Adapted from episode 135 of The Perfect Stool podcast with Dr. Nayan Patel, a pharmacist and wellness expert, who developed a novel technology to deliver glutathione topically, and Lindsey Parsons, EdD, and edited for readability.
Lindsey:
Since you’re clearly a glutathione expert, why don’t we start with what glutathione is and what it does in the body, and why it’s important.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Okay, glutathione is a peptide that is produced by humans. It’s the most abundant peptide or molecule produced in the human body, and it’s important to me personally, because the body does not produce something so abundantly unless there’s a lot of functions attached to it. And so that’s why my research has always been around how do I improve glutathione levels? How do I increase those levels if they’re low? What can I do to increase levels if your body cannot conjugate and make its own glutathione and so on and so forth. That’s why I’ve been studying this a lot. And the reason we’re talking today is because, after 20 years of research on my side, on what I’ve seen, I think your listeners want to listen to me. I think it’s going to be profound impact on how we live the rest of our lives now, and it’s made a huge difference in my family and my patients lives and the people that I deal with. So, I think it’s about time we get the rest of the world to know this thing.
Lindsey:
Awesome. Well, I’ve often referred to glutathione as the master antioxidant. Is that an accurate description?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Well, that’s one of the functions. We don’t know what it is, because most people don’t care what glutathione is, what they do want to know is what it can do for you. And so yes, antioxidants is one of the benefits that we experience because of glutathione. It is not the only benefit, but that’s one of the majority functions, and it’s called the master, or the mother of all antioxidants, because it has a regenerating capacity, so your body does not lose the capacity of over and over being an antioxidant. And so for that reason, it’s lot more beneficial over and over again.
Lindsey:
Okay, so I check glutathione levels on almost every client via the marker for Pyroglutamic acid, on an organic acids test or on a Metabolomix. I’m wondering, is that a reliable marker of glutathione status? And if not, what better way is there to assess glutathione status?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So what you’re measuring is a urine test, for the whole thing. It’s one of the metabolites of glutathione, which is okay, it’s not the best test. There’s no best test for glutathione as of right now. So we do testing in the laboratory, in the research center, where we can draw the blood, put the bloodstream in the machine and measure the levels out right away. Anything besides that is not an accurate test, because what you’re really measuring is, for example, if you do a blood draw, by the time the test tube is filled with the blood and it sits there for like 10-15, minutes, the whole glutathione is completely oxidized. So you have no idea how much is reduced, how much is oxidized.
So in reality, most of the people, if they are otherwise healthy, with no other diseases, your body should have, 50/50, 50% oxidized, 50% reduced, and it stays at sort of an equilibrium. Patients with diabetes, autoimmune conditions, cancers, diseases, any metabolic diseases, you have a lot more oxidized glutathione and a lot less reduced form of glutathione. This ratio needs to completely be reversed. And so the tests are at the best telling your total glutathione load you have in the body, which, if that is low to begin with, oh boy, we are in trouble to start off with, right? And so most people are already low to begin with in the complete glutathione status, and then what we do not know is how much is reduced out of that. The urine test does not give you the whole picture either.
Lindsey:
Right, and reduced is the usable glutathione?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
The reduced is the one that is the active form of glutathione. The oxidized form has to be reactivated, which is okay. So if you have a lot of oxidized glutathione, you can actually activate this glutathione by taking supplements like vitamin C or vitamin E, and that’s what it does. It regenerates all your glutathione again.
Lindsey:
So why might someone be deficient in glutathione?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Why might somebody be deficient? Life? So let me do a little bit broader than that. So glutathione is affecting not just the oxidative stress in your body, but it also helps with conjugation or detoxification of your liver. And so that process is a one-way process. That means the glutathione that has been used for conjugation and detoxification, you get rid of the glutathione out of the body, and the body has to reproduce it again. And so what happens is that when you’re young, under the age of 30, you’re kind of invincible. You think the world’s never going to end, nothing bad is ever going to happen to you, your body completely regenerates on its own, and you just feel fine. You can drink like a fish, and the next morning you’re back to work, “What happened?”, “Oh nothing, we had a good time last night.” Same behavior at age of 50, “Oh boy, two days ago I had a drink, and I’m like, still having a headache right now.” And so the body is not able to detoxify, recuperate, regenerate and recalibrate itself at a faster pace.
So what’s happening at that end is, at right about the age of 30, what your body’s actual need for glutathione is and what your body can actually produce, there’s a discrepancy. You’re not producing enough to meet all your body’s demands. For example, if you live in United States, and let’s say your expenses for the month are 5000 bucks, but you only make $4,000. Every month. You’re short 1000 bucks. It won’t take you more than 2, 3, 4 months. By the fourth month, I’ll say, “You’re dead under water.” Right? Because you have no reserves. And so that’s the thing that’s happening with glutathione. It’s like not quite similar to the money portion, but your needs are there. You can’t produce enough. And if you cannot produce enough, there’s a discrepancy. The discrepancy over time, take 10 years over time, now there’s an onset of diseases, and that’s why everybody should be listening to that is because this is not something magic that happens because I turned 40, so I should be going through this issue. My mom had this disease when she was 40. I’m 50. I should be okay. I still don’t have it. No, it’s how much your body is able to recuperate, and if it cannot do that over periods of time, now we have something to deal with.
