Expending a considerable amount of physical energy inevitably leads to fatigue during both training and competition in football. An increasing number of experimental findings have confirmed the relationship between the generation and clearance of free radicals, fatigue, and exercise injury. Recently, hydrogen was identified as a new selective antioxidant with potential beneficial applications in sports. The present study evaluated the effect of 2-month consumption of hydrogen-rich water on the gut flora in juvenile female soccer players from Suzhou. As demonstrated by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay and 16S rDNA sequence analysis of stool samples, the consumption of hydrogen-rich water for two months significantly reduced serum malondialdehyde, interleukin-1, interleukin-6, tumour necrosis factor-α levels; then significantly increased serum superoxide dismutase, total antioxidant capacity levels and haemoglobin levels of whole blood. Furthermore, the consumption of hydrogen-rich water improved the diversity and abundance of the gut flora in athletes. All examined indices, including the shannon, sobs, ace, and chao indices, were higher in the control group than those proposed to result from hydrogen-rich water consumption prior to the trial, but these indices were all reversed and were higher than those in the controls after the 2-month intervention. Nevertheless, there were some differences in the gut flora components of these two groups before the trial, whereas there were no significant changes in the gut flora composition during the trial period. Thus, the consumption of hydrogen-rich water for two months might play a role modulating in the gut flora of athletes based on its selective antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the Suzhou Sports School (approved number: SSS-EC150903).
At present, a large number of studies have reported that hydrogen has antioxidant functions and prevents oxidative stress damage. However, it is not clear whether hydrogen can prolong longevity based on these effects. Therefore, we studied and explored the antiaging potential of exogenous hydrogen and its ability to extend longevity using Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) as an animal model. Our results showed that the lifespans of the N2, sod-3 and sod-5 mutant strains were extended by approximately 22.7%, 9.5%, and 8.7%, respectively, after hydrogen treatment, but hydrogen had no effect on the lifespans of the daf-2 and daf-16 mutant strains. Meanwhile, the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the hydrogen treatment group was significantly lower than that in the control group. At the transcript level, the expression of age-1 and let-363 was obviously decreased, while the expression of ins-18 was increased at the same time point (14 d). Compared with the control group, paraquat (PQ) could reduce the lifespan of the N2 and sod-5 mutant strains. Importantly, the longevity of these mutant strains recovered to normal levels when the animals were treated with exogenous hydrogen. According to these results, the lifespan of C. elegans is closely related to oxidative stress and can be significantly prolonged by reducing oxidative stress damage. Taken together, our data showed that hydrogen is a valuable antioxidant that can significantly reduce the body's ROS levels and extend the lifespan of C. elegans. This study also laid a foundation for the subsequent application of hydrogen in antiaging studies.
Purpose: Considering the fact that not only the human body itself need food to maintain the growth but also the gut flora need their own food for proliferation, we developed the Flexible Fasting (abbreviated as FF) technology, which the normal diet was replaced by polysaccharide composition per meal. Methods:There are two phases in this study: FF for the first week followed with normal diet for next week. We recruited 65 volunteers to evaluate the safety of oneweek FF in weight loss, as well as the changes of the gut flora. Results:No obvious subjective adverse effects were observed. As expected, the one-week FF approach significantly reduced body weight, waist circumference, total body fat, and caused blood pressure, glucose, total cholesterol, IL-6, C-reactive protein, white blood cell decrease in normal physiological ranges. Meanwhile, there was no negative changes in electrolytes and trace elements, blood routine examination, liver and kidney function indexes, myocardial enzymes. By the way, almost all of the volunteers self-reported slight hunger feeling during the one-week FF. We further examine the changes of gut flora. Interestingly, the 16S rRNA sequencing analysis showed increase of the bacterial complexity after one-week FF operation. The abundances at different levels were clearly observed, for example 19 genuses showed different abundances, including increased Bifidobacterium (p=0.056), Akkermansia (p=0.016) and decreased Clostridium (p=0.001), Bacteroides (p=0.016), Sutterella (p=0.048) and Prevotella (p<0.001). When resuming normal diet for 7d after one-week FF approach, changes in abundances at different levels almost resumed except Bacteroides (p=0.024), Sutterella (p=0.027). Conclusions:Thus, the one-week FF approach with Plant Polysaccharides seemed to be a feasible, safe, and effective way for weight loss.
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