Why You Should Listen
In this episode, you will learn about the role of glutathione in health and advanced glutathione delivery systems.
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About My Guest
My guest for this episode is Nayan Patel. Nayan Patel, PharmD is an alumnus of the University of Southern California School Of Pharmacy, where he now serves as adjunct faculty. A pharmacist for over three decades, he is an internationally recognized expert, consultant, and lecturer on the Master Antioxidant Glutathione and has traveled the world educating practitioners and pharmacists on advanced biochemistry and antiaging science. Dr. Patel founded Auro Wellness in 2011 to create products to help the body function at an optimal level and reduce the long-term impact of stress on the body. Through his research, Dr. Patel stabilized Glutathione, improved absorption, and increased its effectiveness with the Auro GSH™ Antioxidant Delivery System. He is the author of "The Glutathione Revolution: Fight Disease, Slow Aging & Increase Energy" which addresses how powerful and essential Glutathione is to the body’s detoxification system and how to increase the body’s levels naturally.
Key Takeaways
- What are the mechanisms through which glutathione supports optimal health?
- What symptoms and conditions are associated with lower levels of glutathione?
- What causes low glutathione?
- What are the components of the glutathione tri-peptide?
- Does glutathione arrive as glutathione at the cell?
- What is the role of glutathione in mitigating the effects of environmental toxicants?
- What does glutathione do with toxins found in the body?
- What phases of detoxification does glutathione support?
- What happens when the body shifts from oxidative stress to reductive stress?
- Can glutathione support the body against viruses and other microbes?
- Does supplementing with glutathione reduce endogenous production?
- How can glutathione recycling be optimized?
- Can glutathione support those dealing with glucose regulation issues and diabetes?
- Does glutathione assist in hormone metabolism?
- What is the role of glutathione in fatty liver disease
- How is Auro Wellness Glutaryl different from other glutathione options available today?
- How is Glutaryl used clinically?
Connect With My Guest
http://AuroWellness.com
Use code BETTERHEALTH for 10% off
Interview Date
December 9, 2024
Transcript
Transcript Disclaimer: Transcripts are intended to provide optimized access to information contained in the podcast. They are not a full replacement for the discussion. Timestamps are provided to facilitate finding portions of the conversation. Errors and omissions may be present as the transcript is not created by someone familiar with the topics being discussed. Please Contact Me with any corrections.
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:01] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts, empowering your better health. And now, here's Scott, your BetterHealthGuy. The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice, or is information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health-related decisions with your own personal medical authority.
[0:00:35] SCOTT: Hello, everyone. And welcome to episode 209 of the BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts series. Today's guest is Dr. Nayan Patel. And the topic of the show is The Glutathione Guy. Dr. Nayan Patel is an alumnus of the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy, where he now serves as adjunct faculty. A pharmacist for over three decades, he is an internationally recognized expert, consultant, and lecturer on the master antioxidant, glutathione. He has traveled the world, educating practitioners and pharmacists on advanced biochemistry and anti-aging science.
Dr. Patel founded Auro Wellness in 2011 to create products to help the body function at an optimal level and reduce the long-term impact of stress on the body. Through his research, Dr. Patel stabilized glutathione improved absorption and increased its effectiveness with the Auro GSH, or glutathione, antioxidant delivery system. He is the author of The Glutathione Revolution: Fight Disease, Slow Aging, and Increase Energy, which addresses how powerful and essential glutathione is to the body's detoxification system and how to increase the body's levels naturally.
And now, my interview with Dr. Nayan Patel.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:58] SCOTT: I have been using a new type of topical glutathione for the past several months at the recommendation of two of my most trusted naturopathic doctors. Today, I have the creator of that product here with us to talk about all things glutathione and about his book, The Glutathione Revolution: Fight Disease, Slow Aging, and Increase Energy. Thanks for being here, Dr. Patel.
[0:02:20] DR. PATEL: Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
[0:02:22] SCOTT: Glutathione is called the master antioxidant or mother antioxidant in the body. So let's start by talking about the primary benefits of glutathione in the body. What are the mechanisms of action that lead glutathione to being so revered and to lower glutathione being correlated with many chronic health challenges?
[0:02:47] DR. PATEL: I'll start with what glutathione, what the mechanism is actually of being an antioxidant is. And so, glutathione molecule is comprised of three amino acids. And one of the amino acids, which is cysteine, has a sulfhydryl group on there, which is the sulfur. If you ever smell glutathione, it smells like sulfur. That sulfur smell comes from a cysteine molecule, and that's the most reactive molecule that is part of the glutathione component.
