Shelby Levy has tried a lot of things. She runs a CrossFit gym in Auburn, Alabama, coaches athletes for a living, and has spent the better part of a decade testing recovery tools that promise more energy and faster bounce-back. Most of them didn't stick. So when Shelby says hydrogen water landed at the top of her list, that's a verdict earned the hard way — across years of trial and error with people whose performance depends on getting recovery right.
Her story is a useful place to start, because the question underneath it is one a lot of people are asking: what actually supports cellular energy, and where does hydrogen water fit next to the supplements already on the shelf? Coenzyme Q10 is often the first name that comes up. It's a reasonable on-ramp into a much larger conversation about how cells make energy — and what gets in the way.
Cellular Energy Starts in the Mitochondria
Almost every cell in your body runs on a molecule called ATP, and almost all of that ATP is made inside the mitochondria. These are the small structures, sometimes called the cell's power plants, where the food you eat and the oxygen you breathe get converted into usable energy. When people talk about feeling "energized" or "depleted," the underlying biology usually traces back here.
The Electron Transport Chain, Briefly
Inside each mitochondrion sits a series of protein complexes known as the electron transport chain. Electrons get passed down the line, step by step, and that controlled flow is what ultimately powers ATP production. Coenzyme Q10 — which exists as ubiquinone in its oxidized form and ubiquinol in its reduced form — is one of the carriers that shuttles electrons between those complexes. The two forms interconvert constantly inside the body, regardless of which one you swallow as a supplement.
Where CoQ10 Helps — and Where It Stops
According to a review by Mantle and Dybring published in Antioxidants (2020), CoQ10's absorption is governed far more by formulation quality than by whether a product is sold as ubiquinone or ubiquinol; crystal formation is the main barrier to uptake. That's a genuinely useful insight for anyone comparing labels. But notice what it's about: getting more of one electron carrier into circulation. It doesn't address a separate problem that builds up right alongside energy production — oxidative stress.
The Redox Problem CoQ10 Leaves Open
Making energy is messy. The same electron transport chain that generates ATP also leaks reactive oxygen species, often shortened to ROS. A steady trickle of these molecules is normal and even useful. Too many, and the balance tips toward oxidative stress — the wear-and-tear side of metabolism that researchers study in the context of aging, fatigue, and recovery.
Not All Free Radicals Are Bad
Here's the wrinkle that makes the redox conversation interesting. Some reactive oxygen species act as signaling molecules. Your body uses them to trigger adaptation — including some of the beneficial changes that come from exercise. A blunt antioxidant that mops up everything indiscriminately can actually dampen those helpful signals. The ideal, in theory, would be something selective: a molecule that targets the most damaging radicals while leaving the useful ones alone. That exact idea is what pulled molecular hydrogen into the research literature.
Molecular Hydrogen Enters the Redox Conversation
Molecular hydrogen — two hydrogen atoms bound together, written H₂ — is the smallest molecule there is. For years it was treated as biologically inert. That assumption changed in 2007.
The Selective Antioxidant Hypothesis
According to PubMed, Ohsawa and colleagues reported in Nature Medicine (2007) that hydrogen appeared to act as a selective antioxidant, preferentially reducing the hydroxyl radical — one of the most damaging reactive oxygen species — while leaving physiologically useful ROS largely untouched (DOI 10.1038/nm1577). In an animal stroke model, the researchers observed reductions in tissue injury that they attributed to this buffering effect. The authors framed selectivity as a hypothesis worth investigating — not a settled fact — and that framing still holds. It's a proposal the field continues to test.
A Molecule Small Enough to Reach the Source
Size matters here. Because H₂ is so small and uncharged, researchers note that it diffuses across cell membranes easily and can reach internal compartments — including the mitochondria — where larger antioxidants struggle to go. Ichikawa and colleagues, in a wide-ranging review in Medical Gas Research (2017), described this reach as one of the more intriguing features distinguishing hydrogen from conventional dietary antioxidants. CoQ10 works inside the electron transport chain. Hydrogen, the research suggests, may show up in the same neighborhood by an entirely different route.
