Why You’re Always Tired: The Hidden Damage of Oxidative Stress | Glutathione Expert

You only see the last domino fall down because that's a disease or symptoms or whatever that you're experiencing. We don't see the first domino fall down because you have no idea what the first domino fell down 20, 30 years ago. That first domino is glutathione. It's the most abundant molecule produced by human body. Free radicals are produced every single second because you're breathing oxygen, your body is producing nitrogen to— for all the body functions. So those are the 2 main species that causes all the free radicals. If there's only one thing that you can do in life to have a real chance for longevity, is to optimize your glutathione levels. Do whatever it takes.

What have you seen in your research?

Too much inflammation in the environment. Your brain is only 2% of the total body weight, but yet it consumes 20% of all the oxygen that you breathe in. If the brain doesn't get it, guess what? The whole body shuts down. 80 to 90% of the people are shallow breathers.

What about detoxification?

So detoxification is 2 parts.

What if the biggest reason you feel tired, maybe foggy or anxious or not as sharp as you used to, isn't your age or your workload or even your motivation, but a molecule your body is quietly running out of? And what if restoring it could change how your brain feels, how it thinks, and how it performs even faster than you expect? So many high performers, CEOs, athletes, creators, they hit a wall. where their focus drops. Maybe their memory slips, their energy crashes, even though they're doing like everything right. So welcome back to the Kwik Brain Podcast where we help you to learn faster, remember more, all live truly limitless. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. If you care about your brain, your energy, your longevity, and quite frankly, your future, this episode is really essential listening for you, your family, your friends. We talk a lot about brain optimization on this show. Focus, memory, clarity. We talk about neuroplasticity. Underneath all of that is something most people have never been taught, something that often really affects, uh, every cell in your body, uh, including your brain cells. So this is gonna be a conversation about the master antioxidant glutathione. It's often referred to, um, as I mentioned, it's kind of like the, the mother of antioxidants. But this title doesn't even begin to capture its role in detoxification, mitochondrial energy, immune function, protecting your brain from oxidative stress, inflammation, you know, accelerated aging. So my guest today is one of the world's leading experts on this topic. Today's guest is Dr. Nayan Patel, a pharmacist. He's founder of RO Wellness. He is a global authority on this thing called glutathione. It was really developing innovative ways to restore it, especially in a world full of stress, toxins, poor sleep. He's the bestselling author on a book called The Glutathione Revolution: Fight Disease, Slow Aging, and Increase Energy with the Master Antioxidant. If you've ever felt brain fog or chronic fatigue, slow recovery, or just like your, your mind is not as sharp as it used to be, this conversation may completely reframe how you think about your own Brain health. So, uh, let's dive in. Welcome to the show, Dr. Patel.

Well, thank you for having me here today.

You know, I get to see you when we're speaking at various health, wellness, biohacking, anti-aging events. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. Why don't we start with, um, many people might not have heard about glutathione. Maybe you could take a couple minutes, explain, um, what it is, And, why do you believe it may be one of the most important molecules for human health?

Well, the first thing people should know, it's the most abundant molecule produced by human body. So, if that doesn't grab your attention, I'm not sure what will. But, that is something the body doesn't produce anything out of ordinary. So, if this is the number one molecule produced, we have to learn everything about it. So, what it is? Chemically, it's a tripeptide, 3 amino acids coming together. You eat every single day, so the body absorbs all these amino acids. 3 of them combines together, which is glycine, glutamine, and cysteine coming together, combine them in a sequence, makes it a glutathione. So, chemically, that's what it is. But then, in terms of it work-wise, it is named different things. It's considered an antioxidant. It's considered a detoxifying agent. And so far, in the 140 years that it has been discovered, there's only 2 things that we have known that it does perfectly good for us, which is one, it neutralizes all the free radicals. So, that's why it's called the antioxidant. And, the free radicals are produced every single second because you're breathing oxygen, your body is producing nitrogen for all the body functions. So, those are the 2 main species that causes all the free radicals. And, the second part is you're exposed to so many different chemicals every single day either from your diet, from exposure to the environment, slapping onto your skin some skincare products. All those chemicals have to be neutralized, detoxified, and has to be conjugated inside your liver to get rid of it. So, glutathione does both of things. So, when people say, what is glutathione? I can give you chemically what it is, but people are not interested in that chemical. What they're interested, what does it do for me? So, hopefully, I get both the answers covered in one question.