And so when it comes to life, there are a few things that I want to talk about. To start off with, the first thing is environmental factors, like air pollution, sunlight, direct exposure to sun for long periods of time, chemical exposures, gas exposures, all those things the body has to somehow neutralize them, detoxify them, and get rid of it. Second thing is, we eat food. Now we’re supposed to eat food for our body as a fuel, but we eat food because our tongue likes it, and that’s a big difference, right? You do what your tongue wants, not what your body needs, and what your body needs is real foods, amino acids and proteins and things like that, or maybe carbs, complex carbs that the body can use up as fuel. We end up eating sugars and some empty calories that now the body has to somehow figure out, “Well, what am I supposed to do with this? I need to make glutathione. I need three amino acids, glycine, glutamine and cysteine. Instead, I have this junk that I don’t know what to do with it!” And so your body’s always deprived. The needs it has is to produce peptides like glutathione, and if it doesn’t have the amino acids, it cannot do that work. So that’s why I say, “When life happens, the glutathione levels drop.”
Lindsey:
Right, yeah. So you mentioned the three amino acids that go into glutathione, and I have found that, particularly in my parents and in other clients that I see, there’s a glycine deficiency. And I’m wondering why people end up deficient in glycine, or in cysteine, for that matter, because those seem to be the two that are most recommended for supplementation when people are deficient in glutathione.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
That is right. So there’s three things: glutamine, glycine and cysteine. So you’re right. Glutamine, we have an abundance of glutamine inside our body. I think there’s a new theory right now. They’re suspecting that an excessive amount of glutamine in the brain can be early onset of dementia, or early onset Parkinsons or ALS or MS, or any of those diseases that they were dealing with. And so they’re trying to figure out how to get rid of glutamine outside your brain. And the one way to do that is give them glycine and cysteine, and hopefully they’ll conjugate to produce glutathione. And hey, you get a twofer, you get glutathione the brain, oxidative stress, and reduce the glutamic acid in the brain. Anyways, that’s just a theory, right? We don’t have any idea how to do that part yet.
But the second part you asked me the question is, you supplemented glycine, or you’re seeing glycine deficiency. Now, glycine deficiency is not very common. There’s plenty of foods that are out there that have plenty of glycine in there. And so to replenish glycine, you just have to find glycine-rich foods and just consume that part. Glycine is very easily absorbed. There should not be any difficulty in replacing glycine from the foods that you absorb. And glycine is not something that I see commonly as a suspect that they have in terms of absorption. What I do see is a diet low in cysteine. And so cysteine, by far, to me, is the most important thing that you have to do to replace in order for you to improve glutathione status in your body. And so I always tell my patients that, first of all, if you’re ever in doubt, look at glycine-rich foods. In the search engine, put it in there, “Glycine-rich foods,” or put in your AI robot. I said, “Hey, find me glycine-rich foods, and I’m vegan.” And it gives you options. “I’m vegetarian.” It gives you options. “I’m a meat eater.” That gives you options. Everything has cysteine in there, and there are people that are out there that make a product which is both a combination of glycine and cysteine, and that’s also okay. I’m okay with either one of them. What I’m not okay is taking too much glutamine. Now, a lot of people have gut issues, and they take glutamine all the time, which is okay. I’m okay with taking glutamine all the time. You just know your status is going to be important. If you don’t have a problem, then don’t take it. If you have a gut issue and if you take it temporarily, go for it.
Lindsey:
Okay, but not too much glutamine otherwise.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Not too much glutamine otherwise, no.
Lindsey:
Okay, and so what symptoms might tell you that you are deficient in glutathione?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So glutathione, I always look at the job, this job is to reduce oxidative stress. Now, oxidative stress is linked to almost every disease that’s out there. I mean, I’d say 80% of all diseases in the world are linked to oxidative stress. Probably pretty much everything is linked to oxidative stress. As soon as we are born, we are breathing oxygen, we have oxidative stress. There is no way around it. What the body does is it keeps on neutralizing it every single day, so that you are becoming strong and resilient as the day goes by. But it’s not killing you.
Eventually when the oxidative stress gets higher, that’s when the issues are going to be. So if you look for particular symptoms, there are none, for glutathione deficiency, but you can tell the signs and symptoms of something that can lead to a disease or condition and that can be linked to oxidative stress. For example, if you see sun damage spots, age spots on your face, all of a sudden you turn 45 or 50 years old and say, you know, “I got some spots over here. What is that?” Right? And does the glutathione help get rid of it? Well, most of the time it’s sun damage. So oxidative stress causing the sun damage comes from getting oxidized into your skin. But glutathione once you reduce oxidative stress down and once you get rid of that, it’s gone. It’s not like a bleaching cream where you don’t see it, so it’s gone. No, no, it’s gone forever, right? If you go back in the sun again, it’ll come back again, maybe someplace else, maybe same spot again. But that’s okay.
So that’s visible signs and symptoms. If you’re looking for non-visible signs and symptoms, starting at the age of 30-35ish, first thing you start noticing is that, “Hey, I’m not as sharp as I used to be before.” Right? Oh, maybe I had two kids now I got the Mom Brain now. My kids are taking too much of my time, and I don’t have time to think about things like that. The creeping forgetfulness kicks in. For women, it’s subtle, right? They notice really fast. But the guys, it’s a gradual process. They have no idea what’s coming down the pike, so they’re just oblivious of every single thing. And so they say, “What’s the difference? This is how I am usually, normally anyways.” But the creeping forgetfulness is the first sign of oxidative stress in your brain. So please remember our brain is only 2% of the total body weight, but yet it consumes 20% of all the oxygen we breathe in. The highest amount of oxidative stress you have in your body is in your brain. So reducing oxidative stress in your brain is by far the most important thing we can do to have a fighting chance so the brain does not get clogged up or doesn’t have too much oxidation going on. And eventually, plaque gets built up inside your brain. We have all kinds of diseases that kick in. And trust me, we don’t want to treat any of those diseases because there’s no cure for it. So creeping forgetfulness.