And so, that molecule actually is ready to accept it. And a charged electron that's running around in your body, the oxygen species or nitrogen species, this charged molecule can actually cause damage to the body if it stays in the body for too long. The glutathione basically quenches all the free radicals, takes the charged molecules and neutralizes that free radical so that it doesn't cause any damage. But in the process, the glutathione itself gets oxidized.
And so, that oxidized glutathione become stable and inert inside your body. But at the same time, it is neutralizing the free radicals. And the reasons it's called the mother of all antioxidants is because the two of those oxidized glutathione come together in a stable form. And that stable glutathione form can actually accept electrons from vitamin C, vitamin E, or sunlight, or something and become glutathione again. It's like those – my kids plays the games on the TV. The kids are about to die. They could come out and hit me with some life-saving juice and it revives again, right? It's similar. The glutathione is reviving itself on a daily basis to keep on doing the same work over and over and over without ever getting rid of it from your body, which is the beauty of this whole thing. It's basically something working over and over again for you. So that's one of the reasons. That's how it works as an antioxidant.
The second component, which we don't talk about too much, and that can go into a whole new rabbit hole for all of us, is it's a master conjugator and it helps with detoxification process. That mechanism of action is completely different than the antioxidant benefits where it basically helps binds to various elements, what we call as hydrophobic products, which doesn't love water, and make them into water soluble. That way, you can pee it out, right?
And so, that conjugation process is something that's very essential for our body to help get rid of all the metabolites that's in your liver that can eventually cause toxicity. Because anything that's in your body that doesn't need to be there can cause damage in the future. Helping getting rid of those chemicals out of your body is very essential. And glutathione aids in the process of binding to it, conjugating to it, and helping make it water soluble so your body can pee it out. Those are the two main functions that I – that was question number one.
And so, the benefits of glutathione is the second part of the question that you have. And how does it help with diseases management or symptoms management, whatever that is? When it comes to what glutathione does, what it does, it helps reduce oxidative stress. As a master antioxidant, your body is constantly under oxidative stress. And oxidative stress cannot be zero. We know that part. But it needs to be minimized. It needs to be minimized. And the reason it has to be minimized is because oxidative stress is linked to literally every single disease in the world. If the oxidative stress is out of control, there's nothing you can do to get rid of any diseases.
The first thing that the body does is we have to manage oxidative stress down. And to manage oxidative stress, the body only produces glutathione. There's three ways to do that, by the way. There's three ways to do that part. One is you take exogenous outside the body, you take something like vitamin C, Vitamin E, something that are known antioxidants. People eat these algae products. I mean, you can just name it. There's so many different products out there that claim to be an antioxidant. That's an exogenous source of antioxidant benefits that your body needs. The results are at best minuscule. It's not earth-shattering. It definitely helps a little bit so that way you feel like, "Oh, my gosh. This is working. Let me take more of it." But then nothing works after that.
The second thing the body can do for you internally is it produces enzymes like catalase, superoxide dismutase, which is called SOD, glutathione peroxidase, which is called GPX. These enzymes actually are helping body to reduce oxidative stress down, right? But the enzymes have a lot other functions as well. That's not the only job it does have. The results are good, but not spectacular, right?
And to have spectacular results that the body needs, the body needs glutathione. Only part of the body produces is glutathione. And most importantly, to help you reduce oxidative stress down so the body can function, function normally without having any issues. And the symptoms, I mean, as a very early onset, you're having high stress, memory issues, fatigue issues, sleep disturbances. And you're going to name those – you're going to see that, "Oh, you know what? That's because I just got a new job." Or I just had a family now. Now my kids are keeping me up all night. Or I just got married and I have two people to worry about.
And people have blamed external problems to internal conditions that you already have. And it's hard to put two and two together sometimes, right? And so, we cannot say that, oh, because you have fatigue and sleep disturbances, that means you have low glutathione level. That's not true either. But what I'm saying is that's the early onset symptoms. And then oxidative stress at the end links to heart disease, diabetes, cholesterol issues, cancers, and infections. And you can name the list.
[0:09:22] SCOTT: Just to summarize some of the things glutathione may be doing then based on your comments and also my reading of your book, supporting the liver, supporting detoxification, improving athletic performance. Maybe speeding up recovery from injuries. Supporting the immune system, increasing our energy, our sleep. Reducing toxins in the body. Reducing oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. Let's talk then about what are some of the causes or factors that might lead someone to have lower levels of glutathione?
