Hydrogen-Rich Water Ameliorates Total Body Irradiation-Induced Hematopoietic Stem Cell Injury by Reducing Hydroxyl Radical
Zhang J et al. · Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2017;2017:8241678.
What kind of evidence is this?
Preclinical
Controlled mouse total-body-irradiation survival and hematopoietic-stem-cell experiments
Cancer research
H₂-rich water
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Methods at a glance
C57BL mice exposed to sublethal or lethal total-body irradiation
Survival cohorts n=15/group at 6.8 Gy and n=18/group at 7.2 Gy; laboratory cohorts commonly n=3–8/group
One pretreatment plus 7 days after irradiation; survival followed for 30 days and selected stem-cell outcomes longer
0.5 mL hydrogen-rich water by gavage 10 minutes before irradiation and daily for 7 days afterward
H₂ dissolved in water — H₂ only, not Brown’s gas and not inhalation.
Fresh water was maintained above 0.8 ppm dissolved H₂ (reported as about 1 ppm); H₂ gas was bubbled into 500 mL water at 150 mL/min for 20 minutes.
Not applicable to administration — oral gavage, not gas inhalation. The 150 mL/min value is preparation flow, not an inhaled dose.
No O₂ was co-delivered as part of the intervention.
Irradiated mice receiving vehicle water and non-irradiated controls
Outcomes and reported result
Survival, blood-cell differentiation, stem and progenitor cells, self-renewal, ROS, DNA damage, apoptosis and antioxidant proteins
The article reports higher survival in lethal-dose cohorts and favorable hematopoietic-stem-cell, oxidative-stress and DNA-damage measures with H₂ water.
The complete open-access article was checked for water preparation, concentration, allocation, schedule, figures, principal results and conflicts.
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
Preclinical radiation model with many laboratory outcomes, several cohort sizes and no human participants. Authors declared no competing interests.
Total-body irradiation in mice, not prevention of treatment toxicity in people.
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
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: 28243358 · DOI: 10.1155/2017/8241678
Open-access full text is available through PMC.
Open-access PMC full text and PubMed record.
2026-08-10