Hydrogen-Rich Water Ameliorates Metabolic Disorder via Modifying Gut Microbiota in Impaired Fasting Glucose Patients: A Randomized Controlled Study
Liang B et al. · Antioxidants (Basel). 2023;12(6):1245.
What kind of evidence is this?
Human
Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled parallel trial
Metabolic and lipid health
H₂-rich water
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Methods at a glance
Adults with impaired fasting glucose
73 analyzed: H₂ water n=32; pure water n=41
8 weeks
Hydrogen-rich water, 1,000 mL/day
H₂ dissolved in water — H₂ only, not Brown’s gas.
The article text reports 1.6 mg/mL and a 1.4 mg/mL requirement, while its supplementary figure uses mg/L. Hydrogenology does not resolve this internal unit inconsistency without author clarification.
Not applicable — oral water, not gas inhalation.
No O₂ was co-delivered as part of the intervention.
1,000 mL/day pure water with no H₂ infusion
Outcomes and reported result
Fasting glucose, normalization of glucose, liver-fat and visceral-fat measures, body weight, gut microbiota and metabolomics
Both groups had lower fasting glucose; the between-group result favored H₂ water. Glucose normalization was 68.8% versus 53.8% and was not statistically significant. In the abnormal-fatty-liver subset, remission was 10/16 versus 6/19; microbiome and metabolomic analyses were exploratory.
Methods, main results, funding and conflict statement checked in the free full text. The concentration unit discrepancy remains unresolved.
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
Twenty-six participants were lost between enrollment and analysis; subgroup and microbiome samples were smaller. The authors describe the metabolic effect as slight. Public Chinese grants funded the work and no conflict was declared.
Adults with impaired fasting glucose under this eight-week protocol.
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: 37371975 · DOI: 10.3390/antiox12061245
Open-access article.
Free full text on PMC and publisher page; identifiers cross-checked in PubMed.
2026-08-10