GLUTATHIONE Q&A

Welcome to Medicine Health. I'm Dr. Paul, and today we're doing questions that I've received. So if I look a little different than normal, I got this headset on and this weird lighting. This is Dr. A on the road. I'm doing some government regulatory work in a different city than I live in, and so I'm in a hotel room trying to do the podcast for you with a little different equipment. So that's why I look strange today. But the topic on this one is questions I've gotten around glutathione. So glutathione occurs naturally in our body. It's also a supplement and it can be given to you in a number of different ways. And so we got a bunch of questions from people on the various social media platforms asking different glutathione questions. So let's go after it. First thing, just to get out of the way, this is not medical advice. This is background information for you. You should run everything by a healthcare provider that you are thinking of doing or taking at et cetera. Also, go over to dranow.com. That's a link to all of the external media where this is going to be housed, et cetera. And please like, share, subscribe, and do notifications. And that way you can keep track of what we're doing. We're getting a lot of new subscribers on all the different platforms, and we're really appreciative of that. But glutathione. So glutathione, you've heard of amino acids, and amino acids are the little pieces that make up a protein. So we've all heard of protein. We eat protein in food. That protein goes in, we construct our body out of amino acids and proteins, peptides and things. And so the amino acid is the smallest constituent of a protein. So you can think of a string of them making up a peptide, and then a bunch of those making up a protein. Well, there are certain constituents in the body that are not a single peptide and not a single amino acid, and glutathione is one of those. It's 3 amino acids or a tripeptide. A tripeptide is 3 amino acids put together that have a particular form based on what the amino acids are and how they're stuck together chemically. And so you have glycine and glutamine, 2 of the G amino acids, and then you have cysteine, in the middle, and cysteine is a sulfury-smelling amino acid. So if you ever smell like N-acetylcysteine, the supplement, that's what that is basically. It smells sulfury because it has a thiol and has sulfur on the side. So you have this sort of 3-part molecule with cysteine in the middle, and it is one of your body's primary antioxidant defenses. Now glutathione is, uh, produced in your liver, it is produced in other cells, and it circulates around the body. Now, we say it's an antioxidant, which it is. And so what is an antioxidant? An antioxidant encounters something like a free radical, and that free radical will generally have an electron that could be transferred somewhere and do damage. An antioxidant is a lot like a sink for that, where the The pro-oxidant, the bad molecule with the extra electron floating around as a free radical, will go to an antioxidant and the electron will be taken off, the radical will be taken off, and then that will stabilize as an oxidized antioxidant. So an antioxidant has a reduced or active form and an oxidized or inactive form, meaning it's done its job already. So they never generally work alone. So if I send the free radical in and glutathione takes the radical away and becomes oxidized, and it's stable, the radical is more stable, so it doesn't hurt me, that's great. But what do I do with that oxidized glutathione so I can use it again? Because while it's oxidized, it's just sitting there, right? If you build up a whole bunch of oxidized antioxidant, it actually can be not great for you? Well, the body has this cool way of recycling antioxidants. So if we say glutathione was the active one and it's now oxidized because it took on the free radical, it can either bump into vitamin C and get recycled or bump into, in a fatty membrane, the tocopherols, the vitamin E family, and get recycled that way. And likewise, glutathione can recycle either of them. So they all work together through oxidative reductive action or redox to recycle each other after they take away the bad radical part of a free radical. So that's how they're so protective. Now, because it's 3 enzymes, unless you have particular genetic problems, we have these synthetic genes that code for synthetic enzymes which put glutathione together. So there are numerous and they work around your body all over, but especially in the liver. So when we think about glutathione being produced, the first thing is we need enough amino acids. The second thing is we really would like the rate-limiting amino acid, which happens to be cysteine. So that's why in the past, before we really had glutathione supplementation, we would just give people N-acetylcysteine and it would raise their glutathione levels. Now you can take glutathione as either acetyl glutathione supplement or glutathione, a liposomal glutathione, and those actually do absorb. If you just take glutathione with no protection like acetyl glutathione or liposomal, it will likely get to your GI tract and be