And then, what some people might be— there are a lot of options. People go to Amazon or they take a pill or maybe they get something more liposomal or maybe an IV. What's the most effective? Different ways, are they effective? Or what's the— like, what is, you know, maybe you could talk about the different options in terms of for people, maybe they've done their little bit of research, they know some of the benefits, and we'll talk about more of the benefits. But in terms of the delivery systems.

So, the thing is when it comes to glutathione, your body can produce plenty of it. It needs the 3 amino acids which you can get from your diet. It needs energy production from mitochondria which is ATP. So, So, as long as you have low exposure toxicities like smoking or alcohol, things like that, then your mitochondria functions better and it can produce more ATP. And, of course, your body also needs NAD, which is therefore electron transfer. Not a whole lot of it, but just enough to do the electron transfers. And, as long as you have enough of those substrates, your body can produce enough glutathione. Now, that is true until you're 30, 35-ish, but after that, it starts getting lower and lower because one of the ingredients that's missing in your body So, supplementation comes into place. And, for 140 years, there's never been a single supplement that actually got absorbed into your body inside your cells. None. You can inject it straight into your veins and it stays in the plasma, never enters your red blood cells ever. And so, all this research has been done for decades. I'm talking about 30, 40 years ago, it was already done. And, nobody ever figured out how to basically get it inside your cells. FDA has actually approved of one product, which is called NAC or called brand name is called Mucomyst. And, it's just a cysteine molecule that your body uses up to produce its own glutathione. And so, all this year, and that was approved in the '60s, which is 60 years ago, nothing new have ever come out of it after that. And so, my job as a new and upcoming pharmacist was that, hey, I need to figure— I need to crack this code. And, how can I get this tripeptide inside your cell membrane, inside your cells? And, if I can get that part, I can have a profound impact on health and longevity or the journey of health and longevity. And so, this was my first goal as soon as I graduated from pharmacy school, started working on that one. We actually figured out a way to stabilize glutathione molecule in a lab outside the human body. And then, we started figuring out how to get into your system. And, the only system we found that was actually effective when we went topical. When I went oral, the body breaks it down. When I went to nasal spray, actually, the pH was so low that it was burning the nose off a little bit. So, it was not going to be conducive for business for the rest of their life. People may not be using it for everyday purposes. And so, the route left was topical route. And so, we figured out a way how to use the skin cells topically to transport the molecule. Because when you want to talk about transportation, we're talking about, okay, I need to get into the bloodstream and the blood will go everywhere in the body, including the brain and the kidneys and everywhere else. And so, if I get in the bloodstream, my job is done. And, when it comes to glutathione, it did not work. So, we found a different delivery system where there's a cell-to-cell transfer. So, I can get into skin cell and skin cells is touching your different types of cells and it can cell-to-cell transfer and it can reach your brain within seconds, within seconds.

Transdermally?

Well, it's topically because transdermally, you're pushing through the cells into the bloodstream. Topically, it stays in the skin cells. And from the cell-to-cell transfer is what's happening, which is transporting this glutathione up into the brain cells or into your kidneys, into your liver, into your heart, and everywhere else.

So, when people, if they saw a glutathione supplement that they take orally, something happens in the digestive system where it can't be as effective?

Well, it's a peptide, right? So, it's like if you eat a protein, the body will just take it apart, chop it off with the enzymes, and absorbs all the amino acids. The body only needs amino acids. It doesn't need proteins. It just needs amino acids and it builds its own proteins on its own. So, when you consume an oral capsule of glutathione, the body's actually seeing this as a peptide. The body's going to chop it off and break it apart. Absorb the cysteine out of it and use the cysteine to make its own glutathione internally itself. And so, yes, it works a little bit, but if you are 35 or 40 years of age and your needs are so much higher and you're taking the capsules or something over the counter that is available, your levels are not going to get high enough. It works a little bit. So, you think it's, okay, it's working a little bit, so I should take more of it. No, you already, you already hit your ceiling already.

Now, glutathione and specifically the brain, you know, in your research, how has glutathione been supportive of greater cognitive, greater brain health? You know, as a man, as a master antioxidant, you know, is it, is it, is it neuroprotective? Is it helping with stress? Is it a detoxifier? Energy? How's, um, How do, how do people usually report feeling? And obviously, this is not meant to treat or diagnose anything, you know, this is for educational purposes. Um, but what have you seen in your research?