The other thing is that to produce glutathione, we need two molecules of ATP, which is energy source, one molecule of energy, which is an electron transfer, and three amino acids and two enzymes. And so if the body is constantly producing glutathione because it needs so much of it, because either you’re drinking alcohol or exposing yourself to sunlight or chemical exposures or toxin exposures or the foods we eat are not adequate enough, the body is constantly producing glutathione. It is constantly requiring more and more of ATP energy, which is the mitochondrial energy. If your body cannot produce enough, that’s when the fatigue kicks in. Lethargy kicks in. Tiredness kicks in. By itself, completely benign. They said, “Oh, everybody feels tired when they’re old.” I say, “No, you should not be.” Right? And so supplement glutathione, you should expect to see a rise in energy in about two to three weeks when someone gets stabilized.
And so again, they’re not sudden symptoms of glutathione deficiency per se, but you can see that there’s a progression of oxidative stress increasing in your body. You can measure your cholesterol, your oxidized cholesterol, ApoB levels. You can measure MDA levels, which is Malondialdehyde levels. And if this starts rising, you know, “Okay, now the oxidative stress is rising.” If your insulin resistance is rising, that means the oxidative stress is rising, and so on and so forth. So if we start looking at every single thing, there’s a range. This is the low end. This is the high end, right? If you’re in the middle, well you’re still normal, yeah, but I was on the low end, and now I’m in the middle! It’s slowly getting there. Do we want to wait until it’s really bad before we treat them? Or can we do something today?
Lindsey:
So you mentioned the age spots on the skin, and I’ve got this one here that’s always driving me crazy, and I’ve heard of people using glutathione for their skin. Is this a topical? Are they taking it internally?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So 140 years, we have known about glutathione, and FDA, or any countries in the world, has only approved N-Acetylcysteine, called NAC, as a way to improve glutathione levels. So your body does not have the receptor to accept glutathione from outside sources. So if you take glutathione from outside sources, the body will chop it up, break it down, absorb the amino acids and use the amino acids to produce glutathione. Well, save your money and just take the amino acids by themselves and let the body makes its own glutathione. But again, the issue is, can the body produce enough based on the body’s needs? And as we get older, it cannot keep up with the demands. So there’s always been a way to improve the glutathione levels. So then we say, “Okay, you know what? I’m just going to inject, infuse into the veins. There’s no country in the world that has approved IV glutathione, except for compassionate use only, for people taking a chemotherapy drug that includes platinum, right? Cisplatin is a platinum drug. If you’re taking Cisplatin as a drug for chemotherapy, they approved glutathione infusion to temporarily reduce the platinum overload inside your body. Other than that, glutathione is not approved for any other indication or purpose in the whole world.
Lindsey:
How come I hear about my clients getting infusions of glutathione then?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Exactly! So they’re getting it from a compounding pharmacy. It’s not FDA approved as a drug, but they get it from a compounding pharmacy, but when they infuse the glutathione, there was a study done in 1991 that when they were given two grams of IV infusion, guess what? 100% of the glutathione was seen in the plasma and nothing went in the red blood cells. Well, that’s okay, right? People will think that part, but what they do not know is that plasma gets filtered by the kidneys, and in 5 to 15 minutes, all the glutathione is in the urine. Nothing is getting absorbed. It still works, and the reason it still works is because the body, even though it’s in the urine, is slowly breaking down and is reabsorbing the cysteine out of it. So about a couple of hours later, the researchers did see a spike in the blood levels of cysteine by itself. And so they’re scratching their heads saying, “Whoa, what happened here? We gave glutathione, and we didn’t see a rise in glutathione, but we saw rise in cysteine, and that’s when they figured out, okay, the body was breaking down this glutathione, reusing the cysteine, cysteine is then being used to produce glutathione again.
So fast forward, 20 years later, 30 years later, 2011 they did a similar study. Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, a technology called liposome technology emerged in the nutraceutical world. I was involved with making pharmaceuticals using liposomes. And the doctor who holds a patent on liposomes technology came to me and asked me, “Hey, can you make some liposome nutraceuticals like CoQ10 and vitamin C and glutathione and PQQ and all those things?” I said, “Okay, I know how to make it, so I’ll give it a shot at it.” And so we did. 1999 we made the first liposomal glutathione technology product, and the doctor was happy, and he sold off the technology to a bunch of companies and made some money. But one thing that did not work was the glutathione. It did not work for my patients, so I was always looking for something better.
So 2011 comes around, 26 kids, autism spectrum disorder, given liposomal form of glutathione, because it bypasses the gut, so it’s supposed to absorb better. What they found out was, guess what, zero glutathione levels in the blood. What they saw was a rise of all the amino acids, cysteine, glutamine, glycine, they all went up. So the conclusion was from the researcher, again, that glutathione does not get absorbed. It is broken down. The body absorbs amino acids, and the amino acids are later used to produce glutathione. Folks, save your money. Just buy the amino acids. It’s cheap, right? So that’s where my technology lies. We’ve been researching since 2001 and in 2007 we discovered a way to basically stabilize glutathione outside the human body in a petri dish in a completely intact manner. The second goal was we tasted it. It tastes awful, so nobody’s gonna put it in their mouth. We squirted it in the nose. It was very painful. So I said, “Okay, not going to go through your nose, either.” Nobody wants suppositories. I said, “Okay, well, the only route left is a skin route.” So I said, “Okay, skin route is even harder, because skin is such a big barrier. Nothing goes through your skin. This is a water-based product. I said, “Okay, what if I reduce the particle size even further small?” And so that’s what we did. So we reduced the particle size by 80 fold.
