Glutathione index

Discussing glutathione gets into a lot of various aspects. This is a good thing and a bad thing. Just like iodine, glutathione is involved in almost all of our health, which means a lot of stuff is involved.

Over the years as I learn more about biochemistry, metabolism, and health in general, I continue to find more and more connections to glutathione as well as success with my own healing as I figure out how to implement this information.

Glutathione is connected to pretty much everything

The graphic on this book cover is showing how a handful of nutrients and toxins interact with each other.

This isn’t much different than how Rock-Paper-Scissors works. Certain substances or situations can inhibit other substances or situations.

I’m listing a dozen or so nutrients with tight connections to glutathione because I’d like to point out how intertwined it is with our metabolism. Way too many people are hyperfocused on individual nutrients without realizing they are all part of a massive system that depends on all of these nutrients.

If we inherit a classic car, most of us know it needs more than fuel and oil to remain in proper working order. But for some reason when it comes to wellness, we assume our body can rebuild itself with 3 things as we continue to bombard ourselves with toxicity.

Dozens of nutrients have connections to glutathione

There are very few, if any, nutrients that are not somehow connected to glutathione and it’s ability to function.

This is just a preview of some of the important nutrients people are finding more information about. The main purpose of pulling this information together is to highlight that its very possible we’re low on other nutrients, which are holding up glutathione in some way, and keeping the nutrients we’re focused on from functioning.

Glutathione, Iodine & Selenium

Iodine deficiency may produce oxidant stress on the thyroid gland, increasing the requirement for selenium to maintain selenoenzyme activity 1

Data suggest that protein synthesis is needed for selenium repletion to exert control on glutathione peroxidase activity 2 Which just says protein (methylation) is required in order to run the system that allows selenium to interact with and activate glutathione.

Glutathione and Copper

Depleting glutathione reduces copper uptake by 50% in some cells 3

Glutathione and Iron

Data indicate that the essential function of GSH(glutathione) is linked to its involvement in iron metabolism 4

I am listing iron’s connection to several nutrients to show how intertwined each of these can be on top of just glutathione’s complexity.

Iron deficiency anemia is a common type of anemia, 5 a condition in which we lack enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to our body’s tissues 6

  • Extreme fatigue
  • Weakness
  • Pale skin
  • Chest pain, fast heartbeat or shortness of breath
  • Headache, dizziness or lightheadedness
  • Cold hands and feet
  • Inflammation or soreness of your tongue
  • Brittle nails
  • Unusual cravings for non-nutritive substances, such as ice, dirt or starch
  • Poor appetite, especially in infants and children with iron deficiency anemia

Iron-related issues tend to be blamed on the iron itself and tend to miss the several issues related to transporting iron when other systems are out of balance. How many times have you heard of glutathione’s involvement in iron metabolism? I’ve seen very few people finally see copper’s involvement, but I’ve not seen others mention glutathione.

Iron and Copper

Deficiency, as well as an excess of copper, have detrimental effects on iron metabolism. 7

Iron and pH

Have you heard of the simple idea that high acidity inhibits iron transport?

pH is a measurement of how many hydrogen ions are in a solution. One of our cell’s many waste products is hydrogen ions. If we are not able to keep up on the removal or mitigation of these ions, how can our iron levels remain in balance?

There is a general idea that cancer cannot survive in an alkaline environment. Well, if iron can not be metabolized properly in an acidic environment as I point out above, now we have a handful of negative factors we’re able to research, which is iron metabolism and all of the nutrients involved.

Glutathione and B2

B2 is crucial to oxygen-based energy production as well as recycling glutathione back into its active form after it is used each time 8

Glutathione and B3

Niacin (vitamin B3), in the form of NADPH, is required for the regeneration of glutathione (GSH) 9

The mechanisms by which niacin protects the body against oxidative stress can be attributed to the glutathione redox cycle and also to other possible roles such as decreasing NADH+H+/NADP+ ratio as well as increasing the NAD+ content. 10

Glutathione and Zinc

Evidence that a decrease in zinc availability impairs glutathione metabolism in human neuroblastoma cells and rat fetal brain 11

Glutathione and B12

Glutathione inhibits the reduction of hydroxocob(III)alamin(B12) by the formation of the 1:1 complex glutathionylcobalamin – The interaction between glutathione and vitamin B12 could protect against diseases related to vitamin B12 depletion. 12 In other words, glutathione is able to protect B12 so it is not destroyed by toxins. B12 is a huge player in metabolism.

I wrote about an interesting connection between glutathione, b12, and lithium sickoftired.com/b12

Glutathione and Magnesium

Magnesium exerts antioxidant activity and influences glutathione redox 13

Magnesium is used in the first step of converting protein into all the stuff our body uses in an attempt to thrive. I explain methylation here sickoftired.com/methylation

Glutathione and Dopamine and Serotonin

Glutathione can improve the efficiency of dopamine in the brain and also increase the sensitivity to dopamine and serotonin 14

Glutathione and Melatonin

…induction of brain glutathione peroxidase might be an important mechanism by which melatonin exerts its potent neuroprotective effects. 15

While light of any kind can suppress the secretion of melatonin, blue light at night does so more powerfully. 16

So, melatonin stimulates brain glutathione, and the screens most people stare at all day and night reduce melatonin. That sounds bad.

