LIQUID ASSETS

The smallest element on the periodic table might prove to be a powerful tool in fighting disease – and delivering glowing skin

Like everyone who came of age post-cindy Crawford, I was raised to believe I had to chug eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy. Sure, water is a life force – up to 60 per cent of the body is composed of it – but downing litre after tasteless litre has never stirred me in quite the same way as tossing back a sugary Gatorade. Until now.

Hydrogen-rich water – in which protons and electrons are added to regular old H₂O, giving it a surplus of hydrogen gas (H₂O plus molecular hydrogen does not a new element make) – has been a thing in Japan since the ’60s, and the country is now in full hydrogen mania: major companies sell machines that gas up water for at-home guzzling, and health nuts pop hydrogen-infused anti-ageing supplements or soak in hydrogen-enriched bath salts to reap an array of skin-perfecting, antiinflammatory and antioxidant benefits.

Too good to be true? Consider this: in a small study documented in the Journal Of Photochemistry And

Photobiology, subjects who bathed in hydrogen-enriched water daily for three months showed significant improvement in neck wrinkles. In the same study, samples of Uv-damaged human fibroblasts (aka sunzapped skin cells) were also shown to increase collagen production twofold after being immersed in hydrogen water for three to five days.

Hydrogen (H) is the smallest and lightest element on the periodic table. When ingested, it travels through the bloodstream and, according to research, weasels its way into the mitochondria, the energy centres of cells, and penetrates the nucleus, where the majority of DNA is stored. There, it reduces free radicals – inflammation-causing molecules linked to everything from accelerated skin ageing to cancer. This is no

minor thing: a 2010 study in the Journal Of

Clinical Biochemistry And Nutrition showed when 20 subjects with symptoms of metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, insulin resistance) drank between 1.5 and two litres of hydrogen water a day for eight weeks, they saw a 39 per cent increase in an enzyme that fights free radicals, a 43 per cent drop in thiobarbituric acid (a substance linked to oxidative damage) and a 13 per cent decrease in total cholesterol.

Not surprisingly, hydrogen water has become the new It-product in health circles, including Dr Perricone Hydrogen Water, which is packaged in aluminium cans (aluminium is said to best preserve hydrogen gas). It’s not available to ship to Australia, so we suggest you leave room in your checked-in luggage on your next trip to the US. “I’ve never been more excited about a substance,” says the man behind the can, dermatologist Dr Nicholas Perricone. “I truly believe we’ll reduce healthcare costs by a third when people start drinking hydrogen water.”

Perricone himself swills 700ml a day – the optimal amount, he says, for maximum benefits. His testing shows that within 15 minutes of drinking the water, there’s a 10 per cent increase in NADH, a compound our bodies produce that energises cells. “The mental clarity you get is phenomenal,” Perricone adds. He also claims hydrogen water can ease jet lag and – a game changer for athletes – speed up workout recovery, a theory echoed in a 2016 Japanese study that examined hydrogen baths as a treatment for exercise-induced delayed onset muscle soreness.

Another person on the hydrogen bandwagon is Robert Slovak, co-founder of Purative Active H₂ Molecular Hydrogen tablets, scientist and mechanical engineer, who helped pioneer reverse-osmosis technology, a widely used water-purification method. He points out that hydrogen is particularly effective because, unlike other antioxidants, not only is it teeny-tiny, it’s also selective about the free radicals it tackles. One of its main functions is shutting down hydroxyl or OH (one molecule of oxygen, one of hydrogen), which is perhaps the most reactive free radical in the body and which our cells emit as a result of trauma and oxidative stress, as well as (in small amounts) after every single thing we do, from breathing to dancing all night.

Like all free radicals, hydroxyl has an unpaired electron, and that electron turns it into an insatiable whirling dervish that must stabilise itself. “It will steal an electron from DNA, cell walls, mitochondria – and it will damage those when it does,” Slovak explains. But hydrogen water cuts it off, splitting into its two hydrogen atoms, each of which donates its electron to a hungry hydroxyl radical – triggering a reaction that seems more mystical than scientific. Whereas some antioxidants can become free radicals after donating their electron to stop a free radical, hydrogen bonds with hydroxyl’s hydrogen and oxygen to form a new molecule that’s the opposite of harmful: H₂O. That’s why a 2014 study in PLOS One examining traumatic brain injury (TBI) – which cues an uptick in hydroxyl and inflammation, and which research shows may trigger Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s – found when mice drank hydrogen after a TBI, brain swelling was reduced by about half.

So, wait: drinking souped-up water can prevent free radicals from chomping up our grey matter? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, says neurologist and psychiatrist Dr Maurice Preter, who treats patients with dementia and brain injuries. “I don’t want to shoot down hydrogen-water therapy – we’re in need of new treatments for dementia and need to keep an open mind,” he says. “But we don’t know how long-term [its effects] are.” And while dermatologist Dr Macrene Alexiades cites “a great deal of promise for preventing or reversing oxidative damage from strokes, skin ageing, metabolic diseases and neurological damage”, she says the effects of drinking the water day-to-day have yet to be measured in well-designed clinical trials.

Perricone is convinced he’s also concocted a way to deliver hydrogen’s benefits topically, via a range called H₂ Elemental Energy, which is part of his Perricone MD skincare line. Each product is packed with youknow-what – promising to re-energise and rejuvenate.

I find myself noticeably energised after a few swigs of hydrogen water, as if – poof! – I’ve suddenly had an extra bit of sleep. So I’m down to pay four bucks for a can of water – the same amount people shell out for Red Bull, and less than my organic almond-milk latte – if it might improve my skin and minimise the inflammation I’ve accumulated stressing out all winter (or will accumulate lazing around on sun-drenched rooftops come summer). Later, Gatorade.