We took a dextrin molecule, put a cover over it. And the reason we had to use dextrin molecules is because your body has a receptor to accept dextrins. And so what happened was the body saw this as a dextrin molecule coming through your skin. The body goes, “Okay, I can take that one, I can use it up.” And inside, what stuck was glutathione like a Trojan horse. And so all of a sudden, within 5 to 15 minutes, we saw a spike in the glutathione levels in the blood cells. And that’s when I said, “Aha, we just figured it out.” Right away we applied for patents in 2007, but we quickly found out there was no research being done using this technology on any other product in the world. So I said, “Oh my God. Now what I do?”
So 13 years later, we did all the studies of ourselves, how much to give, how often to give, when to give, what kind of results are we going to see? It took us 13 more years. In 2020, we came to the conclusion that it’s time to launch the product. Wrote my book. Finished writing the book. The book got published. We knew that it was going to be launched in 2020. God was not happy, because in 2020 we wanted to launch the company in the first week of January and in the middle of February we were shut down because of coronavirus. The whole world was shut down. I said, “Oh my goodness.” So here we are talking today about this thing. Our goal is to get this out to the world and have them experience this. Because now we have a technology to deliver a peptide. Yes, it’s glutathione, but we deliver a peptide through your skin for the very first time.
Lindsey:
So it could be applicable to multiple peptides, not just glutathione?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Oh yes. And so right now we have a blanket patent over the majority of the antioxidants, and now we are applying for another blanket patent for anything less than five amino acid chain peptides. And so that’s what we are working on right now. So we’re doing a lot more research. Everything that I make right now is going back into the research, because nobody’s funding me, so it’s all 100% self-funded, and I take time to educate people, and whatever time I have left over, I go back in the lab.
Lindsey:
So the product you developed is through the skin then?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
It’s through the skin.
Lindsey:
Is it a lotion? What form is it?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
It’s a solution. It’s a topical solution. It’s like a water-based system. If you look at it, it’s just water, but smells like glutathione, it has an odor of cysteine. Cysteine smells like rotten eggs or has a sulfur smell to it, right?
Lindsey:
Right.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So it has a slight odor to it. Well, I shouldn’t say slight. Everybody’s different, right? To me it’s slight, for somebody else it’s, “Oh my God, this is awful.” It has an odor to it, and we use dextrin molecules. And dextrin is a little sticky to your skin. But the thing is, if you rub it on for about 30 seconds to a minute, the stickiness goes away, the smell goes away, and it becomes completely smooth, and all the glutathione is already inside your skin. And then all it does is, within the 15 minutes or so, you can literally do a blood draw on your patients and see the levels rise.
Lindsey:
And how long will that rise sustain?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So we only did a single application study, like we applied one time and did the study. This is when I had no money. I could only afford, like, 100 bucks a test. We just got published last year. We did a human trial for 30 patients, and what we found out was that the peak was at 45 minutes. So once you apply it at 15 minutes, the level starts rising already, by 45 minutes, there was a peak. And the area under the curve, which is how long it stays in the body, was about four to six hours. Now, young patients, it was actually lasting longer. Older patients, it was lasting shorter. It made me realize that our needs as we get older, if you have never had glutathione for such a long time, they’re just using it up as we give it to them, right? Versus young folks? Well, the young folks were all med students, right? At the university. So young people, their levels were lasting longer. Six hours! Older folks, all the professors at the University, it was only lasting four hours, maybe less. Maybe less in some cases.
So when I do my calculations, because again, we can only do calculations at this point, is that 50% of the glutathione gets oxidized and recycled, 30% gets conjugated and used up. So if I give the same dose, which is, I think it’s going to be the right dose for the patients to increase levels to high levels, and 50% is used up every single day. Then hopefully, if they’re otherwise normal, within three to four months, each application should last them eight to 12 hours. But twice a day application should be giving a good 16-20, 24-hour coverage, which is ideal for me, which is not bad at all. But in reality, to achieve that, it takes a lot longer, because when people get healthier, they pick up bad behaviors.
Lindsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
And so it’s very, very difficult.
Lindsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
When you’re in trouble, you’ll do whatever it takes to get healthier. As soon as you get healthy, you forgot that you were in trouble.
Lindsey:
And you’re like, “I can afford those two drinks.”
Dr. Nayan Patel:
There you go! And that’s a problem. That is the concern that I have. I mean, over the years, before the launch of the company or the product, we were only working through physicians offices, and so we had over 100,000 patients that we have served before we launched the product to the open public. And so over the years, I’ve seen doctors themselves get healthier, and then they pick up bad behaviors, right? And so if the doctors are not willing to put the self control on themselves, how can you expect the patients to do the same thing? So that’s the difficult portion for me.
Lindsey:
Sure, well, you can only do so much. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. So you could buy the supplements, but you can’t force them to change the lifestyle, right?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
No, we cannot, but we can educate them.
Lindsey:
Of course.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
And that’s why I’m here. I’ve already seen what happens. I had one guy, he was an alcoholic, he was going to die because his liver failed, and so he said that he’s done. His family moved out. His wife moved out, the kids left him, and he was rotting his life away. He couldn’t stop drinking. And he was my brother’s best friend. My brother kind of had a heart for him and I said, “Use this glutathione. Don’t sweat it, just use it every single day.” And literally, a year goes by, he didn’t die. He got healthier, and he got to a point that his wife moved back in, his kids moved back in, and three or four years later, he was a completely changed person, right? Guess what happened again?
