Acute pre-exercise hydrogen rich water intake does not improve running performance at maximal aerobic speed in trained track and field runners: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study

Michal Valenta; Michal Botek; Jakub Krejčí; Andrew McKune; Barbora Sládečková; Filip Neuls; Robert Bajgar; Iva Klimešová

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0279307

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 7, 2022
7 Jun 2022 Author Response Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response_to_reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279307.r001
11 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - Walid Kamal Abdelbasset, Editor PONE-D-22-15394Acute pre-exercise hydrogen rich water intake does not improve running performance at maximal aerobic speed in trained track and field runnersPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Krejčí, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 25 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Walid Kamal Abdelbasset, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: A randomized placebo-controlled crossover research study aimed to investigate the effects of ingesting hydrogen rich water (HRW) on running time in track and field runners (n=24). Time to exhaustion, post-exercise blood lactate concentration, maximal heart rate, and oxygen uptake were not significantly different between placebo and HRW. Minor revisions: 1- Abstract: Define r. 2- Table 1: Indicate if the distribution of the variables were checked for normality. For nonparametric data, summarize using median, first and third quartiles. 3- Line 229: Within the text, indicate the statistical method used to estimate the correlations. Since the p-value tests the null hypothesis that the correlation equals zero, it may be more precise to state that the correlations were not statistically different than zero. Reviewer #2: Title: Acute pre-exercise hydrogen rich water intake does not improve running performance at maximal aerobic speed in trained track and field runners GENERAL COMMENTS This study investigated the effects of acute, pre-exercise, hydrogen-rich water (HRW) ingestion on running time to exhaustion at maximal aerobic speed in trained track and field runners. I have read with attention the previous reviewers’ comments. I feel that the study is interesting, but however, I found that there are several challenges in carry out other studies, due to a prori no results may not directly to indicate that exercise hydrogen-rich water intake does not improve running performance, it was evaluated at a particular condition (maximal aerobic speed), but not at anaerobic speed, and with a “time” as a performance marker, but not at other markers (efficiency of running, glycogen content, fat, CHO etc), and with specific sample characteristics (young runners). Additionally, the study protocol and design it is high-quality, and easy to replicate, then I like to recommend the study for future other studies that can help us to carry out other more complex studies. ABSTRACT It is well design INTRODUCTION -I like to suggest to the authors to include a little more information regarding that pre-exercise H2 ingestion have been reported not at all exercise modalities, intensities, volumes, nor including other outocmes more thatn the “time” in a performance, and population (runners trained). Methods I found the methods reported in a very good quality The study protocol figure is very understandable Statistical analyses are very clear. RESULTS There are very clear described. DISCUSSION -I like to suggest to the authors to include some future potential other study conditions as I have stated previously (i.e., other populations), where this previous study give us only a high-quality, but very specific condition in which the hydrogen rich water (HRW) ingestion do not add new advantages. Tables Are very clear Figures Are very clear References Are very up-dated. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes: Cristian Alvarez ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Reviewer report (17-07-22).docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279307.r002
Revision 1
19 Sep 2022 Author Response Reviewer #1 A randomized placebo-controlled crossover research study aimed to investigate the effects of ingesting hydrogen rich water (HRW) on running time in track and field runners (n=24). Time to exhaustion, post-exercise blood lactate concentration, maximal heart rate, and oxygen uptake were not significantly different between placebo and HRW. 1– Abstract: Define r. Response: Thank you for your comment. The abbreviation was replaced with the full title and the sentence now reads “Spearman’s correlation coefficients ranged from −0.28 to 0.30, all p ≥ 0.16”. 2– Table 1: Indicate if the distribution of the variables were checked for normality. For nonparametric data, summarize using median, first and third quartiles. Response: Thank you for this suggestion. It is our mistake that we neglected to check the normality assumption. We added the results of the Shapiro-Wilk test. Three variables were significantly different from the normal distribution. We therefore added median, first and third quartile values to Table 1. In the correlation analysis we switched to a non-parametric alternative – Spearman’s correlation coefficient. 3– Line 229: Within the text, indicate the statistical method used to estimate the correlations. Since the p-value tests the null hypothesis that the correlation equals zero, it may be more precise to state that the correlations were not statistically different than zero. Response: We re-read the manuscript and found that there was no clear distinction between the analysis of individual responses and correlation analysis. We rearranged the text and hope this helped to make it clearer. Spearman’s correlation coefficient as the statistical method used was added to the text. Thank you for your comment regarding the null hypothesis of zero correlation. We rewrote the sentence. Please see the Results section in the manuscript. Reviewer #2 GENERAL COMMENTS This study investigated the effects of acute, pre-exercise, hydrogen-rich water (HRW) ingestion on running time to exhaustion at maximal aerobic speed in trained track and field runners. I have read with attention the previous