Hydrogen Shows Promise as Medical Gas for Multiple Health Conditions
- Authors
- Chien-Sheng Huang, Tomohiro Kawamura, Yoshiya Toyoda, Atsunori Nakao
- Journal
- Free Radical Research
- Year
- 2010
- DOI
- 10.3109/10715762.2010.500328
- Study Type
- clinical
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- Taiwan
- Health Condition
- Oxidative stress-related diseases
- Body System
- cardiovascular
TL;DR
Scientists found that hydrogen gas can help protect your body's cells from damage and reduce inflammation, which could help treat a bunch of different diseases—and doctors can give it to you by having you breathe it in, drink water with it dissolved in it, or inject it into your bloodstream.
Key Finding
Hydrogen gas demonstrates antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cell-protective effects across multiple delivery methods and disease models in research.
Summary
This is a review article that summarizes research on hydrogen gas as a potential medical treatment. Studies have shown that hydrogen may have protective effects on cells by reducing harmful oxidation (a type of cellular damage) and inflammation, and it can be delivered to the body through breathing, drinking hydrogen-infused water, or injection. The authors discuss various disease models where hydrogen has been tested and suggest it could become important in medicine, though they acknowledge this is still an emerging field.
Practical Takeaway
This is a review of existing research rather than a new study with specific findings. While it indicates hydrogen research is active and shows promise in laboratory and animal studies, most clinical evidence in humans remains limited. Anyone considering hydrogen water should recognize that this review does not provide definitive evidence of health benefits in people.
Abstract
Recent basic and clinical research has revealed that hydrogen is an important physiological regulatory factor with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic protective effects on cells and organs. Therapeutic hydrogen has been applied by different delivery methods including straightforward inhalation, drinking hydrogen dissolved in water and injection with hydrogen-saturated saline. This review summarizes currently available data regarding the protective role of hydrogen, provides an outline of recent advances in research on the use of hydrogen as a therapeutic medical gas in diverse models of disease and discusses the feasibility of hydrogen as a therapeutic strategy. It is not an overstatement to say that hydrogen's impact on therapeutic and preventive medicine could be enormous in the future.