So, Jim, you know, over the last 5 years, you know, what we have seen is, is too much inflammation in the environment. From the pandemic to today, there's still lingering on to vaccinations to overmedications and things like that, we have seen inflammation that has never been seen before. And because of that, the brain fog issue that you talked about earlier is rampant, right? And so, of course, we got to find out, okay, where is it coming from? Is it inflammation causing the brain fog or is it just too much oxidative stress causing the brain fog? is this coming from? And so, what we have done, and of course, we have worked with a lot of universities and we have a couple of published articles on this already. And, if you just Google glutathione with complex and brain health or long COVID or any kind of mitochondrial dysfunctions, you'll see a couple of the articles come up. It's already been published. And, what we have found out is when we are using a glutathione product topically, It is actually reducing the oxidative stress in your brain. Now, keep in mind, your brain is only 2% of the total body weight, but yet it consumes 20% of all the oxygen that you breathe in. And, it's the CPU. If the brain doesn't get it, guess what? The whole body shuts down. So, no matter what happens, the brain gets the first dips of all the oxygen that you breathe in. And, I would say 80%, 90% of the people are shallow breathers. They don't breathe normally. They're just on the top upper part of the lungs. To breathe normally, your belly has to extend out and you have to exhale all the air out and so on and so forth. So, most people are shallow breathers. And, even for those people, the brain gets the first oxygen, not the rest of the body. So, the brain is the highest amount of oxidative stress. The key is how can I get glutathione into the brain? Another technology exists right now to transport the glutathione from your body to the brain. The body has to do this done internally only. So, you can inject it, you can take pills, nothing gets to your brain. And so, when we found out that when we put on your skin cells and the cells are transporting this glutathione up to your brain, of course, we are working with somebody in Pittsburgh at this point at the medical center. And, they have been using this MRI scans to measure glutathione levels in your brain. And, when they apply topically, they saw a rise of glutathione levels in the brain.

Wow.

Of course, this is still preliminary. We don't know where it's getting to. Is it going to substantia nigra, frontal lobe? Where is it going at it? We don't know all the answers yet. But, the one thing we are finding out is that it is crossing the blood-brain barrier. And, the researcher who's a neurosurgeon is a good friend of ours and he's been using this for the last 4 or 5 years. He says that this has been a game changer for him. He just recently did an Ironman at the age of 82. Of course, he won it because he was the only person in his age class, right? But regardless, what it is is that he's seeing a way to actually help people reduce oxidative stress in the brain. And, by doing so, the neurons are reconnecting, the neuroplasticity is increasing, and he sees the inflammation coming down and the thinking capacity is improving. So, all those things are seen by just doing one thing, quenching all the free radicals and reducing oxidative stress.

Yeah. What about besides oxidative stress, what about detoxification?

So, detoxification is 2 parts, right? So, in the brain, what the— and again, there are some other researchers out there, they're talking about Parkinson's patients too. The detoxification is actually over— it's too much of those amino acids, glutamine, cysteine, right? That also is actually can combine with some other metabolites and become these toxic chemicals that your body has to start trying to get rid of it. So, glutathione is actually there to conjugate and remove those chemicals too. So, it is doing 2 parts, right? Antioxidant for quenching the free radicals, conjugations and removing all the metabolites. Those 2 things are the cornerstone for the whole body, not just for the brain, even for your liver, for your kidneys, for your lungs, everywhere. We got to remove all this toxic exposure chemically as well as electronically. If you can do those 2 things every single day, the whole body can regenerate and rejuvenate at a very fast pace, like you need— like in your 20s.

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Dr. Patel, what about brain energy or mitochondrial energy? Have you seen any research with glutathione being supportive of that?

So, I don't research for that. I can tell you that right now firsthand. We have thousands of patients using this product on a daily basis. And, the very first thing they tell me is, I don't know what happened, I have too much of energy. I don't know where it's coming from. One lady, in fact, calls me up and tells me that, hey, you know what? Is it okay if I just use it once a day instead of twice a day because I'm not willing to give up my coffee, the second cup of coffee in the afternoon? So, it's crazy, right? And, the reason is because why? To make glutathione, you need 3 amino acids, you need 2 molecules of ATP. If I give you glutathione the way it's supposed to be inside your cells, your body doesn't have to produce any more glutathione. And guess what? It spares the 2 molecules of ATP. So, over like next 2 to 3 weeks, you're going to have surplus of ATP energy that your body can use it for some other functions. But all of a sudden, the first thing you notice is, hey, I have this innate energy in my body that I don't know where it's coming from. Yeah.