Lindsey:
He started drinking again.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Drinking again. So my hope is, hopefully he listens to this message, that we are just human beings over here, but if we create better habits for ourselves, a better lifestyle for ourselves and keep the poisons out of our body, I think we have a fighting chance to live forever.
Lindsey:
Forever may be a hair ambitious, but you know, longer and healthier I’ll take!
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Yes!
Lindsey:
So in terms of genetics, I did one of these fancy DNA tests with somebody else who came on the podcast, and they said my genetics were such that I don’t have great glutathionization. What does that actually mean for me and my glutathione needs?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So if you cannot produce glutathione, you need supplementation for rest of your life. The unfortunate part is that most of the supplements that you are taking over-the-counter don’t get absorbed in your system. Actually all of them, right? So you’re always going to be struggling to produce enough glutathione for your needs, versus the other gene SNPs, where your need for glutathione is much, much higher. The body can produce it, but your needs are much higher, and so for that, you require a lot of essential amino acids to keep on refreshing this glutathione. So I’m not sure which genes you have, but if you have the genes where your conjugated path is somewhat distorted, that means you cannot produce enough glutathione in the first place, you can take all the amino acids in the world, and you are at best, going to get half of the normal. You’re never going to reach the high normals ever. Versus if your body can produce glutathione and your needs are much higher, by taking supplements, amino acids, you can somewhat boost up a little bit. But keep in mind that as you age it’s going to keep on declining, decline, decline, anyways. In fact, I’m also doing a presentation at the World Anti-Aging Conference this year on genomics and glutathione supplementation.
Lindsey:
Wow!
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So this year, December, we’ll be presenting a whole day workshop to physicians on how to help doctors identify those genomic markers, and how do I help those people? Because we have cases that we have done that help people with heavy metal toxicities and dementia, patients with other ALS-type diseases, or Huntington’s Disease, things like that. And how the genes that are there were not diagnosed correctly, and they get the disease, you treat the disease, but the problem is something else! You’re also dealing with stress diseases, and you’re dealing with the disease itself, but the stresses were what caused the problem, but you’re not addressing the stress at all. And so by putting this in the limelight, I think we have a fighting chance that the doctors of tomorrow are going to be able to look at the gene markers and try to help you identify. They’ll say, “Hey, you’re this kind of person. So I would suggest you stay away from all these products, or you can do this one to improve your health.” Or whatever that is, right? 15 years ago, gene testing was so expensive that nobody could afford it. Today, most people can afford it, 400-500 bucks. Most of them can, right? To get a basic gene test. So it’s becoming like an average test that everybody can do now, and more and more people are doing it right now. The problem is the education behind the gene testing is still catching up.
Lindsey:
Yeah, and how many SNPs are involved in this? Are there heaps of them, or is it just a few you could look at?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Well, right now, we are only going to teach them about three or four today to other doctors, but they have lots more than that. And this is just the surface right now. We just created a surface at this point. We have no idea how fascinating the human body system is. We assume that, “Hey, if I eat one avocado, I’m going to be all healthy.” Oh my God, you’re so far away from the truth, right? And so we are only mapping our human genome right now. But keep in mind, half of the body belongs to the bugs. The bacteria!
Lindsey:
Exactly.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
And who’s mapping their genome? Because if the bacteria is a problem, guess who’s suffering?
Lindsey:
Us!
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Us, because it’s inside our body. And we call them healthy bacteria, right? The gut microbiome, whatever they call them. And if they;ve got a problem, then we are going to suffer with that too. And so we have a lot more to learn, and I can only lead them to the next step if I can master the first step. And so I want to help this doctor master the first step, and I’m working with a doctor up in Beverly Hills, who’s the doctor to the stars when it comes to gene mutation testing. And so I recruited him to come speak at the event, and he said yes. So we’ll be launching this educational course for the physicians, and hopefully it’ll become available to every doctor that’s out there.
Lindsey:
Awesome. So you mentioned that over time, a twice a day administration of the glutathione would be sufficient. I’m just curious, because I know that this often happens. I’ll be interviewing somebody and they have a product and there’s dosing on the bottle, but the dosing might say one or two capsules, okay, or whatever amount that you put on your hand. But the reality is, the dosing is, in fact, a lot more than that. It’s one or two capsules three times a day. So what is the actual dosing that a regular person who is maybe already in their 40s or 50s or 60s or 70s, should start with and then what is the regular dosing for somebody who already is showing signs of oxidative stress, say they have high cholesterol or they have prediabetes or something like that.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So we have two products. One is Glutaryl and that is about 200 milligrams per ml. The other one is Glutaryl+ which is stronger version of the same product. Exact same product, just a stronger concentration, 1.75 times stronger than the other one, which is about 350 milligrams per ml. The actual dose is on the regular product, four sprays twice a day, which gives about 100 milligrams, twice a day, approximately. And that’s a full dose. Even at that dose, a lot of people cannot tolerate the dose, because what happens then is, initially, if it’s releasing all the toxins, and the body’s not well equipped to handle all those toxins’ excretion, then you get reactions.
Lindsey:
Like if they are constipated?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Well, oh no, it could be constipated, but could be even worse, could be causing diarrhea sometimes.
Lindsey:
Oh right, no. But I mean, if somebody’s constipated and they’re not getting rid of toxins fast, they’re getting . . .
