Can hydrogen absorption really cure all diseases？ Biological safety needs to be verified
Hypertension, depression, insomnia … … Even cancer, if someone tells you that there is a "hydrogen inhalation" therapy that can treat these symptoms, do you believe it? Hydrogen is a flammable gas. Does it really have such a "magical" effect when inhaled into the human body? What is the scientific principle behind it? Is it really effective or a psychological effect to treat diseases by absorbing hydrogen?
The reporter recently learned in an interview that this kind of "hydrogen therapy" is gradually being valued by the medical community, and the selective antioxidant properties of hydrogen are the key to the so-called "cure all diseases".
Why do people get sick?
The main reason is the imbalance of oxidation and reduction in the body.
To understand why hydrogen can cure diseases, we must start with why people get sick.
We should know that the human body is always in a dynamic balance with the surrounding environment. Under the action of pathogenic factors, such as bacteria and radiation, the original balance is broken, and the body is damaged, resulting in pathological changes in the function, metabolism and mental structure of tissues and organs, resulting in clinical symptoms and signs.
When human cells are oxidized, they will form oxidative damage. Medically speaking, it is because of internal and external factors that a large number of free radicals in the body erupt, which is called oxidative stress.
Free radicals are atoms, groups or molecules containing unpaired electrons. Free radicals themselves are essential substances to maintain normal life. Free radical reaction is the basis of energy metabolism. When people inhale oxygen and eat food, energy substances and substances that promote energy conversion undergo oxidation reaction in the body, thus producing a large number of free radicals. Free radicals in the human body are constantly produced, and will be continuously removed and maintained at a normal physiological level. Once there are too many or too few free radicals, it will cause adverse effects and even harm to the body.
When the oxidation degree of cells exceeds the antioxidant capacity of cells to remove oxides, it will form an imbalance between oxidation system and antioxidant system, that is, redox imbalance. Excessive free radicals, especially toxic reactive oxygen species, will begin to attack biological macromolecules and cause tissue and cell damage. Therefore, oxidative damage is the root cause of various diseases and body aging. Taking the treatment of human inflammation as an example, it is generally believed that scavenging oxygen free radicals is the most fundamental way to alleviate inflammatory reaction.
Principle of treatment:
Hydrogen can scavenge human toxic free radicals.
Xu Kecheng, a domestic oncologist and honorary president of Fu Da Cancer Hospital affiliated to Jinan University, told the Yangcheng Evening News reporter that "hydrogen therapy" is a new therapy that is gradually being valued by the medical community. The medical community has carried out more and more research on how many diseases, to what extent, and whether there are side effects.
Xu Kecheng introduced that no matter what kind of diseases people suffer from, there is a common factor, that is, the emergence of toxic free radicals in the body. Free radicals (reactive oxygen species) are divided into good and bad ones. Japanese scientists have found that hydrogen can specifically remove bad free radicals. Because one of the most typical and important chemical properties of hydrogen is its reducibility, which can selectively neutralize toxic free radicals. From the analysis of disease mechanism, oxidative damage is the most basic pathophysiological process of almost all diseases. Therefore, since hydrogen is a selective antioxidant, it is likely to have a therapeutic effect on most human diseases.
Why does hydrogen have selective antioxidant properties? It turns out that the reducibility of hydrogen is very weak compared with various reductants in the process of cell metabolism. According to the law of redox priority: for the same oxidant, when there are multiple reductants, it usually reacts with the reductants with the strongest reductants first. Therefore, in the normal process of cell metabolism, hydrogen basically has no effect. However, if it is in abnormal cells, the situation is different. For example, in tumor tissue cells, because a large number of free radicals are produced, the normal metabolic reaction cannot be carried out, so other reducing substances are insufficient, which gives hydrogen a chance to react chemically with free radicals, and the result is to cancel out unpaired electrons in free radicals — — Most unpaired electrons of free radicals come from oxygen atoms — — They can react with hydrogen to produce water, a stable substance, and free radicals that lose oxygen atoms become stable substances in this process.
Small side effects,
Because hydrogen itself is inactive
In Xu Kecheng’s Guan ‘ai Health Studio in Guangdong Province, the reporter saw that the seats next to the 15 "hydrogen-absorbing machines" set here were all filled with people who "sucked hydrogen" with trachea in their noses. The staff told the reporter that this machine can electrolyze water into a mixed gas with 66% hydrogen and 33% oxygen only by adding pure water or distilled water. The patient only needs to take a deep breath and inhale the gas into the body to complete a course of treatment. The time for each "hydrogen inhalation" course is at least one and a half hours. A 62-year-old Chen Yi told the reporter that she was diagnosed with gastric cancer several years ago. After a series of radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatments, the whole person became extremely weak. After starting to suck hydrogen in early August this year, she found that her physical condition had improved significantly. "After the first hydrogen inhalation, it was a sweat when I got home; After insisting on smoking for three times, I found that the sleep that I woke up once an hour has improved. Originally, Qing Wu’s face has also improved, and his physical strength has gradually recovered. Now he can go for a walk in the community every day. " Another Abreu also told reporters that he had liver cancer four years ago, and later had an operation to remove it. I didn’t expect it to recur last year. After being recommended to absorb hydrogen, the most obvious change is that sleep is better and the spirit is much better.
