“Hydrogen water helps people lose weight.”
Drinking hydrogen water has not been shown to help people lose weight.
Hydrogen water is fine to drink, but it will not do the work of weight loss for you. Plain water does the same job for much less money.
If you are trying to lose weight, you can skip hydrogen water and drink plain water instead.
The best trial so far, an 8-week placebo-controlled trial in 36 adults with obesity, found no meaningful difference in weight or body fat compared with plain water. The only other trial reporting less body fat was a small, company-funded study in lean athletes that compared people with their own starting point, not with the placebo group. The trials are small and short, so confidence is limited.
Drinking hydrogen water has not been shown to help people lose weight. In the strongest trial so far, adults with obesity who drank it for 8 weeks did not lose more weight than chance would explain, compared with people who drank plain water.
In that 2025 trial, people drank about 34 ounces (1 liter) a day of hydrogen water or plain water. The hydrogen group lost about 1.3 pounds on average and the plain-water group about none, a gap the study could not separate from chance; body fat percentage also did not differ. The trial did report fewer cravings and small drops in cholesterol. The company that supplied the product helped fund it, and one author worked for that company. A 2025 trial in 22 elite female athletes using tablets that make hydrogen water reported less body fat after 28 days compared with their own starting point, but not compared with the placebo group; it was funded by a company, and two authors work in the hydrogen-product industry.
- Todorovic N, Baltic S, Nedeljkovic D, Kuzmanovic J, Korovljev D, Javorac D, Bijelic K, Kladar N, Tarnava A, Ostojic SM. The Effects of 8-Week Hydrogen-Rich Water Consumption on Appetite, Body Composition, Sleep Quality, and Circulating Glucagon-like Peptide-1 in Obese Men and Women (HYDRAPPET): A Randomized Controlled Trial. Medicina (Kaunas). 2025;61(7):1299. DOI: 10.3390/medicina61071299. PMID: 40731927
- Ogannisyan M, Slivin A, LeBaron TW, Tarnava A, Karmazin V, Bazanovich S, Dolgachev V, Vychik A, Strizhkov A, Parastaev S. Hydrogen-Rich Water Decreases Muscle Damage and Improves Power Endurance in Elite Athletes: A Randomized, Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Trial. Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. 2025;15(1):8-17. DOI: 10.15280/jlm.2025.15.1.8. PMID: 40376695