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Well the thing is that’s a physical obstruction. But most of the toxins that we are dealing with are in the liver. And so when it gets dumped in the liver, sometimes people have headaches, sometimes have diarrhea, sometimes they have rashes all over the body. It’s not an allergic reaction, it’s a detox type reaction. That means that we say, “Hey, slow down. The body is not able to handle that part. There’s a lot more issues than just the glutathione by itself, but we can only deal with one problem at a time.” So I’ll reduce it down to maybe two sprays, or even one spray twice a day, if they can tolerate that part. And then slowly, slowly go to two sprays, three sprays, eventually the dose is going to be four sprays twice a day.
Now, that’s a typical dose for everybody, and that dose, again, you’re dealing with a pharmacist. I’m looking for outcomes. I’m not here to give you the safest dose possible so nobody will complain to me. And if you don’t get the results, it’s okay, but at least I won’t hear any complaints. No, I want results. I don’t care, right? If there’s a problem, I’ll work with you. I’ll work with your doctor. I’ll work with your physicians, everybody, and make sure that it works for you. Now, people that have high amount of oxidative stress that led to autoimmune diseases, people with type one diabetes or uncontrolled type two diabetes, or cancer patients taking high dose chemotherapies, their need for glutathione is extremely high. That’s the plus version that we have. We strongly recommend that if you use the plus version, that you try the regular version first. Make sure that you have no problems, and then go to the plus version the next month, for three months, six months, one year, depending on what the conditions are. If you have a chronic condition for years, it may take you over a year to be on the plus version, and then eventually you’ll come back down to the regular version anyways. The way you know this thing is, if you use the plus version, there’s something called too much glutathione. And when that happens, you’ll feel it on the other end as well. You’ll get the rash, itching. When that happens a year later, or six months later, your glutathione reserves have been tapped in, completely done. Switch to the regular version. Go to the lower concentration one. You’ll be fine. You’ll never have to change the dose again after that.
Lindsey:
Okay, got it. Can you explain about methylation and how glutathione relates to methylation, and whether an MTHFR mutation, which is incredibly common, can lead to suboptimal glutathione levels?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So that was one of the gene mutations, COMT-MTHFR, where your body can produce enough glutathione, there’s no doubt about it. But with methylation defects, your body’s not able to detoxify a lot of products, right? Your body is craving the methyl groups from cruciferous vegetables and things like that, to, hey, I need this to detox my body. If it’s not there, the secondary product that’s used to detoxify the body is glutathione. So the glutathione is getting used up. Even if the body can produce enough, it’s getting used up. And so when you give glutathione to someone with an MTHFR gene mutation, the first 30 days, they are going to feel the difference. Immediately, they’re going to feel better, right? They’ll say, “Oh my God, this is how I’m supposed to feel.” It’s not solving any problems yet, because all he did was just replace what your body was missing. But what the body was really missing is methyl donors. And so eat enough cruciferous vegetables, get methyl groups, methyl B12s, methylated vitamins. Anything that’s methylated will be really good for you, because then the load of glutathione reduces and you can do some other things. But they’re going to feel fantastic.
Lindsey:
Okay, so you mentioned the liposomal glutathione and NAC and glycine and such. What about S-Acetyl glutathione? Is that useful at all?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
S-Acetyl glutathione that I’ve seen, I usually see them in commercial skincare lines, and lately, now they’re coming more towards vitamin supplementation as well. So when you acetylate a glutathione molecule, what it’s doing is it becomes water soluble. Well, let me put it this way, glutathione is already water soluble. To make it another product like this thing is not going to make it more water soluble, right? So that defeats the purpose. The other reason people do a similar form of glutathione is because glutathione is very reactive and it doesn’t stay stable in room temperature. And that’s why they’ve put an acetyl group to it, so it kind of protects it from getting oxidized. But what they do not know is that just because it is stable outside the room temperature or outside the body, that doesn’t mean the body’s going to accept it as is. As I said earlier, you have zero receptors for glutathione inside your body. The glutathione is never going to get absorbed by itself. It has to be broken down into amino acids, and amino acids have to be absorbed, and that’s how you get it inside your body. And so I have not seen any studies yet. I would bet everything I have that it is probably not going to be anywhere close to even other technologies. So there should be no benefits over some of the other products that are already out in the market today.
Lindsey:
Right, right. So other than your product, which is clearly quite different from these other things, the next best thing is just to supplement with the amino acids, because it’s going to be cheaper.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
That’s it, yeah!
Lindsey:
Okay.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
And just to let you know, 80% of people have no problems. They can take amino acids and make their own glutathione. It’s when they get older. If you wait for the diseases to come in, then God bless you, because you need all the help you can. But if you try and do it early on, if you have 20 year old listeners over here, please listen. Listen to your mom and dad. Eat the right fruits and vegetables. Doritos are not your friend. There are no amino acids in Doritos, right?
Lindsey:
Yes, eat foods with protein.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Eat foods with proteins. That’s it. That’s what you need.
Lindsey:
And your fruits and veggies, especially your cruciferous veggies, for your methyl donors.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Methyl groups. That’s if you have a problem. Some people don’t have a problem, then it’s okay. But eat real food, eat what your body needs and not what your tongue wants.