Glutathione and ‘vitamin’ D

There is a lot of buzz about the connection between vitamin D and illness.

If we search the net, we’ll find info about vitamin D’s connection to just about anything. But a lot of people are missing something rather important.

We’re looking at data of illness related to low 25OH(which is low due to poor nutritional metabolism and exposure to sunlight vs artificial light) and assuming we can supplement our way out of it. But 25OH is a steroid hormone which is a signaling agent. Screaming “fire” is a signal, but increasing our signal of a fire doesn’t change anything if there are no fire fighters or extinguishers.

Just about anywhere we’ll see low vitamin D, the root of the issue is likely low glutathione or something glutathione depends on.

Through various important processes, our levels of the steroid hormone we are calling vitamin D is being regulated on purpose. If glutathione is not working properly, our machine is not able to run properly. We don’t need to harness and process sunlight if we’re not running well. And supplementing the signal of how much sunlight we should and are harnessing, does not mean anything will change.

We really need to sit back and imagine how important our Master Antioxidant is to our trillions of cells.

Most of the benefits related to vitamin d are related to increased oxidative activity. But if our master antioxidant is low, we do not want to create more oxidative stress.

Increasing glutathione levels reduces oxidative stress and increases D3 regulation in mice 17 In other words, increasing glutathione allowed higher D3 levels.

D3 is important for Covid, or is it just glutathione, again?

Maybe low glutathione is why we’re sick and also why D3 is low?

Endogenous Deficiency of Glutathione as the Most Likely Cause of Serious Manifestations and Death in COVID-19 Patients 18

Review Boosting GSH COVID19 19

Inhibition of influenza infection by glutathione 20

Antioxidant Therapy as a Potential Approach to Severe Influenza-Associated Complications 21

Similar to how our cells require a proper amount of sugar, or else we’ll lose consciousness and go into a coma, 22 we need a certain amount of glutathione or the majority of our cells are not able to continue carrying out their function.

More than 100,000 studies have been published related to the physiologic effects of glutathione. In broad terms, these studies have found glutathione to protect against oxidative stress, detoxify chemicals and toxins, boost immune function, and support healthy aging.

Oral Availability of GLUTATHIONE –https://www.naturalmedicinejournal.com/sites/default/files/glutathione_final_digital.pdf

I think a neat way to look at glutathione is like the engine cylinder which contains the internal combustion. Or the oven wall that helps contain the heat to our cook food.

Without the engine running or the oven cooking, there isn’t a current demand for combustion chambers or oven walls. This is just a crude example to explain that we don’t worry about things we don’t have a use for ATM.

Without proper metabolism, there isn’t a demand for glutathione and other antioxidants.

Eventually, we may end up with a poor ability to metabolize and then also run into a poor ability to generate antioxidants. Eventually as we attempt to correct this, things might be bound up for a bit as we figure out how to build up different demands while also supporting them so they can spool up. One more reason to go slow with reintroducing nutrition.

Oxygen is potent stuff

We inhale 11,000 liters of air per day in order to extract enough oxygen to run our cells. Some people can go months without food and days without water, but we’re most likely dead after only 10 minutes without oxygen.

Not only is oxygen pretty important, but we also go through a lot of it over time.

This is why I started writing about indoor co2 levels. Not only do we need to focus on rebuilding our metabolism’s ability to harness oxygen properly, we also need to actually breathe the stuff sickoftired.com/co2

We’re essentially exploiting the same chemical reaction that causes metal to rust as oxygen steals its electrons. We use this process to carry out life, but we also have to work very hard to keep this from aging us, or even hurting us.

An average adult has about 25 billion Red Blood Cells(RBCs) each containing about 270 million hemoglobin – with 4 iron molecules per hemoglobin.

That’s 25,000,000,000 x 270,000,000 x 4 pieces of iron carrying around something capable of destroying itself.

All those pieces of iron transporting oxygen which will eventually depend on antioxidation… This is a huge part of why antioxidants are so important.

But it also highlights how we might not need antioxidants if we’re not oxidizing well. This is where the copper/iron/selenium/glutathione/etc/etc/etc connection comes in. Why run more glutathione if we can’t use selenium to break down h2o2 and send oxygen over to iron with copper?

Also, why oxidize more if we can’t antioxidize more? That would cause damage.

If the machine isn’t running properly, we have no reason to do some of this stuff. Sometimes we ignore the reasoning for this lag in the system and assume we just need to jolt it back into gear with steroid hormones. Just because we feel better when we jolt the system back into gear doesn’t mean we’re handling the situation properly.

What about taking too much?

Some people claim that taking glutathione for an extended period causes our body to make less on its own. This highlights two important aspects to healing with nutrients.

