Repetitive Bathing and Skin Poultice with Hydrogen-Rich Water Improve Wrinkles and Blotches Together with Modulation of Skin Oiliness and Moisture
Tanaka Y, Miwa N. · Hydrogen. 2022;3(2):161–177.
What kind of evidence is this?
Human
Uncontrolled before-and-after pilot study
Skin, wound and aging research
Other forms
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Methods at a glance
Five healthy adults aged 49–66 years.
5 participants: 2 men and 3 women.
Daily use for 11–98 consecutive days, depending on participant.
A 180–200 L bath was electrolyzed for 60 minutes; participants then bathed for 10 minutes while receiving two fresh hydrogen-rich-water towel poultices. Procedures were repeated daily.
H₂ dissolved in bath water and applied by poultice — H₂ only, not Brown's gas.
The Results section reports 338–682 µg/L dissolved H₂ and 6.86–9.02×10^7 nanobubbles/mL at 41°C. The Methods and abstract instead print µg/mL, creating an unresolved 1,000-fold unit inconsistency.
Not applicable — topical bath/poultice, not gas inhalation.
No inhaled O₂ was co-delivered.
Each participant's baseline; no parallel control group.
Outcomes and reported result
Image-ranked facial wrinkles and blotches, skin oiliness and moisture.
Twenty-eight of 29 wrinkles and all 23 blotches were rated improved; mean wrinkle grade changed from 3.14±0.52 to 1.52±0.74 and blotch grade from 3.48±0.67 to 1.74±0.92 (both p<0.001).
The free publisher full article, methods, figures, results and internal unit discrepancy 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
Only five participants, no control group, variable exposure duration and image-ranked outcomes. The article contains an unresolved µg/L versus µg/mL inconsistency; Hydrogenology does not infer which unit is correct.
Healthy adults using the reported bath and poultice protocol; not evidence of clinical treatment efficacy.
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
OpenAlex ID: W4225255793 · DOI: 10.3390/hydrogen3020011
Open-access full article on MDPI.
MDPI publisher full article; full-text extraction checked 8 August 2026.
2026-08-10