Best test to measure glutathione in kidney ?

[globalpilot]

Hi Rich,

I think you've discussed this in the past. Does the plasma glutathione test performed at Health Diagnostics indicate whether kidney glutathione is sufficient as well ?

Thanks, Susan

 

[richvank]

Hi, Susan.

I think that the urine pyroglutamic acid on the organic acids panels is probably the most direct test for glutathione level in the kidneys, based on the fact that the kidneys have about the most active gamma glutamyl cycle, which produces pyroglutamic acid as it cycles glutathione, but in the cases I've seen in which both a urine organic acids test and the methylation pathways panel have been run, it looks like the correlation between that and the plasma reduced glutathione measurement on the latter is pretty good. I guess to really verify this, a research study involving biopsy of the kidney would have to do be done.

Best regards,

Rich