Acute hydrogen-rich water ingestion stimulates cardiac autonomic activity in healthy females

Michal Botek,Eliška Najmanová,Jakub Krejčí,František Pluháček,Barbora Sládečková

doi:10.5507/ag.2021.009

Abstract

Background: Hydrogen-rich water (HRW) has been shown to have a stimulating effect on the human body. Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the influence of acute HRW intake on autonomic cardiac regulation during 50 min of rest sitting. Methods: Fourteen healthy females (age 21.7 ± 1.2 years, body mass 67.8 ± 8.7 kg, height 167 ± 5.5 cm) took part in this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial with crossover design. Heart rate variability (HRV) was monitored in the sitting position after administration of 1260 ml of HRW or placebo. Time domain indexes of HRV as the square root of the mean of the squares of differences between adjacent RR intervals (RMSSD), the standard deviation of all RR intervals (SDNN) and the ratio of SDNN/RMSSD as an index of sympatho-vagal balance were used to assess autonomic cardiac response. The values were transformed using natural logarithm (Ln). Results: After administration of HRW, we found significantly increased ratio Ln SDNN/RMSSD when comparing it to placebo in 25 min (HRW: 0.40 ± 0.30, placebo: 0.26 ± 0.25, p = .049) and 35 min (HRW: 0.44 ± 0.30, placebo: 0.28 ± 0.28, p = .029) of rest sitting. Ln SDNN was significantly increased after HRW administration when compared to placebo in 45 min (HRW: 4.41 ± 0.42 ms, placebo: 4.28 ± 0.31 ms, p = .049) of rest sitting. Conclusions: Acute HRW ingestion induced a relative increase in sympathetic activity between 25 and 35 min post-ingestion, whereas vagal activity was not affected.

Highlights

Molecular hydrogen (H2) has been described as an antiinflammation agent (Ohta, 2015)
Clinical and animal studies have demonstrated that Hydrogen-rich water (HRW) intake is linked to numerous health benefits, such as improvement in lipid and glucose metabolism in diabetes patients (Kajiyama et al, 2008), quality of life after radiotherapy treatment in regards to reducing the biological reaction to radiation-induced oxidative stress (Kang et al, 2011), other studies showed a reduction of mitochondrial DNA damage (Tomofuji et al, 2014) and improved autonomic cardiac function after 4 weeks of administration in healthy adults (Mizuno et al, 2017)
A statistically significant beverage factor was found for heart rate (HR) and Ln standard deviation of all RR intervals (SDNN)/RMSSD with medium and small effect size, respectively (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Molecular hydrogen (H2) has been described as an antiinflammation agent (Ohta, 2015). In addition to clinical studies, there is positive effect in physically active humans while HRW was reported to reduce blood acidosis (Ostojic & Stojanovic, 2014) and lactate concentration (Aoki et al, 2012; Botek et al, 2019, 2021), improve perceptual and ventilatory response to exercise (Botek et al, 2019) or having an antifatigue effect (Aoki et al, 2012; Botek et al, 2020, 2021; Da Ponte et al, 2018). Hydrogen-rich water (HRW) has been shown to have a stimulating effect on the human body. Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the influence of acute HRW intake on autonomic cardiac regulation during 50 min of rest sitting. Ln SDNN was significantly increased after HRW administration when compared to placebo in 45 min (HRW: 4.41 ± 0.42 ms, placebo: 4.28 ± 0.31 ms, p = .049) of rest sitting. Conclusions: Acute HRW ingestion induced a relative increase in sympathetic activity between 25 and 35 min post-ingestion, whereas vagal activity was not affected

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion