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Acetyl-glutathione anyone?

richvank

Senior Member
Messages
2,732
I've finished nearly a bottle of 60 300mg acetyl-glutathione capsules and I can't say I'm overly impressed. I'm starting to think that maybe acetyl-glutathione doesn't absorb so well if you have significant dysbiosis/gut inflammation. I get far more out of TD glutathione and liposomal glutathione.

The taking of acetyl-glutathione was far more tolerable for me though, so it's a damn shame it wasn't more helpful.

Hi, hixxy.

I appreciate your giving it a try. Sorry that it didn't pay off for you. You are only the second person I've heard from who has tried it. The other person was in Germany, and the report was that it did raise the intracellular glutathione level. So I don't know what to conclude about it yet.

Best regards,

Rich
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
I tried some acetyl glut this past weekend, and my experience was not good. It either 1) caused a major detox, or 2) failed to clear the detox that some other unknown thing had caused. Either way, I give it an F on its performance.

I would love to continue on my TD-glutathione, which works very well... and maybe I will, in spite of the nasty rash I keep getting from the cream. :(
 

richvank

Senior Member
Messages
2,732
I tried some acetyl glut this past weekend, and my experience was not good. It either 1) caused a major detox, or 2) failed to clear the detox that some other unknown thing had caused. Either way, I give it an F on its performance.

I would love to continue on my TD-glutathione, which works very well... and maybe I will, in spite of the nasty rash I keep getting from the cream. :(



Thanks, DB. Sorry that it was not a smash hit!

Rich
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
DB--what's in the cream that gives you a nasty rash? I was going to order it.

I don't know. I did fine with it for about 6 months, and then I began having skin irritation and really bad itching about 2-3 days after I had applied the cream, with a subsequent rash that can last up to 2 weeks.

I talked to the pharmacist at Lee Silsby, and he thought I would do better with another version of cream, that is for hyper-sensitive people, but that has made no difference.

What I am wondering is... could the irritation and rash possibly be the result of toxins coming out through my skin?
Hey Rich, or anyone else who's had experience with the TD-glutathione, what do you think about that?
 

hixxy

Senior Member
Messages
1,229
Location
Australia
Ask them what base it's made with. The TD gluthione I use is a liposomal cream made with vegetable glycerin, isopropyl palmitate (a fatty acid), lecithin and glutathione only. They don't use a 'base' at all. The only other base I come close to tolerating is called a DK base. That was all they told me. Unfortunately the smell of TD glutathione does me in (MCS).
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
Hello,

I've seen Rich post a fair few times about acetyl-glutathione as a possible alternative to liposomal glutathione, but either no one is trying it, or no one is bothering to post their experiences.

If anyone has tried it, how did it go?

I have a lot of trouble tolerating liposomal glutathione (sensitive mouth and esophagus) so a capsule would be much nicer indeed!

Thanks
Someone in another thread mentioned having success with acetyl glutathione although I think I've heard one or two others who didn't receive benefit from it. I haven't tried it myself since it's kind of pricey and I want to focus on other methods of raising Glutathione besides taking it directly since some people have raised some questions about its efficacy. I use the Source Naturals sublingual myself. It's not a huge dose, but it's reasonably priced and includes 140 mcg Molybdenum in each tablet which is also good for raising glutathione. Here's the post about the Acetyl Glutathione.

I'm sorry to be johnny-come-lately on this, but I didn't know you were taking suggestions and I wanted to make sure this was working for me before I posted.

I've had great results taking s-acetyl glutathione per a recommendation in a recent presentation by Dietrich Klinghardt. I knew when I started your protocol having a glutathione source was paramount, but I hesitated at the cost of this - $100 for 60 100 mg caps from Allergy Research. And then I got too sick to even remember what was going on. Toxicity, who me? Heavy metals? I was too confused to realize what hit me. Fortunately, a friend who is familiar with the SMP stepped in.

I started doing DMSA in August, about 6 weeks after starting the protocol. That was a big help. But what really cleared my brain in 45 minutes flat was the s-acetyl glutathione. It lifted my mood, gave me energy, and made for a beautiful day. I have been much, much, much better ever since, and am now getting ready to go back to work.

Nature Doc has a much better priced product than ARG at $75 for 60 caps at 300 mg. Service was extremely courteous and shipping was fast and free. You can read about it here: http://www.naturedoc.com/products/acetyl-glutathione.html. The main differentiator from other forms of glutathione is it remains whole until it gets in your cell, where it is de-acetylized. This leaves the glutathione molecule available in it's entirety. So no breaking it down and reassembling the fragments. It may even be more effective than an IV push - and at a fraction of the cost.

I started out with 2 caps, and then took up to 6 a day which made me feel great. After a couple weeks, I took 10 days off and just did NAC 2-2.5g/day. Now I'm back on the glutathione at a lower dose of 2 caps (600 mg/day). So if my monthly cost is $75 per bottle of 60 for 18 g, that's cheaper than my doctor's ~1800 mg IV, for 10X the GSH, at my convenience.