What the Mitochondrial Research on Hydrogen Suggests
If hydrogen really does reach the mitochondria, the obvious question is what it might do once it gets there. A 2023 review in Antioxidants examined exactly this, treating the mitochondria as a primary proposed target for hydrogen's biological effects. The authors surveyed findings related to electron transport chain efficiency, ATP production, and mitochondrial membrane dynamics — and were careful to frame these as mechanistic connections that still need confirmation in humans. Their summary is honest about the gap, and it's the right way to read this field: a compelling mechanism, an active research program, and results that are promising rather than final.
This is the conceptual link back to where we started. CoQ10 supports energy production from inside the machinery. Hydrogen, according to the research, may support the same system by helping manage the oxidative byproducts that machinery generates. Different mechanisms. Overlapping goal.
Hydrogen, Exercise, and Faster Recovery
The cleanest human data on hydrogen and cellular energy comes from exercise science, where oxidative stress spikes in a measurable, repeatable way. Hard training floods muscle tissue with reactive oxygen species, and that surge is part of why you feel wrecked the next day. It's a natural testing ground for a selective antioxidant.
Lactate and Perceived Fatigue
According to PubMed, Aoki and colleagues ran an early pilot study in elite soccer players, published in Medical Gas Research (2012), and reported that drinking hydrogen-rich water before exercise was associated with lower blood lactate and better maintained muscle function during intense effort compared with placebo water (DOI 10.1186/2045-9912-2-12). The sample was small. The authors called the findings hypothesis-generating. Still — it was a signal, and it prompted a wave of follow-up work. Botek and colleagues later reported in the International Journal of Sports Medicine (2019) that pre-exercise hydrogen-rich water was associated with reduced blood lactate at higher intensities and improved perceived effort during an incremental cycling protocol (DOI 10.1055/a-0991-0268).
Muscle Soreness After Hard Training
Recovery is where this gets practical for someone like Shelby. According to PubMed, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial by Botek and colleagues in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2021) reported that hydrogen-rich water consumption was associated with improved muscle function, a reduced lactate response, and notably lower delayed-onset muscle soreness twenty-four hours after resistance training (DOI 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003979). For a coach who trains clients day after day, less next-day soreness isn't an abstraction — it's whether the next session happens on schedule. A 2024 review in Nutrients synthesizing the exercise literature concluded that hydrogen-rich water shows promise as a wellness support for active people, while calling for larger trials with standardized doses. You can read more in our deeper dive on hydrogen water for athletes and exercise recovery.
Antioxidant Capacity in Everyday Life
You don't have to be an athlete for the redox angle to matter. A systematic review by Korovljev and colleagues (2024) that evaluated hydrogen water across exercise, metabolic, neurological, and general-wellness research concluded that genuine positive signals exist in several domains — while emphasizing that the overall evidence base is still limited by small trials and inconsistent hydrogen concentrations. That's the balanced read, and we'd rather give you the honest version than oversell it. The throughline across these studies is oxidative stress: a common thread connecting exercise recovery, mitochondrial health, and the broader research on cellular aging. For more on how selective and non-selective approaches differ, see our breakdown of antioxidant strategies and free-radical neutralization.
CoQ10 and Hydrogen: Two Tools, One Goal
So should you think of these as competitors? Not really. They operate on different timelines and through different mechanisms. CoQ10 requires weeks of consistent daily intake before tissue levels build up, which is why research on it focuses on sustained supplementation rather than a single dose. Hydrogen water, by contrast, has mostly been studied as something taken close to the moment it's needed — before a workout, as part of a daily routine. One is a slow-build cofactor. The other is studied as an in-the-moment redox tool. Looking at how cellular energy declines with age — the same theme we cover in the science behind NAD+ decline and in our piece on zone 2 cardio and mitochondrial health — it's easy to see why people interested in one of these often end up curious about the other.
How Much Hydrogen Water, and When
There's no official medical protocol for hydrogen water, and we won't pretend otherwise. What we can describe is what many people who drink it actually do — framed as a common routine, not a prescription.
