The latest trend on TikTok is hyping up the benefits of hydrogen water while attempting to sell you a battery-powered water bottle that produces it.
¯\(°_o)/¯
claiming that there are 1,400 human studies on the benefits of hydrogen water. If there are, they’re really well hidden!
few human studies out there are limited in scope and not very conclusive in their results. For example, here’s one on whether hydrogenated water improves how cancer patients feel after radiation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3231938/
The patients who drank the hydrogenated water reported better quality-of-life scores, but there were no changes in health outcomes such as tumor size.
Here’s another showing a small possible effect on blood lipids such as LDL, but it’s a small study and the authors acknowledge several limitations
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679390/
These studies are great as a starting point for further research, but they don’t constitute proof that hydrogen water is good for you.
I guess my "study" was accurate
https://counter.social/@ecksmc/113301531604376845
🤪
Leaving TikTok aside for the moment, let’s talk about what it means for your water to have hydrogen in it. A water molecule is made of one oxygen atom bound to two hydrogen atoms, hence its chemical formula: H²O.
But that’s not the hydrogen they’re talking about. Hydrogen can also be a gas, where two hydrogen molecules are bound to each other. The chemical formula for that is H². Hydrogen gas is lightweight; it’s also flammable, as famously demonstrated in the Hindenburg disaster.
Hydrogen water, also called hydrogenated water, is water that has hydrogen gas bubbled through it is what they are trying to say has health benefits.