Glutathione in Science
Max International's chief scientist Dr Nagasawa explains the critical roles glutathione plays in your body's health.
The following is a small sample of articles from the scientific journals detailing the research that highlights the critial roles Glutathione (GSH) plays in human health and performance.
Note: MaxGXL is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Aging
Detoxification
Autisim
Parkinsons
Diabetes
Arthritis
Cystic Fibrosis
Eye/Optical
Skin
HIV
Athletic
Various
Aging
Glutathione, oxidative stress and aging
“The involvement of glutathione in aging has been known since the early seventies. Recent experiments from our laboratory have underscored the importance of cellular compartmentation of glutathione. Mitochondrial glutathione plays a key role in the protection against free radical damage associated with aging.”
“This relationship, which has been observed for the first time in these studies, underscores the role of glutathione in the protection against free radical damage that occurs upon aging.”
“The findings highlight the critical roles of the mitochondrial and nuclear GSH pools in protecting cellular components, particularly DNA, from oxidative modification.”
James F. Balch MD and Phyllis A. Balch, C.N.C.: Prescription for Nutritional Healing – Second Edition
“As we age, glutathione levels decline, although it is not known whether this is because we use it more rapidly or produce less of it to begin with. Unfortunately, if not corrected, the lack of glutathione in turn accelerates the aging process.”
Detoxification
Gluathione: Toxological implications
“Glutathione … is a unique peptide that contiunes to interest toxicologists. A major endogenous protective system is the glutathione redux cycle.”
Analysis of glutathione: implication in redox and detoxification
“Glutathione status is a highly sensitive indicator of cell functionality and viability. Glutathione is a critical factor in protecting organisms against toxicity and disease”
“There is evidence for antioxidant protection in the prevention of neurological and renal damage caused by mercury toxicity. Research has attempted to identify the role of antioxidants, glutathione and alpha-lipoic acid specifically, in both mitigation of heavy metal toxicity and direct chelation of heavy metals”
Autisim
Mercury and autism: Accelerating Evidence?
“The process of cysteine and glutathione synthesis, which are crucial for natural mercury detoxification, are reduced in autistic children, possibly due to genetic polymorphisms [13,30]. Therefore, autistics have 20% lower plasma levels of cysteine and 54% lower levels of glutathione, which, among others, adversely affect their ability to detoxify and excrete metals like mercury”
Low natural killer cell cytotoxic activity in autism: the role of glutathione, IL-2 and IL-15.
“We conclude that that 45% of a subgroup of children with autism suffers from low NK cell activity, and that low intracellular levels of glutathione, IL-2 and IL-15 may be responsible.”
“Eight of nine patients (one patient was found to have an ASD due to Rett’s syndrome) had … (d) had biochemical evidence of decreased function in their glutathione pathways”
Biomarkers of environmental toxicity and susceptibility in autism.
“Significantly decreased plasma levels of reduced glutathione (GSH), cysteine, and sulfate were observed among study participants relative to controls. The transsulfuration abnormalities observed among study participants indicate that mercury intoxication was associated with increased oxidative stress and decreased detoxification capacity.”
Parkinsons
Glutathione and Parkinson’s disease: Is this the elephant in the room?
“At least 2 decades have past since the demonstration of a 40?0% deficit in total glutathione (GSH) levels in the substantia nigra in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The similar loss of GSH in the nigra in Incidental Lewy body disease, thought to be an early form of PD, indicates that this is one of the earliest derangements to occur in the pre-symptomatic stages of PD”
“A growing body of evidence has implicated oxidative stress as an important factor in the neuropathology associated with Parkinson’s disease. Dopaminergic nigrostriatal neurons, the predominant cells lost in Parkinson’s, are believed to be highly prone to oxidative damage due to the propensity for dopamine to auto-oxidize and thereby produce elevated levels of hydrogen peroxide and catecholamine quinones. Hydrogen peroxide formed during this process can either be converted by iron to form highly reactive hydroxyl radicals or removed through reduction by glutathione. Glutathione can also conjugate with quinones formed during dopamine oxidation preventing them from facilitating the release of iron from the iron-storage molecule ferritin.”
Diabetes
Oxidative Stress and Glutathione Synthesis in Type 2 Diabetes
“We conclude that subjects with type 2 diabetes have decreased oxidant capacity, evidenced by reduced synthesis of glutathione, and they are under increased oxidative stress”
Antioxidants in diabetes management
“Administration of glutathione was found to be advantageous in type 2 diabetics and those with impaired glucose tolerance. Glutathione improved insulin secretion in patients with iGT. Glutathione also improves insulin sensitivity in patients with type 2 diabetes after acute and chronic administration.”
Arthritis
The glutathione defense system in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis was associated with significant depletion (ca. 50%) in GSH levels compared with normal control subjects. .. The results support a hypothesis that defense mechanisms against reactive oxygen species are impaired in rheumatoid arthritis."
Cystic Fibrosis
Systemic deficiency of glutathione in cystic fibrosis.
“The glutathione deficiency observed in ELF in CF patients is not limited to the site of the inflammation but is systemic.”