Mimi
 

dbkita

Senior Member
Messages
655
It is ironic for me since I tried liposomal glutathione for years (spent a lot of money) but in 2010 my whole blood glutathione levels were some of the lowest Rich Vank had ever seen (private communication). I spent months on IV glutathione but while this probably was nice for my kidneys and liver, it did squat for the rest of me (except drive my glutamate and cysteine levels up even higher). The problem is glutathione must be disassociated to enter the cells and re-assembled inside.

In my case it was the inability of my body to make glutathione from glutamate and cysteine (the rate-limiting GCL step) as Rich Vank suggested. The fix for me was a combo of vitamin C for antioxidant protection and glutathione recycling, but more important was improving my ATP status (still a work in progress but improved).

So my only caution is if someone has high glutamate and cysteine (and reasonable glycine) levels but their glutathione levels are really low, then dependent on their immune system status (infection, stress, autoimmune disease) and their ATP production / recycling capabilities, the glutathione supplementation may only help some ...

Personally I think the people on here who claim glutathione itself is harmful are mistaking the glutathione as the culprit but miss the fact that if it disassociates and cannot be re-assembled you are feeding in glutamate and cysteine at various levels (high if done in IV). These can cause their own wonderful neurological problems for sure.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
Since Glutathione can break down into Cysteine, it might not be a good idea to take for someone with mercury because mercury can block the utilization of cysteine resulting in elevated cysteine levels. Rich discusses this in an article he wrote about glutathione supplementation. Since the article he says methylation is the preferred method of raising glutathione.
http://phoenixrising.me/treating-cf...atigue-syndrome-mecfs-by-rich-van-konynenburg
If there is a high level of mercury in the body, such as can occur if glutathione has been low for an extended period of time (months to years) and the person either has silver amalgam fillings in their teeth or they have consumed a significant amount of large, predatory fish, including tuna, then caution should be exercised by limiting the dosages of oral supplements that supply amino acids to the liver for making glutathione. There are two reasons for this:
The first is that mercury can be moved into the brain from other parts of the body by cysteine or N-acetylcysteine if the dosages are too high. Dr. David Quig of Doctors Data Laboratories recommends limiting the dosage of NAC to 300 mg per day and taking it with a high protein diet if heavy metals are elevated.
The second reason is that mercury can block the utilization of cysteine, and if cysteine rises too high, it can act as a neurotoxin. (This last is also the reason L-cysteine is not recommended as a supplement for building glutathione.) It’s a good idea to measure the blood plasma level of cysteine periodically when building glutathione, to make sure it is not rising too high.
If elevated mercury is suspected, it is a good idea to test for mercury and detox it carefully if it is present, with the help of a doctor experienced in doing this. The best test is a collection of urine for 6 hours, preceded by a challenge with the chelator DMSA (succimer). A very small dosage of DMSA should be tried first, to make sure there is not an allergic reaction to it. A test of this type is offered as a Toxic Metals Panel byhttp://www.doctorsdata.com.
If there is elevated mercury, it may also be wise to begin building glutathione using one of the approaches below, which put glutathione per se into the blood, rather than one of the oral approaches that help the liver to make glutathione. This may help to remove the mercury more “gently,” starting with the kidneys, which absorb most of the glutathione put directly into the blood.
Oral supplements are probably the best way to raise the glutathione level in the liver, since the liver gets first access to oral supplements via the portal vein, and it is normally the main producer of glutathione in the body and an exporter of glutathione to the systemic blood and the bile. The liver is probably not able to take glutathione from the blood for its own use, so approaches that put glutathione per se into the blood probably are not very helpful in directly building glutathione in the liver.
 

dbkita

Senior Member
Messages
655
Hi Lotus97,

I am just curious you have been posting a lot of late in regards to mercury. Have you been able to assess your mercury levels? It is really hard to make a true diagnosis let alone a self-diagnosis for metals without some sort of lab results. Remember true mercury poisoning has lots of nasty abnormal neurological and mental factors.

For some people I would agrees that glutathione supplementation can be a problem but that would include far more cases than just mercury toxification. But being able to make your own glutathione is huge. For those of us with immune system dysregulation (which probably way more on these boards than people give credit for) let alone autoimmune diseases (which really suck btw), glutathione production is really, really, really important.

And I am sorry here I disagree with Rich Vank the DMSA challenge test from Doctor's Data or similar are highly suspect as to actually correlating with real results. While false negative results are low, the false positive rates are not. I would much prefer a RBC test then followed up by a hair analysis. But that is just me.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
Hi Lotus97,

I am just curious you have been posting a lot of late in regards to mercury. Have you been able to assess your mercury levels? It is really hard to make a true diagnosis let alone a self-diagnosis for metals without some sort of lab results. Remember true mercury poisoning has lots of nasty abnormal neurological and mental factors.

For some people I would agrees that glutathione supplementation can be a problem but that would include far more cases than just mercury toxification. But being able to make your own glutathione is huge. For those of us with immune system dysregulation (which probably way more on these boards than people give credit for) let alone autoimmune diseases (which really suck btw), glutathione production is really, really, really important.

And I am sorry here I disagree with Rich Vank the DMSA challenge test from Doctor's Data or similar are highly suspect as to actually correlating with real results. While false negative results are low, the false positive rates are not. I would much prefer a RBC test then followed up by a hair analysis. But that is just me.
I posted that quote mainly because of the risk of elevated cysteine levels for people with mercury and that glutathione breaks down into cysteine. In another post, Rich said he believes that a lot of PWCs have mercury issues which is why I shared the quote about cysteine and mercury, but do you think he's wrong that a lot of people here have mercury issues? Also, is Acetyl Glutathione just as likely to break down into cysteine, glutamine, and glycine or is it different than other forms of glutathione?

What are the causes of immune system dysregulation? In Rich's papers about methylation and glutathion depletion he does say that viruses and coinfections are a common cause of CFS, but I assume you are referring to more than just that.

No, I haven't found out any more information about my own situation. I know self-diagnosis is a bad idea in general when it comes to health, but I haven't found doctors to be that helpful either. My dentist told me not to worry about mercury after my tooth with an amalgam cracked. As I mentioned in another thread I started methylfolate right after my tooth cracked so it's impossible to know how much the mercury was responsible for my symptoms. My guess is that I wasn't exposed to a lot of mercury or my symptoms would be much more severe, but I'm being cautious until I find out more information. After reading that information by Rich about cysteine I stopped taking NAC. I would like to be able to take NAC and Alpha Lipoic Acid again because those are supposed to be good ways for raising glutathione and they're a lot cheaper than Acetyl Glutathione. I think my adrenals are the most likely culprit for my symptoms and that's the one thing I actually was tested on.
 

dbkita

Senior Member
Messages
655
I posted that quote mainly because of the risk of elevated cysteine levels for people with mercury and that glutathione breaks down into cysteine. In another post, Rich said he believes that a lot of PWCs have mercury issues which is why I shared the quote about cysteine and mercury, but do you think he's wrong that a lot of people here have mercury issues? Also, is Acetyl Glutathione just as likely to break down into cysteine, glutamine, and glycine or is it different than other forms of glutathione?

What are the causes of immune system dysregulation? In Rich's papers about methylation and glutathion depletion he does say that viruses and coinfections are a common cause of CFS, but I assume you are referring to more than just that.

No, I haven't found out any more information about my own situation. I know self-diagnosis is a bad idea in general when it comes to health, but I haven't found doctors to be that helpful either. My dentist told me not to worry about mercury after my tooth with an amalgam cracked. As I mentioned in another thread I started methylfolate right after my tooth cracked so it's impossible to know how much the mercury was responsible for my symptoms. My guess is that I wasn't exposed to a lot of mercury or my symptoms would be much more severe, but I'm being cautious until I find out more information. After reading that information by Rich about cysteine I stopped taking NAC. I would like to be able to take NAC and Alpha Lipoic Acid again because those are supposed to be good ways for raising glutathione and they're a lot cheaper than Acetyl Glutathione. I think my adrenals are the most likely culprit for my symptoms and that's the one thing I actually was tested on.
Understood.

If you think methylfolate was a culprit and you have been off it for a while and still have symptoms then it is not the methylfolate since it will not last long in your body.

Most of the people who have issues with NAC have them for reasons having nothing to do with mercury. Many have trans-sulfuration issues or problems with sulfur in general.

Personally I have found R-ALA to be indispensable. It is way better than regular ALA. And R-ALA has no observable impact on my my urine sulfate levels.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
My symptoms did improve after I stopped methylfolate, but then came back when I started taking B12 sublingually. There were about 5 days of my B12 usage where I was taking 800 mcg of folinic acid, but they continued after I stopped the folinic. The only B12 I was taking when I was taking the methylfolate was 200 mcg of methylcobalamin orally. I don't think that's enough to do much (although you might have noticed my post about that Thorne mb12 oral supplement) unless it was the combination of B12 and methylfolate. I was taking the 200 mcg of mb12 for a year without any problems though. Part of the problem is I don't know how much methylfolate I was taking because it doesn't say on the B complex (Jarrow's B Right). I decided I'm going to start taking methylfolate again which is in a Thorne b complex. I'm also going to lower the dose of B12 as I raise the dosage of methylfolate. The B complex has a high amount of Niacinamide which will hopefully prevent overmethylation. I still think it's possible that my exposure to mercury is why I'm reacting strongly to the B12 and folate. This is sort of a controversy in these forums which I don't expect to be resolved any time soon. I'm trying to keep an open mind about things.
 

TrixieStix

Senior Member
Messages
539
I've got physical autoimmune problems that are settled down by glutathione. So to go without glutathione is to invite that damage. I don't wish to see my ears collapse or my trachea disappear (relapsing polychondritis),

Are you diagnosed with Relapsing Polychondritis?