It was the purpose of this investigation to study the effects of the reduced hydrogen silicate mineral towards several standard procedures that would indicate its antioxidant properties (reducing potential) in biological molecules. Since the silicate mineral supplement analog is saturated with reduced hydrogen and provides reducing potential in water of approximately -650 mV, a study was undertaken to observe oxygen free radical scavenging ability using several methods reported in the current literature. It was also analyzed for the ability to act as a reducing agent (antioxidant) in several standard assays (direct reduction of cytochrome c and NAD+).

Hydrogen is vital to life processes because of its unique atomic structure. It is one of the most important elements donating an electron, an electron pair or its proton to reduction/oxidation (redox) reactions of numerous enzymes and intermediates within metabolic pathways throughout the cell. Numerous biochemical reactions depend on nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD, NADH) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD, FADH, FADH2) and their respective reduced forms for hydrogen electron transfer. Final transfer of electrons provided by hydrogen occurs in the energy cycle during the breakdown of glucose through glycolysis, the citric acid cycle and the mitochondria respiratory electron transfer (transport) chain (11) (Figure 5).