Hydrogen and the Mitochondria

Hydrogen is one of the primordial elements that fueled the development of all life on Earth. Human beings cannot live without hydrogen. While science refers to us as carbon-based life forms, man is also a hydrogen-based life form. When plants absorb sunlight, they store negatively charged hydrogen ions through the process of photosynthesis. When you eat unprocessed plants, your body’s cells utilize the nutrients in those plants with the electrical charge of the hydrogen ions in those plants. When your body burns hydrogen and oxygen, it generates the energy you need for the process of life.

Water has both the fuel (hydrogen) and oxygen, which provides the fire of oxidation. The word hydrogen comes from the Greek, meaning “water-former.” Water is formed when hydrogen is burned (oxidized) by oxygen. It is created every day in our bodies as we burn hydrogen to create ATP. Hydrogen and oxygen participate in a continuous cycle that generates both water and energy.A Nobel Prize was awarded to Dr. Peter Mitchell in 1978 for his theory of chemiosmosis. According to his model, hydrogen is essential in the production of ATP. The first scientist to talk about hydrogen was Dr. Szent-Györgyi who won the Nobel Prize for discovering Vitamin C and its ability to cure scurvy in 1937. He also won a Nobel Prize for his work identifying the reactions that liberate energy from hydrogen. He explained one of the basic principles of biology: hydrogen and oxygen interact in a delicate balance releasing energy delivering it to cells in tiny portions. 

Dr. Szent-Györgyi said: “Hydrogen is, in fact, the only fuel the body knows. The foodstuff, carbohydrate, is essentially a packet of hydrogen, a hydrogen supplier and hydrogen donor, and the main event during its combustion is the splitting off of hydrogen. So the combustion of hydrogen is the real energy-supplying reaction.”

Water has both the fuel (hydrogen) and oxygen, which provides the fire of oxidation. The word hydrogen comes from the Greek, meaning “water-former.” Water is formed when hydrogen is burned (oxidized) by oxygen. It is created every day in our bodies as we burn hydrogen to create ATP. Hydrogen and oxygen participate in a continuous cycle that generates both water and energy.

“The oxidation of hydrogen in stages seems to be one of the basic principles of biological oxidation. The reason for this is probably mainly that the cell would not be able to harness and transfer to other processes the large amounts of energy, released by direct oxidation. The cell needs small changes if it is to be able to pay for its functions without losing too much in the process. So, it oxidizes the H-atom in stages, converting the large banknote into small change,” writes Szent-Györgyi.

Szent-Györgyi was the first to show that the human body stores hydrogen in many of its organs. He called this ‘hydrogen pooling’ and he identified the liver as the organ that pools the most hydrogen because it requires hydrogen to neutralize free radicals produced during detoxification. This is what hydrogen does best—neutralize free radicals and combine with them to turn them into water.  

Our mitochondria are where the majority of free radicals are generated, so when high amounts of free radicals overpowers antioxidant defenses the battle for life is lost as dysfunctions in mitochondria accumulate, become overwhelmingly destructive, all while oxygen deprivation sets in. Cancer comes to many because of this and more and more older people are having their brains begin to decay even as the body goes on to function more or less normally. Hydrogen is the ultimate antioxidant!