The Two-Glass Morning Habit
A common pattern is roughly two liters across the day, anchored by two big glasses first thing in the morning, before eating. The appeal of morning timing is simple: it attaches the habit to something you already do, so it sticks. Some people add a glass before a workout, in line with how most of the exercise studies were designed — hydrogen-rich water consumed shortly before activity. Drink it reasonably fresh, since hydrogen is a dissolved gas that escapes over time. That's the whole routine. Fill it, pour it, drink it.
Concentration and Purity — Why Both Matter
If you decide to explore hydrogen water, the quality of the water itself becomes the variable you can actually control. Two dimensions matter, and they matter together. Concentration determines whether the water carries enough dissolved hydrogen to resemble what the published studies used. Purity determines what else is in the glass besides hydrogen. Concentration matters. Purity matters at least as much — and for a device you'll drink from every single day, what's in the water besides hydrogen is not a footnote.
Why Purity Belongs in the Conversation
The published trials used water produced under controlled laboratory conditions — adequately concentrated and clean. To replicate that context at home, both conditions have to hold. A high hydrogen number means little if the same process introduces metals or plasticizers into the water. This is the part of the discussion the category's "PPM race" tends to skip, and it's exactly where a well-engineered device separates itself. Measuring all this credibly, by the way, is done with gas chromatography in a lab setting — the gold standard — or with a dissolved-hydrogen meter for everyday checks.
Given These Criteria, Here's How the Lourdes Hydrofix Measures Up
Holy Hydrogen carries one device, and only one, because it's the one that meets both criteria above: the Lourdes Hydrofix Premium Edition. It's built as a professional-strength hydrogen water generator — not a consumer-grade bottle or pitcher — and that label is grounded in documents you can actually look up, not adjectives.
You can find the Lourdes Hydrofix in our hydrogen water generator collection.
Independently Tested Output
The Lourdes Hydrofix produces 120 mL/min of hydrogen gas, with independent testing by Masa International Corp. — a third-party testing lab — certifying output up to 134.2 mL/min (Certificate No. MM03-6024-01). It uses a separate-chamber electrolysis design with a multi-layer fibriform polymer membrane and high-purity titanium and platinum electrodes (TP270C, 99.928% purity; Certificate No. 17-MANS-0078-B). Every unit is individually factory-tested for hydrogen concentration and ships with its own certificate of authenticity — most devices in this space are never tested at all.
Verified Purity
On the purity side, Japan Food Research Laboratories (Certificate No. 23028707001-0201) tested the water and found selected plasticizers, BPA, iron, and titanium below detection limits under the test conditions. Those certificate numbers are public — you can see them on our certifications page. The decision to publish all of it was deliberate: when we got the JFRL results back, eight substances came back "Not detected," and that was the moment transparency became the whole strategy.
Owning It Is the Easy Part
People sometimes assume a machine this serious must be a project to live with. It isn't. You fill it, run it, and drink the water — that's the entire daily interaction. The engineering homework is done before the box arrives, so your part stays simple. Eric, a long-term daily user, came at the decision from the opposite direction: he wanted proof the thing would survive years of exactly that routine.
That durability angle is what Eric, a daily user, zeroed in on before he bought. He looked at the build quality and the components first, because — in his words — when you're using a device every day for years, the quality of the parts matters more than anything else. That's a refreshingly unsentimental way to evaluate a purchase, and it lines up with how we'd want someone to judge ours. Eric's read was that this was something engineered to last, and years of daily use is exactly the test a countertop generator has to pass.
It's the same conclusion Shelby reached from the performance side and Eric reached from the engineering side — two very different users, one device that held up to scrutiny. Shelby valued the dual function (hydrogen-rich drinking water plus the option to inhale hydrogen gas); Eric valued the build. Neither was looking for hype. Both wanted something that simply worked, every day, without becoming a chore.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does hydrogen water replace CoQ10?
No — and it isn't framed that way in the research. They're studied as different tools. CoQ10 is an electron carrier the body builds tissue stores of over weeks; hydrogen water is studied mostly as an in-the-moment redox support. People interested in cellular energy often look at both for different reasons.
