that intraperitoneal injection of hydrogen-rich saline has surprising anti-inflammation, anti-oxidant, anti-apoptosis effects and protected organism against polymicrobial sepsis injury, acute peritonitis injury both by reducing oxidative stress and via decreasing mass proinflammatory responses. It is also well known that the majority of viral -induced tissue damage and discomfort are mainly caused by an inflammatory cytokine storm and oxidative stress rather than by virus itself [3-5]. Studies have shown that suppressing the cytokine storm and reducing oxidative stress can significantly alleviate the symptoms of influenza and other severe viral infections diseases [3-7]. However, none of the studies have been focused on the solution as an anti-virus infection therapy yet. Therefore, we hypothesize that hydrogen-rich solution therapy may be a safe, reliable, and effective treatment for Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome (MODS) induced by influenza and other viral infectious diseases.