Suppressive Effect of High Hydrogen Generating High Amylose Cornstarch on Subacute Hepatic Ischemia-reperfusion Injury in Rats.
Tanabe H, Sasaki Y, Yamamoto T, Kiriyama S, Nishimura N. · Bioscience of Microbiota, Food and Health. 2012;31:103-108.
What kind of evidence is this?
Preclinical
Controlled rat study
Liver health
Other forms
Mixed preclinical signal.
Animal liver tissue and biomarker outcomes.
Methods at a glance
Male Sprague-Dawley rats in a hepatic ischemia-reperfusion model.
49 rats across four diet and surgery groups of 12 or 13.
14-day diet followed by 48-hour reperfusion.
High-amylose cornstarch diet used to increase endogenous intestinal hydrogen production for 14 days before surgery.
Endogenous intestinal H2 generated through fermentation; not Brown's gas.
Breath hydrogen was reported at about ten times and portal-vein hydrogen at about five times control values.
Not applicable — dietary fermentation.
No oxygen was co-delivered.
Control diet with sham or ischemia-reperfusion surgery.
Outcomes and reported result
AST, ALT, liver histology, myeloperoxidase and oxidative-stress measures.
AST was lower with the high-amylose diet; ALT showed a non-significant trend, and several oxidative and inflammatory markers were null.
The full article, methods, tables and positive and null findings were checked.
A reported association, difference or mechanism is not automatically a clinical benefit. Null findings, outcome type, study design and precision all matter.
Cautions and applicability
Dietary intervention has effects beyond hydrogen production, and most measured markers did not show a clear benefit.
The reported rat hepatic ischemia-reperfusion model.
SYRCLE animal-study tool — preliminary
Some concerns
Unclear allocation concealment and assessor blinding; dietary co-effects are important.
Randomization/allocation reporting is limited · Blinding of personnel is unclear · Attrition is incompletely reported in places · Blinding of outcome assessors is unclear · No prospectively registered analysis plan identified
No single-study GRADE certainty rating is assigned. Certainty is assessed by important outcome across a complete eligible evidence set, not by attaching a final grade to one source.
Sources and record status
PMID: 24936356 · DOI: 10.12938/bmfh.31.103
Free full article in PubMed Central.
PubMed record and PubMed Central full text; extraction checked 9 August 2026.
2026-08-10