Is Deuterium Sequestering by Reactive Carbon Atoms an Important Mechanism to Reduce Deuterium Content in Biological Water?

Abstract

Deuterium is a natural heavy isotope of hydrogen, having a neutron as well as a proton. Deuterium disrupts ATP synthesis inmitochondria, causing increased production of reactive oxygen species and reduced synthesis of ATP. Gut microbes likely playa significant role in providing deuterium depleted short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) to human colonocytes through hydrogengas recycling. The production of deuterium depleted (deupleted) nutrients necessarily leaves behind deuterium enriched water,unless there is a process that can sequester deuterium in small molecules that are excreted through the feces. Here, we provideevidence that a small number of classes of uniquely structured carbon-nitrogen rings and bis-allylic carbon atoms in certainbiologically active small molecules may play a crucial role in sequestering deuterium for export into feces or urine. Specifically,we have identified the imidazole ring present in histidine, histamine, and microbial derivatives of histidine, the tetraterpenoidlutein, bilirubin and the derivatives urobilinogen and stercobilinogen produced by gut microbes, and the bis-allylic carbons inpolyunsaturated fatty acids as likely candidates for sequestering deuterium and thereby reducing the deuterium levels in thewater-based medium. Normally, carbon atoms never exchange their bound protons with deuterons from the medium, but all theabove classes of molecules are important exceptions to this rule, as has been shown experimentally.