That's the first thing that I noticed the first week. And I started on this protocol a couple years ago. But the first thing that I noticed was a boost of energy, not having to rely on the caffeine. And that was— that's a game changer because your body requires that energy to do the things that it needs to do to repair, to be able to perform. I'm curious, you know, after dedicating your life to studying glutathione, was there— if everyone listening could like get or understand like one simple truth about glutathione, what do you wish that would be? And, and what do you think the ripple effect would be like? How do you think it could change, change people's lives?

So this is something that Why I'm so passionate about this thing today is because initially, like with everything else, I didn't believe in my own product. I said, you know what? Make it, use it. Because I'm a pharmacist, I can make other products too. So, I was not into it that much. But, when I first saw how it started changing my dad's life, my dad was 78 years old when he first started using this product. And then, you're 78, he had diabetes and arthritis and blood pressure issues. He had an infarction, so he put a stent in his arteries. And, All those things happened. And, at the age of 78, and at the age of 89 when he passed away, it was an accident, unfortunately. He fell down and broke his skull. But anyways, the thing is the journey for the last 11 years of his life progressively got better and better and better every single day.

Yeah.

And, to me, that proved one thing. Our human body can actually repair and restore back to its youthful times. It just needs to figure out how to do that part. And so, I started putting all the pieces together. What I found out was that it's like the domino effect, right? When the people are— when the dominoes are falling down, you only see the last domino fall down because that's a disease or symptoms or whatever that you're experiencing.

Hmm.

But, you as a human being or we as a human being, we're not seeing from the top. I mean, we're not God. We're not seeing from the top. We're seeing from the bottom. So, we don't see the first domino fall down because you have no idea what the first domino fell down 20, 30 years ago. That first domino is glutathione because if I can reduce oxidative stress from the get-go, it stops the progression of all the diseases.

Yeah.

And so, to me, it's like if I can give one thing to everybody is to tell them that, hey, if there's only one thing that you can do in life to have the real chance for longevity, is to optimize your glutathione levels. Do whatever it takes, right? Take a supplement, reduce exposure to alcohol and cigarette smoking and pollutions and chemicals, eat the cysteine-rich diet, do everything and improve the reserves of your levels. Because guess what? If the number one, number two job of the body is taking care of it, only thing left is repair and restore. That's it.

Yeah. No, and you mentioned age, you know, with age or stage, if we're not producing as much, and then even people listening, it might be athletes, it might be frequent travelers, it might be, you know, busy entrepreneurs, menopausal women, you know, would have higher oxidative demands, right? Are there certain signs that they— people could look for that might indicate they need extra support?

So, Jim, you and I, we travel a lot. We go all over the place. And guess what? We don't fly in those lead chutes. These are aluminum chutes. We call them planes. And there's no protection for us, for human body from the cosmic rays. So, when I travel, I usually triple my dose, triple. And, if I don't do that part, I get sniffles, I get inflammation, I feel the pain to my body instantaneously.

Yeah.

So, if I'm traveling, I'm usually tripling my dose for those 2 or 3 or 4 days when I'm doing it. All my athletes, my athletes, they work out so hard, right? I have NFL athletes, NBA athletes. They work out so hard. Now, they're young. Their needs are not very high. But, the only needs they have is the day they work out. So, all my athletes, they use it like a pre or post-workout once a day during the days they work out. And, if they only work out 5 days a week and not 7 days, they only use it for 5 days. And, it's an amazing way to reduce oxidative stress down and allow the body to heal faster so they recover better and they become this mean machine on the field the next day.

And, lifestyle, obviously, the foundational habits, I'm sure you subscribe, sleep, hydration, stress management, nutrition, they all interact. These are routines and tools, lifestyle things that could be supportive antioxidant. And being able to be protective. You know, this is— but it's just like the reason you supplement is exactly why, is just because if we're not getting enough, or also we're in an environment, as you mentioned, there's electromagnetic fields, there's emotional stress, financial stress, there's environmental toxins. I mean, it's— we live in a very interesting, you know, world, you know, where a lot of people have these kind of demands. And I like what I like about Specifically your, your products, it's like you think about the skin, it's the largest organ. And I love the skin-brain connection, uh, because it's, uh, because your brain, you know, is the one that's controlling everything else. And it's kind of like the master organ, if you will.

Yes.