How long before I'd notice anything?
Honest answer: it varies, and the research doesn't promise a timeline. The exercise studies that reported effects typically ran from a single pre-workout dose up to a week or two of daily use. As with any wellness habit, consistency is what the studies were built around.
Where This Leaves You
The CoQ10-versus-hydrogen framing was never really the right question. Both connect back to the same place — the mitochondria, and the redox balance that determines how cleanly your cells turn fuel into energy. CoQ10 supports the machinery directly. Molecular hydrogen, according to a growing body of research, may help manage the oxidative byproducts that machinery throws off, through a selective mechanism that conventional antioxidants don't share. The human evidence is strongest in exercise and recovery, the mechanistic work points toward the mitochondria, and the safety profile across the literature has been reassuringly clean. If you're going to explore it, the device you choose is the one variable fully in your hands — so choose one whose concentration and purity are both on the record.
Medical Disclaimer: Holy Hydrogen products, including the Lourdes Hydrofix Premium Edition, are not medical devices and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All information on this site is provided for educational and general wellness purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before beginning any new wellness practice, especially if you have a medical condition, are pregnant or nursing, or take prescription medications.
Further Reading
- Ohsawa I, et al. (2007), Nature Medicine — the foundational paper proposing hydrogen as a selective antioxidant; a good starting point for understanding why the hydroxyl-radical idea took hold. PMID: 17486089
- Ichikawa H, et al. (2017), Medical Gas Research — a broad review of hydrogen's antioxidant and anti-inflammatory research that explains why its small molecular size matters. PMC5223313
- Mitochondria as a hub for molecular hydrogen (2023), Antioxidants — a review laying out why researchers think mitochondria are a primary target for hydrogen's effects. PMC10662307
- Korovljev D, et al. (2024) — a systematic review weighing the hydrogen-water evidence across multiple health domains, useful for a balanced overview. PMC10816294
- Hydrogen-rich water and exercise performance (2024), Nutrients — a review summarizing how hydrogen water has been studied across endurance, strength, and recovery. PMC11509640
- Aoki K, et al. (2012), Medical Gas Research — the elite-athlete pilot study that first linked pre-exercise hydrogen water to lower lactate and better-maintained muscle function. PMC3395574
- Botek M, et al. (2021), Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research — a controlled crossover trial reporting reduced muscle soreness after resistance training with hydrogen-rich water. PMID: 33555824
References
Citations verified via PubMed. According to PubMed:
[1] Mantle D, Dybring A. "Bioavailability of Coenzyme Q10: An Overview of the Absorption Process and Subsequent Metabolism." Antioxidants, 2020. PMID: 32380795; PMC7278738
[2] Ohsawa I, et al. "Hydrogen acts as a therapeutic antioxidant by selectively reducing cytotoxic oxygen radicals." Nature Medicine, 2007. PMID: 17486089; DOI: 10.1038/nm1577
[3] Ichikawa H, et al. "Molecular Hydrogen: A Therapeutic Antioxidant and Beyond." Medical Gas Research, 2017. PMC5223313
[4] "Mitochondria: One of the Vital Hubs for Molecular Hydrogen's Biological Functions." Antioxidants, 2023. PMC10662307
[5] Aoki K, Nakao A, Adachi T, et al. "Pilot study: Effects of drinking hydrogen-rich water on muscle fatigue caused by acute exercise in elite athletes." Medical Gas Research, 2012. PMID: 22520831; DOI: 10.1186/2045-9912-2-12
[6] Botek M, et al. "Hydrogen Rich Water Improved Ventilatory, Perceptual and Lactate Responses to Exercise." International Journal of Sports Medicine, 2019. PMID: 31574544; DOI: 10.1055/a-0991-0268
[7] Botek M, et al. "Hydrogen Rich Water Consumption Positively Affects Muscle Performance, Lactate Response, and Alleviates Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness After Resistance Training." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2021. PMID: 33555824; DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003979
[8] Korovljev D, Trivic T, Drid P, et al. "Hydrogen Water: Extra Healthy or a Hoax? — A Systematic Review." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2024. PMC10816294