It turns out that in terms of anti-tumor, tumor cell walls produce more reactive oxygen species than normal cells, which affects cell proliferation, DNA synthesis and angiogenesis, and oxygen free radicals, as "second messengers", play an important role in intracellular signal transduction and can induce and maintain the carcinogenicity of cancer cells. At this time, as an antioxidant, hydrogen has the potential to treat tumor diseases. Moreover, scientists have found that compared with other antioxidant substances, hydrogen can easily pass through the cell membrane and organelle membrane, reach the required parts for reduction reaction, and selectively remove oxygen free radicals. At the same time, because hydrogen itself is inactive, it will not cause physiological function damage and metabolic disorder.
Progress is rapid,
But the biological safety needs to be verified.
The effect of hydrogen on human health can be traced back to 1975. At that time, someone published a paper in Science magazine, saying that continuous breathing of 8 atmospheres of 97.5% hydrogen for 14 days, high-pressure hydrogen can effectively treat animal skin malignant tumors, and that this is the effect obtained through anti-oxidation.
In addition, in 2001, French diving doctors also proved that breathing 8 atmospheres of high-pressure hydrogen can also treat the inflammatory reaction caused by Schistosoma hepatica infection, which proved for the first time that hydrogen has anti-inflammatory effect, and proposed that the direct reaction between hydrogen and hydroxyl radicals is the basis for treating inflammatory injury.
However, the above research has not attracted widespread attention, mainly because high-pressure hydrogen is difficult to be used as a general clinical treatment.
It was not until 2007 that Professor Naruto Ota of Japan Medical University succeeded in the experiment of treating animal cerebral ischemia with 2% hydrogen, and it was published in the journal Nature Medicine, and "hydrogen therapy" finally attracted the attention of the whole world. 2007 is therefore recognized as the first year of "hydrogen medicine".
Since then, the research of hydrogen biology has begun to rise. The United States, Japan and China are the countries that have studied the medical biological effects of hydrogen the most, and each country has dozens of research institutions to participate.
In China, Sun Xuejun, a professor at Shanghai Second Military Medical University, is considered to be the first person to introduce hydrogen therapy, also known as "the first person in hydrogen medicine in China". Professor Sun Xuejun said that he has been engaged in gas effect research for a long time, but he didn’t start to study the medical effect of hydrogen until he saw the research results of Akio Ota in 2007, and gradually found that this therapy was really useful.
Nowadays, the research results of hydrogen biology in domestic medical circles are increasing. Take the number of topics related to "hydrogen medicine" included in China HowNet as an example. In 2007, the topics related to "hydrogen" were all related to energy. After 2007, a large number of papers on "hydrogen" and the medical effects of various diseases appeared, involving mental illness, heart disease, cancer and other fields. Some academicians also began to study "hydrogen medicine". Among them, Wang Hongyang, academician of China Academy of Engineering and director of National Hepatocellular Cancer Science Center, also led the research group to complete the Study of Hydrogen Therapy for Liver Injury, which was published in the internationally renowned Journal of Hepatology.
In 2014, Zhong Nanshan, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, discovered that hydrogen is effective for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In his speech at the World Thoracic Congress, he pointed out that "hydrogen molecules are mainly aimed at chronic diseases, and the most basic thing is the enhancement of antioxidant stress, not the simple repair, which is conducive to the recovery of the body. The concept is to treat the cause rather than the symptoms."
In March, 2014, the professional committee of hydrogen molecular biomedicine of China Medical Care International Exchange Promotion Association was also announced.
However, at present, "hydrogen medicine" is still in the basic and clinical research stage. Xu Kecheng told reporters that he hopes to collect as many clinical cases as possible through public welfare studios. Because some experts pointed out that although hydrogen has been found to be effective for many diseases, the biological mechanism of this effect still needs further study, and its clinical effect needs to be supported by sufficient evidence. For example, Dong Wenbin and Zheng Gaoli from the Institute of Pharmacology of Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences once wrote that the biological safety of hydrogen can not be fully proved at present, and many problems about hydrogen treatment need further study.
Key reminder:
Self-hydrogen therapy is not recommended.
At this point in the article, it is particularly worth reminding that the use of hydrogen to treat diseases should still be operated under the guidance of professional doctors, and it should never be used casually.
For example, the hydrogen used in hydrogen balloons is not recommended for treating diseases. In this regard, Lin Xinyong, president of Shanghai Shumei Medical Technology Co., Ltd. said that the gas normally inhaled by the human body must pass the safety tests such as toxicology and biocompatibility before it can be used. Even though water electrolysis can produce hydrogen, there are risks if the related equipment parts are non-medical grade.
Wei Youzhen, a professor at the Oriental Hospital affiliated to Tongji University, also said that the hydrogen used in hydrogen balloons is usually industrial hydrogen, and its source is not necessarily generated by water electrolysis. There may be other gases doped, so the purity is not enough, so it is not suitable for human inhalation, and it is not conducive to treating diseases.