reviewers’ comments. I feel that the study is interesting, but however, I found that there are several challenges in carry out other studies, due to a prori no results may not directly to indicate that exercise hydrogen-rich water intake does not improve running performance, it was evaluated at a particular condition (maximal aerobic speed), but not at anaerobic speed, and with a “time” as a performance marker, but not at other markers (efficiency of running, glycogen content, fat, CHO etc), and with specific sample characteristics (young runners). Additionally, the study protocol and design it is high-quality, and easy to replicate, then I like to recommend the study for future other studies that can help us to carry out other more complex studies. ABSTRACT It is well design. INTRODUCTION I like to suggest to the authors to include a little more information regarding that pre-exercise H2 ingestion have been reported not at all exercise modalities, intensities, volumes, nor including other outocmes more thatn the “time” in a performance, and population (runners trained). METHODS I found the methods reported in a very good quality. The study protocol figure is very understandable. Statistical analyses are very clear. RESULTS There are very clear described. DISCUSSION I like to suggest to the authors to include some future potential other study conditions as I have stated previously (i.e., other populations), where this previous study give us only a high-quality, but very specific condition in which the hydrogen rich water (HRW) ingestion do not add new advantages. Tables Are very clear. Figures Are very clear. References Are very up-dated. Response: Thank you for your comments and suggestions, particularly relating to the Introduction and Discussion. Regarding the Introduction, we followed your suggestions, and some of the sentences were rewritten in order to be more specific and explanatory. In addition, we also added the results of some very recent studies that shed more light on the specific exercise intensities, where H2 showed an ergogenic effects. Please, see lines 57–68. Relating to our approach in the writing of the Discussion, our main goal, particularly in this study, was to investigate whether pre-exercise hydrogen rich water (HRW) intake using our specific hydration strategy (time, dose, chemical properties of HRW) improved running time to exhaustion in very specific population, i.e. trained field and track athletes. To date, we have published six H2 studies in relation to different modes of exercise, intensity level and population. For instance, one study investigated the effect of H2 inhalation on the functional state of post-COVID-19 patients. However, the take home message of the present study was to show coaches that if they decided to use HRW immediately before the race in well trained athletes, HRW does not work well in terms of the expected improvement in running performance across distances from 1500 m to 3000 m. We absolutely agree with your opinion to design future studies that investigate different physiological variables, biomarkers, and population etc. When working with well-trained athletes, there are many practical issues that need to be considered. For example, the research needs to fit around the athletes‘ training programmes and cannot interupt their schedule too much. Nevertheless, our study includes many references to previous studies showing the positive effects of H2 supplementation on fitness, performance, physiological and psychometric responses. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response_to_reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279307.r003
17 Oct 2022 Decision Letter - Walid Kamal Abdelbasset, Editor PONE-D-22-15394R1Acute pre-exercise hydrogen rich water intake does not improve running performance at maximal aerobic speed in trained track and field runnersPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Krejčí, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 01 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Walid Kamal Abdelbasset, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #3: The manuscript written in well organized manner, design of the study well constructed, only one comment related to manuscript title as it should contain research type. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #3: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279307.r004
Revision 2
27 Oct 2022 Author Response Reviewer #3: The manuscript written in well organized manner, design of the study well constructed, only one comment related to manuscript title as it should contain research type. Response: Thank you for this suggestion. We added the following words to the title: “A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study”. We looked at the titles of articles in PLOS ONE to see how this type of study is most often writen. We found that a hyphen and a comma are very often used. We therefore rewrote the occurences of this phrase in the abstract and at the beginning of the method section. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response_to_reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279307.r005
6 Dec 2022 Decision Letter - Walid Kamal Abdelbasset, Editor Acute pre-exercise hydrogen rich water intake does not improve running performance at maximal aerobic speed in trained track and field runners: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study PONE-D-22-15394R2 Dear Dr. Krejčí, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Walid Kamal Abdelbasset, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #3: All my previous comments had been made. Thanks for your efforts in correcting the manuscript to be processed ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #3: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279307.r006
Formally Accepted
12 Dec 2022 Acceptance Letter - Walid Kamal Abdelbasset, Editor PONE-D-22-15394R2 Acute pre-exercise hydrogen rich water intake does not improve running performance at maximal aerobic speed in trained track and field runners: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study Dear Dr. Krejčí: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Walid Kamal Abdelbasset Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279307.r007

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