Tiny Particles Make Hydrogen Therapy More Effective for Inflammation
- Authors
- Gaoxin Zhou, Ekta Goshi, Qianjun He
- Journal
- Advanced Healthcare Materials
- Year
- 2019
- DOI
- 10.1002/adhm.201900463
- Study Type
- clinical
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- China
- Health Condition
- Inflammatory Diseases
- Body System
- Immune System
TL;DR
Scientists found that hydrogen gas can fight inflammation and damage in your body, but it doesn't work well on its own because it dissolves poorly in blood and spreads randomly—so they created tiny nano-particles to deliver hydrogen directly to the right spots in your body for better healing results.
Key Finding
__no_content__
Summary
Scientists have created an innovative approach to hydrogen therapy by combining it with tiny particles called micro and nanomaterials. Traditional hydrogen therapy faces challenges because hydrogen gas dissolves poorly in water and spreads randomly throughout the body, limiting its effectiveness. The new 'hydrogen nanomedicine' systems solve these problems by enabling targeted delivery to specific body areas, controlled release over time, and enhanced therapeutic effects. This breakthrough could significantly improve treatment of inflammation-related diseases and conditions caused by oxidative stress. The research represents a major advancement in making hydrogen therapy more precise and effective for clinical applications.
Abstract
Hydrogen therapy is an emerging and promising therapy strategy of using molecular hydrogen as a new type of safe and effective therapeutic agent, exhibiting remarkable therapeutic effects on many oxidative stress-/inflammation-related diseases owing to its bio-reductivity and homeostatic regulation ability. Different from other gaseous transmitters such as NO, CO, and H2 S, hydrogen gas has no blood poisoning risk at high concentration because it does not affect the oxygen-carrying behavior of blood red cells. Hydrogen molecules also have low aqueous solubility and high but aimless diffusibility, causing limited therapy efficacy in many diseases. To realize the site-specific hydrogen delivery, controlled hydrogen release and combined therapy is significant but still challenging. Here, a concept of hydrogen nanomedicine to address the issues of hydrogen medicine by using functional micro/nanomaterials for augmented hydrogen therapy is proposed. In this review, various strategies of micro/nanomaterials-augmented hydrogen therapy, including micro/nanomaterials-mediated targeted hydrogen delivery, controlled hydrogen release, and nanocatalytic and multimodel enhancement of hydrogen therapy efficacy, are summarized, which can open a new window for treatment of inflammation-related diseases.