Despite years of medical progress, cancer remains one of the top causes of death globally, with millions of people diagnosed and dying from it each year. In Hungary alone, cancer claims tens of thousands of lives annually. While many treatments have been introduced, the improvement in how long people typically survive after diagnosis remains modest. In response, researchers have been looking for new ways to support standard cancer care. One of these methods involves changing the balance of natural hydrogen in the body by drinking water with lower levels of a heavy form of hydrogen, known as deuterium, which is a stable hydrogen isotope that contains a neutron in addition to the usual proton. This method may offer a promising new direction in cancer treatment.
Dr. Gábor Somlyai, leading a scientific team at HYD LLC for Cancer Research and Drug Development, with his co-authors, has published a new study in collaboration with the University of Szeged. This milestone comes after 35 years of research and international scientific cooperation. The publication evaluates clinical data and examines how incorporating this unique type of water into conventional cancer therapies impacts patient outcomes. Their results are published in the medical journal Biomedicines. The team reviewed experiences from a large group of Hungarian cancer patients who drank this deuterium-depleted water while undergoing conventional treatments. Their research is particularly important because it relies on real-world data, meaning actual patient experiences outside of clinical trials, collected over more than thirty years.
The results showed that patients lived significantly longer. On average, those who drank this special water lived more than five times longer than the national average. Even from the point they started drinking the water, their survival times were much greater than expected. For patients who still had cancer when they began drinking the water, their outcomes were still much better than usual. Those who were already in remission, meaning the cancer was not currently active, when they started drinking the water lived significantly longer, suggesting it may help prevent the cancer from returning.
Dr. Somlyai explained, “Using water with lower deuterium levels allows us to interact with a very basic level of how cells function, which opens the door to new types of treatments and a better understanding of how cells behave.” In simple terms, this approach involves reducing the amount of deuterium in the body, which is believed to help slow down or stop cancer cells from growing.
This idea is based on the observation that higher deuterium to hydrogen ratio seem to send signals that make cancer cells grow. Normal drinking water has more deuterium than this special water. Earlier experiments with animals and cells in the lab showed that reducing deuterium levels can stop tumors from growing. Tumors are abnormal masses of tissue that result from uncontrolled cell growth. This large-scale study now shows similar results in actual patients, supporting the idea that drinking deuterium-depleted water can help people when added to standard treatment.
The researchers also found that how long people drank the water and how soon after their diagnosis they started drinking it both mattered. Those who drank it for several months and began shortly after being diagnosed had the best outcomes. “The patients who began drinking deuterium-depleted water within a few months after their diagnosis consistently showed strong survival results,” noted Dr. Somlyai.
Dr. Somlyai and his team made it clear that deuterium-depleted water does not replace standard treatments like surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation. Chemotherapy is a drug treatment that uses powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells in the body, while radiation therapy uses high-energy particles or waves to destroy or damage cancer cells. Instead, it works alongside them to help patients do better. It did not cause any serious side effects, even for patients with advanced cancer. In fact, the water appeared to reduce some of the harmful effects of chemotherapy and helped patients feel better overall. Details of the protocol used can be found in Dr Somlyai’s book.
Summing up the potential of this method, Dr. Somlyai believes that if this unique type of water is introduced early and used regularly, it could greatly reduce cancer deaths. This could mean saving many lives each year. The study makes a strong case for carrying out more large-scale tests and considering this water as a helpful addition to existing cancer treatments. To achieve this, Dr. Somlyai’s team aims to work with investors and pharmaceutical companies to develop a registered medicine.
Journal Reference
Somlyai G., Papp A., Somlyai I., Kovács B.Z., Debródi M. “Real-World Data Confirm That the Integration of Deuterium Depletion into Conventional Cancer Therapy Multiplies the Survival Probability of Patients.” Biomedicines, 2025; 13(4): 876. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines13040876
About the Author
Gábor Somlyai graduated as a biologist at the University of Szeged in 1982. Between 1982 and 1990, he worked for the Plant Protection Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. From 1983 to 1986, he had a scholarship from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as a postgraduate student to obtain a Ph.D. In 1988, he defended his thesis in molecular biology. In the same year, Dr. Somlyai spent six months at the Georg-August University in Göttingen with a DFG scholarship. From the end of 1988, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Missouri (USA), where he worked in genetic engineering and gene mapping.
In the wake of the Hungarian Nobel Prize-winning scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi – who said that the real cause of cancer should be looked for at the submolecular level – Dr. Somlyai began his investigations in 1990 as a senior research fellow at the Hungarian Institute of Oncology, examining the biological importance of naturally occurring deuterium.
In 1993, he established HYD LLC. to conduct anticancer research and drug development based on the proprietary procedure of deuterium depletion. Between 1993 and 1997, he was the scientific director of HYD Ltd., and from 1997, he became the company’s CEO. Since 2012, he has been the president of HYD Pharma Co, the mother company of HYD LLC.
In 2000, his book “Defeating Cancer!” appeared in Hungary. Since then, it has been published in Romania, Japan, the USA, South Korea and China. In 2021, his second book, “Deuterium Depletion – A New Way in Cancer Therapy and Health Preservation” appeared in print and ebook format in Hungary. Since then, the book has been published in English, Chinese, Japanese, and German. Gábor Somlyai has written numerous scientific publications and is a recognized speaker at international conferences. Gábor Somlyai is the inventor of numerous international patents granted in most developed countries.