disassembled. So that's why the liposomal helps it absorb as glutathione. The acetyl form of glutathione helps it to absorb as well. So because your body makes it, you would think, well, why would I ever need to supplement it? Well, you might not, depending on what's going on with you. But the places where we tend to recommend it or even use it as a pharmacologic agent are people who have had cell damage and inflammatory activity their body can't get ahead of. We do this a lot in people who are recovering from surgery, sometimes in people recovering from other procedures, radiation procedures, stuff of that nature, and other traumas, but also people who are chronically ill who may be very inflamed as they go along. So their inflammation levels are very high. They'll use up glutathione. So One way, the most direct way to get it, it would be to supplement with glutathione as an oral supplement. You also can nebulize it. So that's the— it's like a vaporizer, but it's got a, you know, face mask and breathe it in. Usually we're nebulizing respiratory drugs, but actually glutathione is a really great respiratory drug. And also, if you nebulize it, it will absorb into your bloodstream. And then sometimes we inject glutathione. Glutathione is a common infusion that we would do after other IV therapies to increase the glutathione levels in your body. The other thing to keep in mind in regard to glutathione is it's been researched in different areas and it's been researched around cell protection and synergy, even with certain types of chemotherapy. So for example, Although in the United States and North America, there are not that many places doing this. With certain types of chemotherapy like platinum chemotherapies, what we have learned is that if they're co-administered, so glutathione and the chemotherapy, people will get synergy with the chemotherapy and they get less tissue, normal tissue damage. So it turns out that was a good idea. For a long time, it was thought that would be a very bad idea because they seem like they're going in 2 different directions. opposite directions, but they really aren't. So that's another thing to consider and think about. Do you need any of this? Well, because your body can make it, it might be that you're doing just fine if you're super healthy and your diet's really good and you get enough amino acids and you get enough other antioxidants to support it, get enough vitamin C in and vitamin E, etc. your needs are going to be less. But if you're chronically ill, if you're in the middle of a detoxification program, if you're recovering from chemo, radiation, surgery, trauma, whatever, you probably do need a little bit more. Remember, it runs with other antioxidants, so we always want to support both ends. So more usually vitamin C, a little bit of vitamin E if your doctor thinks that's a good idea. And then, are there other things that will increase glutathione? Well, turns out there are. So because glutathione is also a big factor in inflammatory disorders and diseases such as asthma, cardiac problems, etc., there is research in the worlds of respiratory, cardiac medicine, etc., showing that the predictor of how much glutathione in your cells is going to be active. A big one is how much magnesium is in your cells. And you might think, well, that's a little odd because magnesium is a mineral. What does it have to do with glutathione? Well, it turns out— and they've done experiments, actually different types of experiments, where if you raise the magnesium level in the cells of the person the body will naturally, without giving any glutathione, raise the glutathione level and activity in the cells as well. So I would always tell students, you know, if I got stranded on a desert island, I could only take like one supplemental nutrient, it would probably be magnesium because it does so many things and it keeps the glutathione levels up to normal levels. So the other thing about it is, is You know, if you're— let's say you're— you, you were chronically ill, you're getting better, things are looking better, you know, everything's looking great, uh, and you can just never get off of the glutathione that you're taking supplementally, or maybe you're getting an infusion every— whatever. Um, one of the things that should be looked at is your magnesium levels, especially your red blood cell magnesium levels. Very, very critical there. But then there's also some genes that control enzyme formation that can be a problem. So the glutathione synthetase enzyme— so anything with synth means make— glutathione synthetase enzymes, you can have polymorphisms in the genes that code for those enzymes. And so you can put all of the constituent in that you want, and the glutathione would be produced very slowly. So if you're really having trouble getting off, take a look at your other antioxidants, have your red blood cell magnesium checked. And then also, you know, consider maybe some genomic testing too if it's a really big problem. Well, that's all the time we have for glutathione. Dr. Paul on the radio today. Please like, share, subscribe on whatever channel you get this, and we'll be right back with the next one.