Three advantages of hydrogen compared with other antioxidants

Since hydrogen has characteristics different from traditional antioxidants, it is effective as an antioxidant in the prevention and treatment of active oxygen-related diseases. Its characteristics are summarized as follows:

First, hydrogen has a selective antioxidant effect.

The characteristic of hydrogen is that it only removes the most active •OH, not •O2− and H2O2. There is no enzyme in the tissue to remove •OH. Compared with •OH, •O2− and H2O2 have lower activity, and these substances participate in cell signal transduction rather than cell destruction at lower concentrations, and act as signal transduction mediators in the main cell functions such as cell proliferation and differentiation. Therefore, their removal can interfere with cell function. Therefore, the advantage of hydrogen is that it can inhibit oxidative stress very effectively without destroying cell function, because it only removes the most toxic OH, but does not remove superoxide anions and hydrogen peroxide.

Second, hydrogen diffuses very quickly in the body.

Because it can easily pass through the lipid cell membrane, its advantage is that it can be quickly delivered to the lesion. More importantly, hydrogen easily enters the mitochondria through the mitochondrial membrane, which is the main part of the production of reactive oxygen species. Therefore, hydrogen can be effectively removed from the production source location immediately and OH. In the same way, hydrogen can enter the cell nucleus, protecting the genetic material in the cell nucleus from the attack of OH. Many existing antioxidants have limitations in treating diseases, probably because they cannot pass through cell membranes as easily as hydrogen.

Because hydrogen can easily pass through cell membranes, it can also easily pass through the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and quickly enter the brain tissue. The blood vessels in the brain tissue are surrounded by special devices, and the substances in the blood vessels cannot easily enter the brain tissue. This is to protect the brain. However, when a brain disease occurs, you want to treat it with drugs. It is difficult for drugs to pass through the blood-brain barrier, which makes it difficult to treat brain damage. Fortunately, hydrogen can easily reach the brain tissue without being interrupted by the blood-brain barrier.

Third, high-concentration hydrogen is non-toxic.

Its non-toxicity is being confirmed by deep sea divers. In deep-sea diving, a large amount of gas (mainly nitrogen) is dissolved in the blood by water pressure (the gas dissolves in water under high pressure). This causes the diver to fall into a coma, a state of being anesthetized by nitrogen, so it is called nitrogen anesthesia. In addition, when the diver surfaced after diving, the dissolved gas in the blood was released in the form of bubbles due to the pressure drop.

If bubbles block the blood vessels that enter the brain and heart and other major organs, the diver will be in a state of emergency. This is called decompression sickness. To treat and prevent dangerous nitrogen coma and decompression sickness, divers are required to inhale a mixture of 49% hydrogen, 50% helium, and 1% oxygen. Even in this high concentration of hydrogen, there are no side effects or toxic effects caused by hydrogen.

Therefore, 49% of hydrogen has been recognized as the "safety standard for use". "In animal and human experiments, hydrogen mixtures with air (2%) or up to 1.6 ppm of hydrogen water (1.6 grams of hydrogen per 1,000 liters of water) were used." These concentrations are very low compared to the 49% concentration. Therefore, there is no need to worry about the toxicity of hydrogen currently used to treat these diseases.