Hydrogen Water vs Alkaline Water: What the Science Says About Antioxidants and pH | Andy Galpin | Be Well Moments

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hydrogen water worth the hype? I look at what it is, how it differs from alkaline water, the simple chemistry behind it, and what early human research does and does not show. This clip examines how hydrogen water is not the same as alkaline water, why changing pH via drinking water is unlikely to matter, and the proposed mechanism where added hydrogen could help neutralize excess oxidative stress by forming water.

I’m exploring with my guest the limited but emerging human evidence suggesting possible antioxidant or anti-inflammatory effects, alongside many open questions on performance outcomes, dosing, timing after activation, acute versus chronic use, who might benefit most, and how it compares with vitamin C or antioxidant-rich foods. We also note a clear conflict of interest, since my guest’s lab is running an ongoing study funded by a hydrogen water company, and he does not recommend routine use until better data are available. As a nutritionist and health communicator, I aim to keep this balanced, practical, and evidence-led.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers
improve their health and well-being.
There's a. Really big hype going on right
now on hydrogen water. What is your take on this?
OK. I can speak pretty well on this
actually. Now I have to disclose conflict

(00:21):
of interest here. So we are actually doing a study
right now in my lab with a company called Echo Water.
And so I can't speak anything about that.
That's an ongoing project. Echo has a flask that it makes
that actually generates hydrogenwater that they sell.
So I know this research very well.
In preparing for that study, we've looked at this.

(00:44):
The easiest way to explain hydrogen water is it's not
alkaline water. OK.
So hydrogen water is a like, if you talk to a chemist and like
you, you know this very well. It's a very funny term.
Some people call it molecular water, and the same thing you're
like, that doesn't even, like, that's a nonsensical word.
Like, of course it's molecular. Like what?
Anyways, hydrogen, OK, so confusion #1 is just like giving

(01:11):
it a truly awful name. OK.
So many years ago, alkaline water became a rage.
And for the most part, scientists pushed back hard.
And they rightfully so, because it turned out to be mostly
nonsense. And most of these things do,
right? So that's a good stance to have
is nonsense until proven otherwise.
We actually ran an alkaline study, like a six week study in

(01:31):
my lab many years ago and we found the same thing.
Like did nothing for performanceat all of any kind.
All right, so hydrogen water andmolecular water are not alkaline
water #1 alkaline water is literally giving you water
that's at a different pH. And the assumption is, oh,
you'll drink it, you become morealkaline, I eat less acidic.

(01:52):
And that should have more positive health benefits because
being acidic is bad. Two major problems with that.
One, ingesting a little bit of alkaline water becomes
immediately changed to the acidity level in your body,
particularly in your stomach. So it does nothing. 2, being
acidic is not bad. Your body has a natural pH that
it runs in different areas. Your stomach has a different pH

(02:14):
than your in the fact if you look at the pH in your arteries
versus your veins, they differ slightly.
That's a good thing, right? That's the way that you clear
bicarbonate even in. Your mouth. 100% like the pH in
in all the orifices in your body, in your ears, in your
nose, in your mouth. Vaginal pH is different, right?
So it's everywhere and it shouldbe different, right?

(02:35):
Things work better at a certain temperature in a certain acidity
level. And so if you're actually too
alkaline, you'll see breakdowns as well.
Not good. OK, now let's set that aside.
What hydrogen water or molecularwater is attempting to do is a
very, very easy chemistry. It's saying if we can add more
hydrogen protons. So quick chemistry for folks,

(02:57):
hydrogen is H plus, right? That's also the same way saying
like proton. Now pH, the word, the term pH
stands for two things we won't get in this debate, but one of
the ways you can interpret pH, the acronym is potential
hydrogen. And so the way that chemistry
work in the pH scale will make something alkaline versus acidic

(03:19):
is the the exchange between H plus and OH negative.
Why that matters? If you take an H plus again,
it's got a positive charge and you take an OH that has a
negative charge and you put themin the same room, what's going
to happen? They equalize.
There you go, right? Because they're going to,
they're going to come together. The negative and the positive

