文章来自《医学气体研究》Stimulation of human damaged sperm motility with hydrogen moleculeArticle URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13618-014-0023-x

论文作者为Kumiko Nakata等，作者单位为Biological Process of Aging, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, 35-2 Sakae-cho, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo 173-0015, Japan。

精子运动能力是男性生育能力的关键因素，运动速度降低可能是如精子发生异常、氧化损伤或细胞内ATP缺乏等多种因素引起。最近研究发现，氢气能选择性中和毒性自由基，对多种氧化损伤相关疾病具有预防和治疗作用。最新这一研究主要是观察氢气对体外人类精子运动能力的作用，精子在室温下放置5天或或冷冻后检测，使用记数板检测精子泳动速度，精子线粒体采用膜通透敏感染料进行分析。结果发现，经过氢气处理后，运动精子比例速度明显增加，经过30分钟氢气处理就足以产生促进作用，但不影响其运动速度。24小时后再次用氢气处理后，运动促进作用仍然出现。同时能提高线粒体膜通透性。这一研究提示，采用含氢气溶液处理精子，可能具有促进体外受精的几率。考虑到氢气的生物安全性，这种气体有可能可作为男性不育症的一种有效工具。

体外处理方法：本研究方法是采用一个5L的密封处理盒，给盒子通4种不同成分一定比例的混合气体，比例是(5% CO2, 20% O2, 50% H2, and 25% N2)，对照组是三种气体(5% CO2, 20% O2, and 75% N2)。通气速度为1L/分钟，5分钟通气大约可以达到目标浓度（这个目标肯定达不到，因是先混合后再释放），作者为确定溶液中氢气浓度，采用电极进行检测。特别重要的是，氢氧混合气体必须现用现混合，控制混合气体的总体积，以避免大量气体发生爆炸危险。也就是说任何时候都不可以预先制作大量氢氧混合气（氢的燃烧浓度是4.7%-75%之间）。

After IVF using sperm from patients, remaining sperms for discard were used. Each experimentally damaged sperm suspension left in room air at room temperature for > 5 days was divided into three groups as follows: untreated (i.e., control), H2-treated, and N2-treated. During experiments, sperm suspensions were kept in approximately atmospheric O2 concentration to enhance oxidative damage. A sperm suspension of 100 μL on a culture dishwas placed into an exposure chamber (volume, approximately 5 L) with H2-mixed gases (5% CO2, 20% O2, 50% H2, and 25% N2) or N2-mixed gases (5% CO2, 20% O2, and 75% N2). After closing the exposure chamber tightly, these concentrations of mixed gases (1 L/min flow rate) were reached within approximately 5 min. To confirm saturation of the sperm suspensions with mixed gases, we monitored H2 and O2 concentrations with needle-type sensors (Unisense, Aarhus N, Denmark). After exposure to mixed gases, each sperm suspension was mixed well by pipetting and a 5–10 μL drop was placed in a countingchamber [22]. The sperm concentration, forward motility sperm rate, non-forward motility sperm rate, and immobility sperm rate were measured visually three times for each sperm suspension.