Lindsey:
Mm, and have you done any studies, or at least observed in patients the impact of getting these glutathione levels up to optimal in chronic diseases and aging?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Oh yeah, we only published one study as a clinical trial. The other study was not published as a trial, because in 2020 when we first launched the company, we had started a study on COVID, but since there was no IRB approval, we could not publish as a human trial. We could only publish as a fact finding expedition, so to speak. We had no approval from the authorities to do our human trials, but we still gave it to them anyways. So we have done things a couple times, and both of them are published, by the way, so you can just Google glutathione dextrins that we have, and what is COVID and what is mycobacterium. We have two trials. And so what we did was we wanted to see what happens if I can improve the glutathione levels. What effect does it have on infections? We know glutathione is not an anti-infectant. It’s not antibiotic, it’s not antiviral. It has nothing to do with killing any bugs, but what it does is that glutathione can immediately improve your immune system to the point that it can kill the bugs on its own. And so that’s what we did. We did a three-day trial. In three days, what can you expect in three days? Right? Not a whole lot. Twice the application, four sprays in the morning, four sprays in the evening, for three days in a row, and that was it. And what we found out was, within four hours, they saw reduction of the MDA levels, which is a malondialdehyde, an oxidative stress marker, its levels just dropped, within four hours. They saw a rise of the glutathiones in the red blood cells right away.
The third thing that they did was they couldn’t infect the body, all the professors and the med students, with mycobacterium infection, because there is no cure for it, they’ll all die. And so we treat the blood with a test tube and then infected the blood with the mycobacterium. So 15 patients had applied the glutathione. 50% didn’t apply the glutathione on them at all. They applied the placebo. The people that applied the glutathione, they saw a rise in that test tube of all the immune markers, IL-2, IL-12, all the T cells went up, natural killer cells went up. Macrophages, with the immune system that kills all the bugs, went up to the point that within four hours, there was a resolution of the mycobacterium infection in a test tube. Imagine we do that every single day of your life. This is only a three-day trial that we did, we see such a profound impact. What that tells me is that there’s no drug in the world that has such a profound impact. What we need is our own body’s medicine. Our body has all the drugs we need inside our body. We just identify a couple of them so far, and the more we identify what chemicals do in your body, our job is done. I’ll be out of business as a pharmacist.
Lindsey:
So you mentioned other vitamins. I mean, I know when I think of oxidative stress, I think of vitamin C, I think of vitamins E and A. So do we still need those ones for people who are not getting enough from their diet?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So, if you look at oxidative stress, there’s three things we can do. One is exogenous, or outside the body, sources of chemicals like vitamin C, vitamin E and things like that, to bring oxidative stress down. Second thing we can do is improve our endogenous products like CoQ10, glutathione, they’ll bring oxidative stress down, right? Direct impact. The third thing, we don’t talk about it, is enzymatic support, like superoxide dismutase, SOD, or glutathione peroxidase. These enzymes affect multiple pathways to help reduce oxidative stress. Which was the most powerful one, of course? Enzymes, because glutathione peroxidase enzymes will produce glutathione, which will do all the work. So that’s more powerful than the product itself, which is glutathione. The least is vitamin C and vitamin E and things like that. In fact, I can tell you scientifically or chemically, vitamin C is not an antioxidant. Vitamin C is actually a prooxidant. What happens is that, at low dose concentration, it gives that energy to revive the glutathione back into oxidized glutathione, to glutathione again. That’s why, if you look at vitamin C, the doctors will tell you, “Oh, at low concentration, it’s an antioxidant. At high concentration, it’s a prooxidant.” I said, “Vitamin C is not that smart. It’s a dumb molecule. It has one property, right? It doesn’t have multi properties.” So if you’re taking vitamin C, I would suggest please take low dose, because too much vitamin C is actually not good for you.
Lindsey:
Low dose like 500 milligrams?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Less than one gram per day.
Lindsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Yeah, but if you get it in your diet, it’s even better.
Lindsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
I don’t take vitamin C at all. If I do take vitamin C, it will be very rare. I do have vitamin C in my house, which I give to my kids once in a while. They hate fruits and vegetables, so I can supplement that for them, because I will not give them glutathione at that young age. So I give them other substrates, like these, to help improve their levels. My kids love avocado toast. Avocados have the highest amount of cysteine in them to help increase low glutathione levels that way. I have two daughters and they have acne, so I said, “Well, if you eat avocados it will lessen your acne!” So they load up an avocados every day, I guess. But I try to bring the diets in them, that’s actually doing good for them more than the supplementation.
Lindsey:
Right. So I know people are sort of getting tired, and I’m certainly one of them, of finding out there’s one more supplement that they need to take for life, and most people think, and need, I mean, I can see from the numbers that they need to supplement vitamin D and magnesium and then fish oil, if they’re not eating enough fish and then usually taking a multi or B vitamins, creatine. Would you argue that glutathione should be part of that basic stack of things? Or is there one of those things in there that it might be unnecessary if people are supplementing with glutathione?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
So I can tell you what I do, that way I’m not giving . . .
Lindsey:
Advice, okay!
Dr. Nayan Patel:
I’m just telling you what I do. So 2009, I was on almost 20 different supplements, because you hear things, you do things, and I belong to this anti-aging longevity club where everybody’s talking about how do we increase lifespan? How to increase health span? Blah, blah, blah. Anyways, fast forward today. I take two supplements, and one is glutathione, the other one is magnesium-potassium combo.
Lindsey:
Okay.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
And that’s it. That’s all I take right now. Now I do take acid/enzymes when I eat some bad food, because I try to be healthy all the time. At times that I go eat at a restaurant, I don’t know how they prepare the meal. I try to order the best meal possible that money can buy, but you never know what they have done sometimes. So if I eat out, I’ll definitely have acid/enzymes to go along with it, but that’s not a daily vitamin for me.