(03:41):
will balance each other out because they have strong
Infinity for each other and they're going to make water H2O,
right? So 2 hydrogens and one oxygen,
pulling them apart gives you those separate things.
OK, great. So if I were to give you a big
bolus of hydrogen plus, which isagain pure acid, and that's in

(04:03):
an environment with a bunch of OH negative, you'll take that
acid, you'll take that alkaline,and it will all become
neutralized because you'll just make a neutral inert water.
This is the rationale. If we gave you hydrogen water,
another water with a bunch of extra H plus into it, it will
run around your body picking up a bunch of OH negatives,

(04:24):
converting it into water. Now why that is a potentially
good thing is oxidative stress breaks down tissue, breaks down
DNA, breaks down anything. Again, this is a good thing.
This is what scavenges your bodyof broken down tissue.
It fights off infections, it's important for clotting, it does
a ton of things. But excess amounts of oxidative

(04:46):
stress are detrimental to mitochondria and again, every
tissue in your body. So the working assumption
thought process theory here is if there is too much oxidative
stress going on and we can bringin extra hydrogen, we can
neutralize that potential effectand also produce water, which is
great. So it should be quite hydrating.

(05:08):
But the real thing is a cellularstress.
So the available human research and there actually is some human
research, there's not a lot of high quality human research.
There's not a lot of placebo andrandomized trials on it.
But again, we are we're doing one right now.
It was more impressive than I anticipated to be quite candid.
I was like, OK, there's something here.

(05:29):
Now most of the research is pre preclinical, meaning non human
and molecular based and all thatstuff.
Interesting part of the story, you don't throw it out, but we
don't put as much stock in that as we do human research.
And so the human research is emerging.
What it looks like it does. Again, thinking through the
chemistry a little bit here, nothing to pH.

(05:52):
You don't drink hydrogen water to change your pH.
As we already explained to the alkaline story, it's not what
it's doing, but it does seem at this point to potentially have
some sort of anti-inflammatory potentially but more importantly
directly an antioxidant benefit.So here are the outstanding
questions. Does it do anything to your

(06:12):
performance? How much do you have?
How, how long from when it was activated between that and
ingestion? Does the preparation matter for
it? Does it actually make you better
in the long term? Is it an acute effect or a
chronic effect? If so, how?
And we actually have some, some things that we think that are
happening there that I won't even share yet.

(06:35):
But it's not the stuff that mostpeople are are talking about.
If it's potentially working, does it work in young people?
Does it work in old people? Does it only work in people who
are unhealthy? Right.
And it is generally true to, to complete the story, oxidative
stress itself when excessive is associated with poor health
effects. OK, when you smoke, when you

(06:56):
don't sleep, when you are in exposed to environmental
pollutants, oxidative stress gets really, really high.
So are the potential benefits exclusive to people who are just
kind of in a really highly oxidative stress state?
So somebody who is exercising a lot, drinking clean water,
eating clean food and they're at, they're not overly exposed,
are they still going to see the same benefit?
We don't know the answer to really any of these questions.

(07:18):
So at this point I would say, doI recommend it?
No, not per SE. We'll we'll see what our study,
you know, comes up with. And again that that's funded by
that company Echo like very important that this is conflicts
of interest. So we'll see, we'll see what the
data shake out in our study. We'll see where if other folks

(07:39):
are funding studies and and getting those things done.
I don't know, it's plausible. Is it better than any regular
antioxidant? Does it does, does it outperform
vitamin C? I don't know, like does it
outperform just eating more antioxidant rich foods?
I don't know. So the question in, in science

(08:00):
and performance is always OK compared to what?
And I can give you 1000 productsthat can show some efficacy or
effectiveness in a, in a controlled trial, especially at
the molecular level. Like if you know anything about
molecular or biochemistry, you can make a trial work, right?
Like it's pretty easy. Very.

(08:21):
Important to say. Really easy to make that happen.
So we'll see. It's been a pleasure to where I
can say work with that company has been phenomenal.
They are super transparent and like they, I really think that
they're they're in it for the openness and just like make sure
the product works. So good on the people that echo

(08:42):
for being like that, but we'll see.
Thanks so much for listening to hear the full episode.
There's link in the description.