We have so many origin stories here on earth. And we must by now grasp that the reality of this tradition boils down to we just don't know. Whether we are peering into the depths of the six days of creation of Genesis or we are analysing the background radiation of the universe from the Big Bang we are no closer to figuring out how anything ever came into being. So it's really just a crapshoot when it comes to ‘in the beginning’. However I think there is one thing that we can say with pretty much certitude at this point in our history which is that hydrogen had a lot to do with that beginning. Yes, I know it doesn't sound too enigmatic or profound at all but actually hydrogen may be the closest we can get to how something comes out of nothing. And it did so brilliantly as the simplest, smallest, most expansive element in all the galaxies of all time. H2 came out of the blue.
So there I was back in 2014 in a hydrogen salon somewhere in north Tokyo. At that time there was a huge boom in hydrogen drinks, and soon after began the hydrogen salon fashion which saw dozens of small venues spring up with the intention of having people pay up to $100 to lie back and breathe in a colourless, tasteless, absolutely indistinguishable from air gas called hydrogen. Yeah, I know that sounds pretty silly. But in fact at the time there was a lot of scientific debate going on particularly in Japan around this inscrutable character called H2.
About a decade before this session in Tokyo had occurred a cell scientist in a nearby lab by the name of Shigeo Ohta had been trying to figure out a way to deoxidise the mitochondrial cells he was working on. It turns out that our bodies produce strange entities called reactive oxygen species. When I interviewed Dr. Ohta he went into great detail about these denizens of the tiny world deeply embedded in the energy factories we call mitochondria. The fact that he was not looking for hydrogen was what impressed me most. If our bodies have too many negative ROS in our cells, like the worst oxidizing offender called hydroxyl, then basically the entire energy factory inside mitochondria slows down, gets rusty, has cobwebs in every corner of the room and generally just screws up the works. Well at least that is how I figured it out in my plebeian brain. He taught me that some of these reactive oxygen species are actually necessary for the proper working of the mitochondrial cell. It was as if the ROS were both the Mafia and the FBI. H2 was able to ‘target’ the mafia in this crude cellular analogy. And there was more about this bacteria-like engine that we will get to later. It concerns the origin of us.
Shigeo Ohta answers questions during an interview in April 2023 near Tokyo
But let's get back to that hydrogen salon. I lay back in the comfortable reclining chair and found the rubber tube called a cannula and inserted its two ends in both nostrils. I carefully laid back not knowing what to expect. Subjective states are never taken seriously by any scientist of course however in the case of hydrogen inhalation I beg to differ. I had a clear sensation that something really good was coming into my body. Yes it was a subtle feeling I know but still there was some kind of light elation going on as I lay back and breathed it in through both nostrils, making quick mental notes of the size of the machine next to me and its very expensive price tag. Naturally it could all be put down to the observer effect. You see what you want to see..
After an hour I got up and had a glass of hydrogen water which was all the rage in Tokyo at the time with promised benefits that included its documented antioxidant properties and its promotion of better health. A small core group of scientists in Japan at the time was still busy doing experiments with rats and cell cultures to find out more. Hydrogen was first discovered by the English scientist Henry Cavendish in 1766. Cavendish was experimenting with different gases when he observed a reaction between iron filings and dilute acids that produced a gas that burned with a hot flame. He concluded that this gas was a new element, which he called "inflammable air." Later, Antoine Lavoisier, a French chemist, named the element "hydrogen" based on its production of water when burned. They were the first who caught on to the existence of something that doesn't really present itself to our attention being invisible and expansive and odorless and all.. but in our daily life it is of course the core element of water, the source of all life on this planet. Two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen, well we all know what that means. And there is surely nobody can argue that pure H2O has any negative health properties that we can think of anyway. Especially when we are thirsty.
But when I say hydrogen for some people the first image that comes to mind will be the explosion of the Heidenberg Zeppelin back then in the 1930s in Germany. It was discovered that hydrogen expands quickly and is lighter than air so it would make the perfect gas to use in those gigantic flying hotels. The problem is that hydrogen is very flammable and I believe it was a spark somewhere in the electrical system on board the Heidenberg which resulted in its very dramatic and sudden demise. That happened just after the ropes were released to let it sail into the sky. So there is another side to hydrogen which is explosively destructive, eerily powerful and deeply symbolic to the human mind.