Lindsey:
Yeah. Like a digestive enzyme with Betaine HCl?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Yep, Betaine HCl with pepsin, with some digestive enzymes to go along with it, just to make sure that it can digest all my proteins. That’s what I do. I don’t take fish oils. I take vitamin E once in a while. It’s not a regular thing. I take vitamin E for my heart health. Again, keep in mind, when they say essential fatty acids, EFAs, it’s essential fatty acids, not abundant fatty acids. So I’m not a big fan of taking an abundance of supplements myself, but I do small things periodically. Probiotics, I don’t take any probiotics, but if I have to take a probiotic for about a week or so, I’ll do that part, but that’s about it. I will not take products for long term. But that’s all the vitamins I have. I take vitamin D during winter once in a while, it’s nothing crazy. If I take vitamin D, I have vitamin K2 with it, so I don’t want to get calcification of my arteries. But if I do take that, I’ll take it for maybe two weeks in a row and then stop it after that. Nothing is consistent, except for magnesium and my glutathione. And magnesium is because I have enough calcium in my diet and I want the electrical current to function correctly.
Lindsey:
And the potassium is part of the magnesium, you mentioned?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Yeah, exactly. Magnesium potassium aspartate is the the combo I take and I take different forms of magnesium too. I take magnesium by itself. I take a magnesium with potassium combination. I take a magnesium glycerin combination. I have magnesium for neuro health. But magnesium is different. I think it’s completely different. And so the body needs a lot of magnesium because of all the electrical currents that we have throughout the body.
Lindsey:
So you showed your hand as you were describing the spraying on of the glutathione. But is there any benefit if you have sunspots or whatever, to put the glutathione directly on the spot that’s affected, or does it not matter? It’s really just absorbed into the bloodstream, essentially?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
It doesn’t matter. But if you have a spot that is bugging you, please apply on the spot, because there’s absolutely a localized effect immediately that you do see the benefit of it. But if you’re patient, if you’re going to use it every single day, regardless, it will not matter. You can apply it on your arms and your spots on your face are going to slowly go away.
Lindsey:
Yeah.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Because your body is basically healing from inside every single thing anyways.
Lindsey:
Yeah. So it doesn’t really matter where you put it. You could put it on your arm, your leg, or your hand or wherever?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Yeah, it doesn’t matter because the technology is such that it does not go through lipid layers of your skin. Your skin is completely full of cholesterol or lipids, right? It’s all fat. Every so often there’s a water channel, and no medications go through the water channel of the skin. And so this is the first technology that actually just goes through it completely, and within seconds to minutes, it’s already in the bloodstream, you’re able to measure the levels right away.
Lindsey:
Okay.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
The only thing is, don’t apply it on a hairy area, because, as I said earlier, the dextrin molecules that we use are a little sticky, so the hair is going to get stuck to your skin. It’s just uncomfortable.
Lindsey:
Back of the hand or maybe the forearm is a good spot?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
It doesn’t matter where you apply it. I just put it on a non hairy part, like even my arms. I shave my arms too, because I forget where to apply it. I just put it anywhere and everywhere. I forget. If it’s before a shower, I apply it anywhere, if it’s after a shower, then I apply it on my arms. In like an hour or so, I just wash my arms, because everything is in there. As I said earlier, right? At 45 minutes, I already saw peak levels. Why give it more than 45 minutes if I don’t have to?
Lindsey:
Oh, okay, so if it were bothering you, you could wash it off after.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Oh yeah, if it bothers you, yes, we will just wash it off. But if it doesn’t bother you, then it’s fine. Sometimes I apply a cream over it, like a lotion over it, and that’s fine too. Then it will not bother you at all.
Lindsey:
Okay, so where can people find you and your products?
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Oh, my website, AuroWellness.com. We do have a lot of physicians offices where they have them in their office for sale, but typically, most of the people are coming to the website. They’re checking things out. They’re reading my blog articles. Please subscribe to my newsletter. I do spend some time and energy to educate my customers on glutathione and all the things it can do for us. I’m always working on multiple products. Right now I have two or three products that are very close to completion, and as soon as they comes out, the patient will have the first dibs at it to at least see things, check things out. So yeah, the newsletter is the best thing.
Lindsey:
Awesome, I did establish an affiliate account, so if people want to support the podcast, they can go to my affiliate link to Auro Wellness* (see tab in upper left-hand corner for Auro Skincare line).
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Yeah!
Lindsey:
And I’m excited to try it out myself.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Yeah, please, if they mention your name or they click the link that’s provided, that’d be the best way to support the podcast, because we want to support the podcast, so please use that link, if at all possible.
Lindsey:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for all this great information about glutathione and for working on these products to help people.
Dr. Nayan Patel:
Well, it’s my pleasure. I’m doing it for myself, and people are just secondary to me because I want to help myself first. The longer I can stay on this planet, the more I can do some work for you guys.
So if you’re dealing with low stomach acid or gut health issues of any type and need some help, I see individual clients to help them resolve their digestive issues and you’re welcome to set up a free, 30-minute breakthrough session to see if you’d like to work with me. I also have my own two products, Tributyrin-Max, which is particularly helpful for loose stool and diarrhea as it slows your motility and firms up your stool, and SBI powder, which is an all around gut pathogen binder, which is super safe and won’t harm beneficial bacteria, and is usually the first line of treatment I educate my clients about in order to avoid stronger antimicrobial herbs.
*Product and dispensary links are affiliate links for which I’ll receive a commission. Thanks for your support of the podcast by using these links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