  1. I do not use a lot of each supplement I own. I have consumed 5 or so bottles of liposomal glutathione over the past 3 years. I am using this supplement to help my cells stay topped off, but I am not driving it down my cell’s throat all day.
  2. Glutathione is made of several amino acids and depends on a handful of nutrients. I attempt to support important nutrients directly like this at first, and then make my way through other supporting nutrients and raw building blocks. I’m trying to first reduce as much burden as possible so my cells have more energy to rebuild with the raw materials next.

Having enough glutathione around can potentially cause more cells to function which potentially increases our ability to metabolize. But more metabolism means more nutrients and energy are required. If we are eating well enough and continuing to load up on nutrients including electrolytes while sleeping, hydrating, getting proper light and friendly interactions etc, we should be able to take advantage of the right form of glutathione to sort of boost a bunch of nutrients into our cells.

But supplementing glutathione by itself without any of the nutrients it depends on at some point most likely won’t work well, might backfire, and can potentially create further imbalances. Most people will assume glutathione is the issue or that glutathione does not work for them. But our cells can’t boot up if they don’t have access to nutrients and a good drainage system.

A simple example is buying a fixer upper house and assuming we can walk in and slap a fresh coat of paint on the walls. But we need to clean the spider webs off the walls and even replace pieces of the walls in some areas first.

In order to live in this house, we’re going to want fresh paint on the walls, so it’s definitely important. But we have work do to first or this important nutrient “doesn’t work”.

So what is the right way to take glutathione

There is a good chance we’ll run into at least one person trying to sell us “the right form” of glutathione as we make our way through health communities.

Then there is a decent chance you’ll see people saying don’t supplement it, support your body to make your own.

I personally aim for everything that might be involved in glutathione, which means both finding the right form as well as focusing on dozens of nutrients my body needs.

In this video, I show how glutathione is involved in a ton of important nutrients we’re hearing about from other angles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr5iFRtxPd8

How I support glutathione

When I have $60 to put towards a bottle, I attempt to keep this form around for about 3 months in the fridge. There have been a handful of times I start to get a headache or feel run down and it seems like stopping by the fridge for some of this has helped. I try to get small amounts of it as often as I remember to get it without turning it into a hassle.

This is liquid which makes it easy to get smaller amounts. It’s liposomal which can bypass broken cells, which can be a game changer if we need a certain nutrient. And it has a handful of nutrients that are important to help glutathione function properly https://bit.ly/30BlM45

Then I also have these capsules which are not liquid, are not liposomal, but do have the other nutrients. I go through these very slowly https://bit.ly/2XkLxT1

If we are not eating well https://whyiodine.com/clean-diet/ balancing our electrolytes https://whyiodine.com/electrolytes and supporting stomach acid https://sickoftired.com/stomach-acid/ we may not see many benefits from even the best form of glutathione.

In this video I show where glutathione sits in our core genes and a little about how I support it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr5iFRtxPd8

I expand on this concept a bit in my videos at www.methylate.me

Footnotes

  1. Selenoenzyme expression in thyroid and liver of second-generation selenium- and iodine-deficient rats – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8782084/
  2. Selenium regulation of glutathione peroxidase in human hepatoma cell line Hep3B – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8391784/
  3. Cellular glutathione plays a key role in copper uptake mediated by human copper transporter 1 – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23426973/
  4. Glutathione revisited: a vital function in iron metabolism and ancillary role in thiol-redox control – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3098478/
  5. Iron deficiency anemia – https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficiency-anemia/symptoms-causes/syc-20355034
  6. Anemia – https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anemia/symptoms-causes/syc-20351360
  7. The Role of Copper in Iron Metabolism – http://www.annclinlabsci.org/content/10/4/338.full.pdf
  8. Association for the Advancement of Restorative Medicine – https://restorativemedicine.org/library/monographs/vitamin-b2/
  9. Niacin deficiency causes oxidative stress in rat bone marrow cells but not through decreased NADPH or glutathione status – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955286307002483
  10. https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/jnmdc/journal-of-nutritional-medicine-and-diet-care-jnmdc-2-014.php
  11. Decreased Zinc Availability Affects Glutathione Metabolism in Neuronal Cells and in the Developing Brain – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3627551/
  12. A new role for glutathione: protection of vitamin B12 from depletion by xenobiotics – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15606130/
  13. Effects of magnesium supplementation on the glutathione redox system in atopic asthmatic children – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00011-007-7077-3
  14. Glutathione and Parkinson’s Disease – https://www.acam.org/blogpost/1092863/185777/Glutathione-and-Parkinson-s-Disease
  15. Melatonin stimulates brain glutathione peroxidase activity – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7492947/
  16. Blue light has a dark side – https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side
  17. Glutathione Stimulates Vitamin D Regulatory and Glucose-Metabolism Genes, Lowers Oxidative Stress and Inflammation, and Increases 25-Hydroxy-Vitamin D Levels in Blood: A Novel Approach to Treat 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Deficiency – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30160165/
  18. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7263077
  19. https://osf.io/y7wc2/download
  20. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10839691_Inhibition_of_influenza_infection_by_glutathione
  21. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6259602/
  22. Hypoglycemia, functional brain failure, and brain death – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1838950/