It can be hard to watch your pet get older. After many years together enjoying life's ups and helping each through life's downs, seeing your pet no longer be able to do all of the things they enjoyed in the past can be tough. However, hydrogen-enhanced water can have surprising benefits for your older pet, enabling them to enjoy life for longer.
Benefits of Hydrogen-Enhanced Water for Older Pets
Improve Your Pet’s Overall Quality of Life
A wide variety of conditions of aging can affect your pet’s quality of life. Hydrogen-enhanced water has potential benefits for keeping your pet happier into their later years.
In a study, volunteers were placed into a hydrogen-rich water or placebo water group. Their quality of life was assessed using questionnaires, automatic nerve and cognitive function tests, and psychophysiological tests. Results found that hydrogen-enhanced water significantly enhanced quality of life due to effects on the central nervous system that included anxiety level, mood, and nerve function.
Your pet could experience reduced anxiety, improved mood, and better nerve-functioning as a result of a diet supplemented with hydrogen-enhanced water.
Extend Your Pet's Life
You want to have your best friend with you for as long as possible. Hydrogen-enhanced water may be one way to extend your pet's life.
Studies have found that hydrogen-enhanced water has quite long-lasting anti-aging and antioxidant effects on cells that were tested, even if exposure to the hydrogen water was only transient. One study concluded that hydrogen-enhanced water may have substantial effects on increasing longevity.
Help Your Pet to Enjoy Exercise More and Recover Faster
For most dogs, playing, running, and generally physically exerting themselves is one of the most enjoyable aspects of their lives. However, as your dog gets older, you may have found that they don't seem to bounce back from exercise as easily or enjoy exercise as much as when they were younger.
In one study, participants drank either hydrogen-enhanced water or placebo water before exercise. Fatigue was found to be significantly reduced in the group that had hydrogen-enhanced water after mild exercise. It was concluded that drinking hydrogen-enhanced water before exercise could improve endurance and reduce fatigue.
Giving your dog hydrogen-enhanced water prior to a walk, run, or playdate may enable your dog to enjoy exercise more, keep exercising for longer, and recover more easily after exercise.
Improve the Effects of Age-Related Diseases Like Parkinson's
Unfortunately, dogs, just like people, can be afflicted by age-related neurological conditions, including Parkinson's. If your dog has tremors, struggles to stay still, has stiff muscles, and moves cautiously or slowly, they may have Parkinson's.
Symptoms generally get worse as time goes by. At this time, there is no cure for your dog’s Parkinson's, although physical rehabilitation may help. However, hydrogen-enhanced water shows promise of leading to significant results for canine Parkinson's patients.
A study in mice found that hydrogen-enhanced water increased the production of a certain hormone, ghrelin. Ghrelin has been found to offer a range of neuroprotective and cognitive enhancing capabilities and may have beneficial effects on Parkinson's and other similar disorders.
It is entirely possible that adding hydrogen-enhanced water to your pet’s diet may delay the onset of diseases like Parkinson's or reduce its effects.
Reduce Inflammation and Associated Pain
Pain caused by inflammation is unfortunately very common in aging pets. Many dogs experience arthritis and suffer reduced mobility and pain when moving as a result. However, it appears that hydrogen-enhanced water may have anti-inflammatory effects.
In a number of studies in animals, hydrogen-enhanced water resulted in reduced inflammation and reduction in associated symptoms. This means that hydrogen-enhanced water may improve your dog's arthritis symptoms or delay the onset of arthritis. It may also be beneficial in other inflammation-related pain that older dogs suffer from, such as joint pain caused by hip dysplasia or luxating patella.
Keep Teeth Healthier for Longer
Dental decay is common in older dogs, particularly small breed dogs. It is very common for older dogs to need to have multiple teeth pulled as they move into their later years. Tooth decay can be painful, as well as resulting in other issues like infection of the gums and bone.
Hydrogen-enhanced water may have a surprisingly beneficial effect on your pet’s aging teeth. In one study, rats who consumed hydrogen-rich water had lower levels of periodontal oxidative damage. This means that teeth seemed to stay healthier for longer.
Giving your pet hydrogen-enhanced water may be a simple way to keep their teeth younger and delay or prevent the need for serious dental interventions.
Is Hydrogen-Enhanced Water Safe for Older Pets?
You may want to take advantage of the benefits that hydrogen-enhanced water can have for your pet, but you may wonder how safe it is. Hydrogen has been used for many years for a variety of purposes including deep-diving and it has been tested in many clinical trials.
Adverse effects have not been found. The literature is free of warnings about toxicity even over long-term use. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to believe that giving your pet hydrogen-enhanced water may have a variety of health benefits but is very unlikely to have negative consequences on their health in any way.
Consider Hydrogen-Enhanced Water to Improve Your Older Pet's Life
From increasing your older pet’s quality of life to extending their life and improving a number of potential conditions from arthritis pain to dental health, the research suggests that hydrogen-enhanced water can have a wide range of benefits for your pet. Since it is considered very safe and is affordable, this is a very reasonable supplement to offer your pet.
About Rallie Blog Contributor: Coral Dawn Drake
Sources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5806445/
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/96014/2/cjpp-2019-0059.pdf
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147323001003800602
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078318/
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=62945
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