Until very recently almost nobody had an image of hydrogen as a healing gas or as a very potent molecular medicine as it is now often termed. But that is just what they were finding out in the labs in Tokyo back in the early decades of this century when Dr. Ohta suddenly discovered that applying hydrogen gas to damaged cells from rats showed an almost impossible decrease in diseased tissue that had never been seen before. As previously noted he had conducted experiments on the effects of hydrogen on mitochondrial function as well as brain cells. Mitochondria are often referred to as organelles within cells. They produce energy in the form of ATP, and they play a crucial role in cell metabolism and survival. Dysfunction of mitochondria has been linked to various diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Mitochondria at high magnification
Ohta's experiments showed that hydrogen gas could help protect mitochondrial function and prevent oxidative damage to cells. In one study, Ohta and his colleagues exposed human cells to hydrogen gas and found that it reduced oxidative stress and DNA damage caused by exposure to hydrogen peroxide, a reactive oxygen species.
In another study, Ohta and his team investigated the effects of hydrogen gas on brain cells in mice. They found that inhaling hydrogen gas reduced brain damage caused by ischemia-reperfusion injury, a type of brain injury that occurs when blood flow is temporarily disrupted and then restored. The hydrogen gas also improved cognitive function and reduced neurological deficits in the mice. Overall, Ohta's experiments suggest that hydrogen gas may have therapeutic potential for treating a range of diseases associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress, including neurodegenerative disorders.
Not only did the hydrogen gas and the hydrogenised water return damaged cells to almost perfect health but also cancerous cells showed remarkable improvement. Somehow the hydrogen was penetrating deep into the mitochondria and healing its oxidised areas as well as healing other cells throughout the body at a very fast speed. Live blood video analysis would later show how ‘ghost capillaries’ which no longer received any blood flow sprang back to life within seconds of inhaling H2! You just cannot make this up. When interviewed Ohta cited two thousand scientific papers all confirming what you have just read. That’s 2,000..
Well that is my layman's understanding of the research which resulted in that landmark article being published in Nature magazine in 2007. It took another 17 years for a lone Chinese researcher to figure out the precise mechanism of how H2 makes that possible and until that time all we could say was that it works.
I think that gives hydrogen the deserving title of an enigma. How can something that tiny, inert as a gas, yet so powerfully explosive and expansive do such things to the human body that now many major hospitals in China are using hydrogen gas therapy as the last resort with dying patients and widely utilising it for post COVID symptoms. In Taiwan many ambulances have not only oxygen bottles in their ambulances but right next to them they have hydrogen bottles too. They are also aware that when it comes to our last gasps it is hydrogen that can rescue us more than oxygen or any other medicine. Look at this March 2023 paper on Alzheimer’s disease.
There may be an evolutionary reason for these astonishing results as we shall see..
Back to 2014 in Tokyo where I was beginning to notice I had a bit more bounce in my step after several inhalation sessions and though very healthy I did indeed notice that I had more energy. I know that's another subjective assessment but it happens to be true. The other people I spoke to who were using the very early and clumsy hydrogen inhalation units for fairly serious ailments were telling me substantial stories of recovery from just sitting back and breathing this invisible entity into their bodies. Those prototype units were heavy and difficult to maintain and of course very expensive but I managed to get my hands on one and plunked it on the tatami mat next to my kotatsu table in my house in Japan. There I would sit at night watching movies with my wife as each of us breathed in the super genie that came out of the tank. Did I mention that since the first place the fast dispersing gas arrives from the nose is the brain, concentration levels clearly get an H2 powered upgrade. Read that again. Just think about the implications for every kind of human endeavour.
At around the same time I was publishing books regularly in Japan on a small variety of subjects which included cosmology and new paradigm science. I had come across a revolutionary idea back in around 2003 that the universe is not a big void but is actually chock full of the 4th state of matter. The what? It is quite amazing that most educated people still do not know that 99% of the universe is full of this 4th state of matter. Now that is not a subjective interpretation. Just look up plasma on Wikipedia or do what I'm about to do. I’m going to ask chat GPT:
Describe plasma simply.
“Plasma is a state of matter similar to solids, liquids, and gases. It is created when a gas is heated to the point where some or all of its atoms are ionized, meaning they lose one or more electrons and become positively charged ions. The resulting mixture of ions and free electrons is highly conductive and can exhibit a wide range of complex behaviors, including the ability to generate and respond to electromagnetic fields. Plasma is found in many natural and man-made environments, including stars, lightning, fluorescent light bulbs, and plasma TVs.”
