Protective effects of hydrogen-rich saline against renal ischemia-reperfusion injury by increased expression of heme oxygenase-1 in aged rats
Xu X, He X, Liu J, Qin J, Ye J, Fan M. · International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Pathology. 2019;12(4):1488-1496.
What kind of evidence is this?
Preclinical
Three-group controlled aged-rat ischemia-reperfusion experiment
Kidney and urinary health
Other forms
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Methods at a glance
Thirty 24-month-old male Sprague-Dawley rats undergoing sham surgery or 45-minute bilateral renal-pedicle occlusion.
30 aged rats, n=10 each in sham plus saline, renal I/R plus saline, and renal I/R plus H₂-rich saline groups.
Single injection five minutes before reperfusion; the main protocol states sacrifice 24 hours after ischemia.
H₂-rich saline 8 mL/kg intraperitoneally five minutes before reperfusion.
H₂ dissolved in physiological saline — H₂ only, not Brown's gas.
Hydrogen was dissolved for six hours at 0.4 MPa, gamma-sterilized and prepared weekly at 0.6 mM. The HTML text displays a storage temperature of 48°C, which appears implausible and may reflect a typesetting error; Hydrogenology does not silently replace it with 4°C.
Not applicable — intraperitoneal saline, not gas inhalation.
No O₂ was co-delivered as part of the intervention.
Age-matched sham plus saline and renal I/R plus normal saline.
Outcomes and reported result
BUN, creatinine, renal MDA, 8-OHdG and SOD, histological injury, and HO-1 immunostaining/mRNA.
H₂-rich saline was associated with lower BUN/creatinine, oxidative-damage markers and histology score, higher SOD, and higher HO-1. BUN/creatinine did not differ from sham after H₂ treatment; HO-1 staining and mRNA did not differ significantly between untreated I/R and sham. One sentence reports p<0.05 while calling the HO-1 mRNA comparison non-significant, an internal inconsistency retained here.
The complete free PMC article was checked for allocation, H₂ preparation/concentration, dose/timing, renal outcomes, null findings, internal method/result inconsistencies, funding and disclosure.
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
Short preclinical study in aged male rats; one histology-method sentence refers to 12-week post-ischemic kidneys despite the main 24-hour protocol, the storage temperature is displayed implausibly as 48°C, and a non-significant comparison is paired with p<0.05. A Jiangsu medical foundation partly funded the study; authors disclosed no conflict.
Renal I/R in aged rats; it does not establish protection against human acute kidney injury.
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: 31933966
Free full article in PubMed Central.
Complete PMC article and PubMed metadata; full-text extraction checked 9 August 2026.
2026-08-10