?Multiple clinical studies report improvements in autoimmune disease with hydrogen treatment
Why Hydrogen?
H2 has been administered in clinical studies as an inhaled gas, dissolved in water for oral delivery or topical application, and delivered in saline intravenously. From human research we have seen that molecular H2 has potential benefits for metabolic health, fatty liver disease, exercise performance, autonomic nervous system balance, acute cerebral infarction,Parkinson?s disease, and in patients receiving radiation treatment for liver cancer, among many other things
H2 has been demonstrated to be a selective antioxidant,an anti-inflammatory,and an activator of the body?s endogenous antioxidant production via the Nrf2 cell-signaling pathway. Given each of these things, should we find it surprising that it also has been investigated as a treatment for autoimmune disease?
Clinical application of hydrogen in autoimmune disease:-
Multiple clinical studies have shown that treatment with H2 may be of benefit to individuals with autoimmune disease. The first publication of this nature was an open-label pilot study that investigated the impact of consumption of supersaturated H2 water on patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this study, participants consumed H2 for four weeks, then had a four-week washout, followed by another four weeks of H2 consumption. Of the 20 patients in the study, five of them had early RA (duration of less than 12 months), and four of these individuals were not on any medication. The other participants were either on methotrexate or abatacept, a combination of these, or no medications (abandoned due to side effects). No one in the study was being treated with steroid hormones.
One particularly interesting finding in this study was that the DAS28 score continued to improve during the four-week washout period, suggesting that the H2 treatment continued to have residual effects. Urinary 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) levels, a marker of DNA oxidative damage, also improved not only during treatment but during the washout phase as well, remaining below the baseline through the end of the study. It has been suggested that some of the longer term effects seen with H2 as a therapy are due to its impact on cellular signal transduction, protein activity, and genetic transcription, as its direct antioxidant effects would be limited roughly to its time in circulation which is 45 to 90 minutes, as evidenced by its level in expired air.
Conclusion:-
The positive outcomes of these studies, and other findings from numerous animal models of autoimmune disease, make it evident that we will continue to see research surrounding the use of H2 in autoimmune disease. The improvements or sustained benefits seen post-intervention for a prolonged period also are particularly exciting, as this would minimize cost and the burden of taking a daily supplement. Clearly, many exciting applications for H2 as a therapy will be seen in years to come.