How much of the universe is plasma?
“It is estimated that more than 99% of the visible matter in the universe is in the plasma state. This includes the plasma in stars, interstellar and intergalactic space, and in cosmic phenomena such as supernovae and black holes. However, most of this plasma is not directly visible to us, as it emits radiation that falls outside of the visible spectrum. Instead, astronomers use a variety of techniques, including radio and X-ray observations, to study the properties and behavior of plasma in the universe.”
So there you have it from artificial intelligence. Then the next question I asked my new super intelligent assistant, scouring as it did a sizable amount of the extant knowledge of the entire human species, was this:
How is hydrogen connected to plasma?
“Hydrogen is a very important element in the study of plasma, as it is one of the most abundant elements in the universe and plays a key role in many astrophysical processes. In fact, most of the plasma in the universe is composed of ionized hydrogen atoms, or protons, and free electrons. When hydrogen gas is heated to very high temperatures, its atoms can gain enough energy to ionize, meaning they lose one or more electrons and become positively charged ions. The resulting mixture of ions and free electrons is a plasma. This process is particularly important in the study of stars, where the high temperatures and pressures in their cores cause hydrogen to undergo nuclear fusion, releasing large amounts of energy and creating even more ionized plasma. Hydrogen plasma is also used in a variety of technological applications, such as in plasma cutting and welding, as well as in experimental fusion reactors that aim to replicate the energy generation process of stars.”
Haha! I thought isn't that interesting. So the entire universe is basically held together by hydrogen-as-plasma. Plasma is also the name for the liquid part of the blood in the human body. It is a pale yellowish fluid that makes up about 55% of the total volume of our red blood. Plasma is composed of water, proteins, hormones, enzymes, and other nutrients, and it plays a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis, or the balance of the body's internal environment. So as above so below seems like a real and vibrant macro/micro connection since that 55% water in plasma is made of..H2 and of course O. That is how I see it anyway.
So if we're looking for an origin story then how about Genesis@H2? At the end of my interview with Shigeo Ohta we touched on the research of the British bio-evolution scientist Nick Lane. He wrote an entire book about mitochondria. Nobody seems to know exactly how this strange bacterium-like entity emerged out of the so-called primal soup. But he delivers some nail bitingly good stories about the contenders for the ‘life out of nothing’ prize in that tome. The hydrogen hypothesis which Lane talks about in this book can be summarised (by artificial intelligence) like this:
“The hydrogen hypothesis proposes that the first living organisms on Earth may have been chemotrophs that used hydrogen gas as their energy source. The hypothesis suggests that early Earth's atmosphere contained large amounts of hydrogen gas, produced by volcanic activity and other geological processes. According to the hypothesis, some primitive microorganisms, such as methanogenic archaea, may have used hydrogen gas in a process known as methanogenesis to produce energy and organic compounds that could support life. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that many modern-day microorganisms use hydrogen gas as a source of energy, and that methanogenic archaea are still found in environments where hydrogen gas is abundant, such as in the digestive tracts of animals and in some types of anaerobic environments. While the hydrogen hypothesis is not universally accepted, it provides a possible explanation for how life on Earth may have originated and evolved in its early stages.”
A hypothesis can become a theory remember and until that theory is disproved (the real purpose of science being to disprove theories) at a later date we would be wise to consider it seriously. We are now in the initial stages of a scientific revolution that suggests hydrogen may in fact be the progenitor of everything that counts. The universe and us in other words. In the beginning was the word. May I suggest, no doubt irreverently, that it was hydrogen?
Hydrogen really is an enigma because it invisibly connects us to the entire universe in which we live. Beyond that fact it is looking increasingly likely that all life on this flying rock possibly did begin in the primaeval mists of our hydrogen rich , mitochondria-spawning environment. Now that is probably why this truly ancient molecule can have such a stupendous healing effect on the human body, unbeknownst to us all until the 21st century dawned in Japan. That most ancient of creator-healers?
So in conclusion I think we could reasonably assume that hydrogen will be the chosen therapy of informed future humans since it has absolutely no known side effects when inhaled but yes, has absolutely catastrophic side effects when you make bombs with it or flying hotels. Enough said…