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The newest pattern on TikTok is hyping up the advantages of hydrogen water whereas trying to promote you a battery-powered water bottle that produces it. Does hydrogen water actually hydrate you higher and remedy your intestine points? Do these bottles even make hydrogen water?
What’s hydrogen water?
Leaving TikTok apart for the second, let’s discuss what it means to your water to have hydrogen in it. A water molecule is made of 1 oxygen atom sure to 2 hydrogen atoms, therefore its chemical components: H2O.
However that’s not the hydrogen they’re speaking about. Hydrogen will also be a gasoline, the place two hydrogen molecules are sure to one another. The chemical components for that’s H2. Hydrogen gasoline is light-weight; it’s additionally flammable, as famously demonstrated within the Hindenburg catastrophe.
Hydrogen water, additionally known as hydrogenated water, is water that has hydrogen gasoline bubbled by way of it. The gasoline will need to float into the air, so it’s onerous to truly preserve the hydrogen within the water; leaving it uncapped will permit the gasoline escape, very similar to carbon dioxide bubbles float away in the event you go away a soda uncapped and it goes flat.
All that is to say: Hydrogen water is an actual factor that may be manufactured. Whether or not it’s being manufactured appropriately in these TikToks, and whether or not it’s answerable for any well being advantages, is more durable to say.
What TikTok says about hydrogen water
Scrolling by way of the movies tagged #hydrogenwater looks like watching the traditional “promote me this pencil” improv train. Every creator reveals a bottle that glows blue if you press a button, and every enthuses over it for a special purpose. One tells us how good the water tastes. One calls it “sacred water.” One says she expects it to remedy her gut-health points. One says it’s essentially the most “hydrating” sort of water.
A number of of those clips function all-star huckster Gary Brecka, who claims there are 1,400 human research on the advantages of hydrogen water. If there are, they’re very well hidden! However extra on that in a minute.
These movies are all mild on the backing for his or her claims, and heavy on the gross sales pitch: the place to get the bottle with the blue mild, how a lot it prices, why this mannequin is healthier than that one, and so forth.
What the science says about hydrogen water
The few human research on the market are restricted in scope and never very conclusive of their outcomes. For instance, right here’s one on whether or not hydrogenated water improves how most cancers sufferers really feel after radiation. The sufferers who drank the hydrogenated water reported higher quality-of-life scores, however there have been no adjustments in well being outcomes resembling tumor measurement. Right here’s one other exhibiting a small doable impact on blood lipids resembling LDL, however it’s a small examine and the authors acknowledge a number of limitations.
These research are nice as a place to begin for additional analysis, however they don’t represent proof that hydrogen water is sweet for you. Notice that they don’t measure any well being outcomes (like prevalence of illness, charges of dying, or something equally goal).
These research additionally say nothing about battery-powered water bottles influencing any of the well being outcomes they’re being touted for, like hydration or intestine well being. That truth is greater than sufficient to dismiss these claims out of hand, however earlier than I shut, I’d prefer to take a better take a look at that bottle they’re all making an attempt to promote me.
Does the bottle even do what it’s saying?
Practically the entire trending movies are hawking what seems to be like the identical bottle. It seems to be the identical design as this one, which is presently accessible on Amazon for about $30, and going for wherever between $9 and $50 on TikTok’s “store” web page.
That is in distinction to the best way hydrogen water was produced within the research I linked above. In these, contributors got magnesium sticks to drop into their water bottles for about 12 hours. Water reacts with magnesium to supply hydrogen gasoline and magnesium oxide; that is a fairly easy chemical response. However the TikTok model makes use of a water bottle with a button on it. You press the button, a blue mild activates, and tiny bubbles(?) seem within the water.
I’m extremely skeptical of the declare that this produces any vital quantity of hydrogen gasoline. Supposedly the underside part of the bottle incorporates an electrolysis gadget, which makes use of electrical energy to separate water molecules into their hydrogen and oxygen elements. The hydrogen atoms pair up with one another to make hydrogen gasoline, and the oxygen molecules pair as much as make oxygen gasoline.
Creating a tool to do it is a traditional science experiment for youths. However is it actually taking place in that water bottle? First, if it have been, it wouldn’t be hydrogen water, however moderately hydrogen-and-oxygen water. Since hydrogen water is (typically) touted for its antioxidant properties, it might be unusual to pair it with oxygen, a literal oxidant. And second, turning the water into gasoline would end in much less water, because the water is transformed into gasoline and the gasoline—except tightly capped—floats away.
A number of the TikTokers try to measure the hydrogen content material of the water, however they achieve this with pH meters, which measure hydrogen ions (not molecular hydrogen within the type of a gasoline). ORP units face an identical drawback: They don’t really inform you how a lot hydrogen is within the water, simply its redox potential. Including to my skepticism, the bottle’s description says you need to use it with distilled water. You possibly can’t do electrolysis on distilled water, because you want some salt or different supply of ions to entice the water molecules to separate aside within the first place.
So whereas I can not show that these bottles are bullshit, they certain don’t sound very legit. And whereas I additionally can not show that hydrogen water has zero well being advantages, there certain isn’t anyone on the market presenting sturdy proof that they do. Save your cash and check out a TikTok pattern that can really enhance your life, like indignant cleansing.
