Hydrogen physiological effects

Bhambhani Y, Singh M. 1991. Physiological effects of hydrogen sulfide inhalation during exercise in healthy men. J Appl Physiol 71 1872-1877. 

Physiological cooling agents, 24 525-526 Physiological effects, of hydrogen peroxide, 14 60-61... 

Sulfuryl Dioxide, SOa(Nj)a, mw 148.11, N 56.7%, col liq first prepd in 1922 by Curtius Schmidt (Ref 2) by the interaction of sulfuryl chloride and finely divided, si moist Na azide SOaCl + 2NaNs - SOa (N3)a + 2NaCl. It explodes violently when heated and often spontaneously at RT. Sax (Ref 9) does not list this compd but it has a suffocating odor and the pronounced physiological effects of hydrogen azide (qv)... 

Aqueous solutions of hydrogen azide are readily obtained by treatment of sodium azide f with sulfuric acid. Since pure hydrogen azide is extremely explosive, and since its vapors produce most unpleasant physiological effects, it is advisable to use care in its preparation. Especially is the treatment of dry sodium azide, or of a cold solution, with sulfuric acid to be avoided, since this results in the formation of pure hydrogen azide (b. 37°C.) which may condense to the anhydrous liquid or to a highly concentrated aqueous solution, both of which are extremely explosive. 

Steroid hormones bear a remarkable structural similarity to one another (see Fig. 29-1). The precursor for steroid biosynthesis is cholesterol. Consequently, all of the steroid hormones share the same basic chemical configuration as their parent compound. This fact has several important physiologic and pharmacologic implications. First, even relatively minor changes in the side chains of the parent compound create steroids with dramatically different physiologic effects. For instance, the addition of only one hydrogen atom in the sex steroid pathway changes testosterone (the primary male hormone) to estradiol... 

Numerous physiological effects are attributed to hydrogen peroxide and documented in the literature. Some of these effects may be broadly categorized as follows ... 

Krahl M and Clowes G, Physiological effects of nitro- and halo-substituted phenols in relation to extracellular and intracellular hydrogen ion concentration. I. Dissociation constants and theory, J. Cell. Comp. Physiol., 11, 1, 1938. 

However, the physiological effects of the superoxide moiety remain controversial 53,54 pjjially, there is a third enzyme, the hemoprotein catalase, that converts the toxic hydrogen peroxide into water and dioxygen ... 

Although the various steroid hormones have remarkably different physiological effects, their stractures are quite similar. For example, the only difference between testosterone and progesterone is the substituent at C-17, and the only difference between 5a-dihydrotestosterone and estradiol is one carbon and six hydrogens, but these compounds make the difference between being male and being female. These examples illustrate the extreme specificity of biochemical reactions. 

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