Um, but it's, it's many people overlook the skin as being, uh, more than, uh, cosmetic, right? Aesthetic, you know. And so skin can be potentially a powerful indicator, I would imagine, of oxidative stress and aging. And, uh, you know, and people— are there actually skin benefits also as, as well?

Well, you know, as you know, the skin is, uh, uh, you can physically see the organ deteriorating, right?

Right.

You cannot, you cannot see the organ of heart or lungs or kidneys deteriorating, but you can see the skin deteriorating.

And liver too, because if it's a detoxification.

Yes.

Right. I would imagine, you know, a lot of— I was talking to a client who's struggling with fatty liver, you know, and there's challenges there in our detox systems. And, I imagine this would be supportive also as well.

Oh, absolutely. All those things are basically inflammation, toxic overload, things like that. And, you got to chip it away slowly by slowly every single day. And, the skin being the largest organ, physically you can see with your naked eyes changes that are happening in your skin. I mean, we have a skincare line because of that as well because of the very reason because you'll see the benefits on the skin immediately, right? So, and if that's happening on your skin and you can feel that it's getting inside your body, then all of a sudden, you start seeing the dominoes starts falling down one by one. And, to me, that is what the most interesting part is. It's not a one-time use or a Or, let me use it for 2 months, then let me wait and see what happens after that. So, no, it's progressively the body is using this and using this to a point where it starts repairing itself. And so, the real changes are going to happen once you start progressively using it for over months to years. And as I said, my best example was my father. At the age of 89, he was traveling the world by himself.

Wow.

When he passed away, he was by himself in India traveling for 4 months on his own. The last 11 years, he had 13 overseas trips. 13 on his own. He's single. My mom passed away a long time ago. So, my dad was single. He traveled the world by himself. He did the glacier mountains on his own. He went to Canada. He went to Australia, New Zealand. He went to Costa Rica for 10 days doing all kinds of activities over there. I mean, think about it. A guy who is 89 years of age and doing all these things, not humanly possible at the same age because he had all these diseases.

He's amazing.

And, to me, that's the progress I want to see in everybody. I'm so passionate because if my dad could have these things, I want the whole world to enjoy this life. And, what you said earlier, yes, all the basics are taken care of, the nutrition, the sleep, the diet, all those things. But, we live in a world where we want to explore the world. The world has become so small that I want to— you can literally in less than 24 hours, you can go the whole world. And, you want to see it, you want to explore things. In order for to do that part, you got to bring inflammation, oxidative stress down. So, yes, travel, but make sure you have enough glutathione to bring the stress down so you can enjoy the life.

I think it's a real game changer. I mean, this is an eye-opening conversation. You know, what I really want everyone listening is to take away that especially when we talk about brain health isn't just about the processes and the strategies. It's also about the brain itself, right? The cellular foundations. You know, we could teach people how to train their focus, improve their memory, upgrade their mindset. But if their cells are overwhelmed, they're inflamed, you know, they're underprotected, then you're playing the game really on a more difficult mode than, than you need it to be. And it sounds, you know, from this conversation, you know, Gluton isn't about— we speak at a lot of the biohacking conferences, not just about biohacking, it's about almost like biological resilience, right?

Yes.

It's about giving your, your body and your brain's part of your body, you know, the internal environment it needs To, to, to, to heal, to adapt, to perform at its best. You know, this is something that, that I use, and I only talk about things that I use because it's one of those questions we get a lot in terms of resources, you know, since, you know, from our family, for, for our clients and such. I have, um, I have one of your products right here, and I don't want to turn this into an infomercial. I want to just— because people are asking. Um, this is something I just spray. I just spray it on my arm. You know, like three or four sprays, and people want to see details about this proprietary product and process. They could go to it's aurowellness.com/quick, and if you use code quick K W I K, you'll actually get a discount as a thank you for for listening also as well. A U R O wellness dot com forward slash K W I K. Let's, um, and so people can see all the details because I know some people are, they want to like look at it and kind of see some of, some of the more fine points to, to it. So, Dr. Patel, thank you again for, for the work that you do, the research that you do, and, you know, continued success on, on your mission. You know, you're going out there. You know, there's this thing with health. They say that a healthy person has 1,000 dreams, an unhealthy person, like a sick person has one dream, right? It's just, just to be healthy again. And we always talk about that lead domino, that one handful of things that you could do up front that can make everything, you know, else easier down downstream. So, um, so I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

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