“Given the vital role of GSH as an antioxidant, a mucolytic, and a regulator of inflammation, immune response, and cell viability via its redox status in the human body, it is reasonable to hypothesize that this condition plays some role in the pathogenesis of CF. Therapeutic implications, including alternative methods of GSH augmentation, are discussed.”
Glutathione A Radical Treatment for Cystic Fibrosis Lung Disease?
“Given that a number of inflammatory lung diseases share a diminished level of glutathione in the epithelial lining fluid and excessive lung inflammatory responses, a glutathione therapeutic may have broader implications than cystic fibrosis”
Eye/Optical
Natural therapies for ocular disorders, part two: cataracts and glaucoma.
"Pathophysiological mechanisms of cataract formation include deficient glutathione levels contributing to a faulty antioxidant defense system within the lens of the eye."
An Impediment to Glutathione Diffusion in Older Normal Human Lenses
"A common feature of nuclear cataract is the low concentration of reduced glutathione (GSH) in the center of the lens. GSH is the principal lenticular antioxidant of the lens and it is synthesized and regenerated in the lens cortex."
Skin
Blood glutathione-peroxidase levels in skin diseases
"Depressed [glutathione] levels were observed in patients with psoriasis, eczema, atopic dermatitis, vasculitis, mycosis fungoides and dermatitis herpetiformis"
The results suggest that a significant fraction of even UVB damage can be mediated by free radical attack and that a major role of glutathione in human skin cells is to protect them from the cytotoxic action of sunlight.
"The results provide further evidence that endogenous glutathione is involved in protecting human skin cells against a wide range of solar radiation damage and suggest that while free radical scavenging is involved at the shortest wavelength (302 nm) tested, a more specific role of glutathione is involved in protection against radiation at longer wavelengths."
HIV
Glutathione deficiency is associated with impaired survival in HIV disease
"Clinical studies presented here directly demonstrate that low GSH levels predict poor survival in otherwise indistinguishable HIV-infected subjects."
Intracellular Glutathione Levels in T Cell Subsets Decrease in HIV-Infected Individuals
"These findings suggest that low intracellular GSH levels may be an important factor in HIV infection and in the resulting immunodeficiency."
Athletic
Effect of supplementation with a cysteine donor on muscular performance
“Oxidative stress contributes to muscular fatigue. Supplementation of healthy young adults with a whey-based oral supplement augmented lymphocyte GSH concentrations, while increasing muscular performance in these subjects. Aside from its potential as an ergogenic aid, such supplementation may have particular benefit in patients with persistent inflammatory conditions.”
Muscle-derived ROS and thiol regulation in muscle fatigue
“Fatigue causes oxidation of glutathione, a thiol antioxidant in muscle fibers, and is reversed by thiol-specific reducing agents. N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a drug that supports glutathione synthesis, has been shown to lessen oxidation of cellular constituents and delay muscle fatigue.”
Responses of glutathione system and antioxidant enzymes to exhaustive exercise and hydroperoxide
“It is concluded that exhaustive exercise can impose a severe oxidative stress on skeletal muscle and that glutathione systems as well as antioxidant enzymes are important in coping with free radical-mediated muscle injury. ”
Exercise-induced oxidative stress: glutathione supplementation and deficiency
GSH-deficient rats had approximately 50% reduced endurance, which suggests a critical role of endogenous GSH in the circumvention of exercise-induced oxidative stress and as a determinant of exercise performance.
Various
A mathematical model of glutathione metabolism.
“Deficits in glutathione have been implicated in aging and a host of diseases including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, Down syndrome and autism”
“Glutathione is an efficient scavenger of toxic oxidants, including hydrogen peroxide, an oxidant that plays a major role in the oxidant burden placed on the epithelial surface of the lower respiratory tract in chronic inflammatory states. GSH is present in the epithelial lining fluid of the normal lower respiratory tract, where it is thought to play a major role in providing antioxidant protection to the epithelial cells.”
“Oxidative stress has been implicated in both normal aging and in various neurodegenerative disorders and may be a common mechanism underlying various forms of cell death including necrosis, apoptosis, and excitotoxicity. In this review, we develop the hypothesis that oxidative stress-mediated neuronal loss may be initiated by a decline in the antioxidant molecule glutathione (GSH)”
Glutathione: A key player in autoimmunity
“During chronic inflammation, when sustained production of ROS occurs, antioxidant defences can weaken, resulting in a situation termed oxidative stress. Moreover, antioxidant defence systems have been demonstrated to be constitutively lacking in patients affected with chronic degenerative diseases, especially inflammatory/immunomediated.”
“These findings provide the first evidence that morphine increases the susceptibility to virus infection by altering [reducing] the intracellular levels of glutathione.”
GSH and analogs in antiviral therapy.
“GSH is the most powerful intracellular antioxidant and plays a role in the detoxification of a variety of electrophilic compounds and peroxides via catalysis by glutathione-S-transferases (GST) and glutathione peroxidases (GPx). An imbalance in GSH is observed in a wide range of pathologies, such as cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, cystic fibrosis (CF), several viral infections including HIV-1, as well as in aging”