[0:09:58] DR. PATEL: The most obvious ones are the one we talk about is that people have exposure to a lot of toxins, either knowingly or unknowingly. Knowingly, people will consume alcohol. Even though they know it's a solvent, it's toxic to your liver, people will still consume because it tastes good or it gives you some social relevance, whatever setting you're in. And so, that toxin basically reduces glutathione levels down to zero. That's one of them.
Outside, something that's not in your control is the air we breathe in. The overexposure to sunlight. The pollution's inside in your house. There's all products, products of combustion that's revolving inside your house. Actually, you're inhaling them and depleting your own glutathione reserves or your levels down. That's one component of it because toxicity is one of them.
The second piece, which is something that we may or we may not have control over, is our own genetics. And now we are doing a lot of gene testings. And what we are finding out, that there are a lot of people that have this GSTM, GSTP, all these different gene conditions or expressions that may limit the production of glutathione. Or some people have gene mutations of MTHFR or COMT, where the body can produce glutathione, but your needs are so high that your body says that, "Hey, I can only produce so much. I cannot produce what all your needs are going to be. So you've got to look at some other ways to deal with this problem besides just improving your glutathione reserves."
And so, the gene mutation is definitely the next big frontier for us to look at it as to see, "Hey, are you prone to this mutation? And if you are, do whatever you can do today so it doesn't get expression of this gene mutation that you already have." Just because the genes doesn't mean that you have the problem.
[0:12:00] SCOTT: When we have lower levels of glutathione, we may have higher levels of oxidative stress, higher levels of inflammation. And then what's really surprising in some ways is the number of different types of conditions where this can be a factor. Cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, many neurodegenerative conditions, autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's, asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, fibromyalgia. Even macular degeneration, stroke, and chronic viruses. So many broad and varied applications potentially for glutathione.
So, let's talk more about the tripeptide aspect, these three amino acids; cysteine, glycine, and glutamate. Some people say glutamine, and I'll ask you more about that distinction later. But as I understand the problem with oral glutathione supplementation is that it gets broken down into those three amino acids in our gut, in our digestive processes, and may not get reassembled to become glutathione again. How efficient is the body at creating glutathione from these building blocks, these three amino acids?
[0:13:17] DR. PATEL: Yes, you're correct. But the three amino acids that are abundantly produced, abundantly available in a diet, the body uses that to produce glutathione. The body has the ability to produce glutathione for the rest of your life. It's not like you started getting at the age of 30, all of a sudden, you started losing the ability to produce glutathione, right? Just because you have the ability to produce glutathione, it still needs the raw materials.
And so, I always look at the raw materials sources as three amino acids, two enzymes, two ATP molecules for mitochondria, and one NAD molecule for electron transfer. Anything out of all the six things that you need, if anything is low, that becomes the reason why you have low glutathione levels, right? If you have low ATP energy production. Now, because as you start aging, your mitochondria number starts reducing down and you don't produce enough ATP, that could be a source of why you have low glutathione level. You can take all the amino acids in the world but you don't have enough energy to produce glutathione. Or you have low levels of enzymes. You cannot conjugate together all the three amino acids to produce the glutathione.
If you have low NAD, NAD may not be something that is too low on most of the people. I know there's some new studies out there right now that NAD could be a new next longevity product that's in the market today. But in my findings, I don't see NAD as being low enough to be the cause of low glutathione levels. And sometimes you also need some catalysts like selenium to expand the process of producing glutathione on a regular basis too. That's just a catalyst. It speeds up the process but may not affect the total production of glutathione. If you just bypass that as well, we still have to worry about amino acids, two enzymes, and two molecules of ATP. That alone is a rate-limiting step on how much we can produce.
And the first time, the first time we have seen low levels of glutathione in human beings is around the age of 30, right? If you're otherwise healthy, around the age of 30 is when you'll start noticing for the very first time that your needs are actually surpassing what your body's actual production is. And it's not that the body – the needs have increased. The needs always stays constant, right? Just because you're 30 doesn't mean the needs have increased or reduced. It is a constant. Our needs never changes. But our body's ability to produce glutathione may dip in a little bit for the very first time.
And in reality, that's not a big deal until about 35 or 40, because by that time is the gap between what your needs are, what your body can produce gets wider and wider and wider. And that the difference in the production is actually increasing your oxidative stress, increasing information, increasing all those issues that you just mentioned earlier. And all of a sudden, the same athlete that used to recover in less than half a day after a three-hour workout is now taking a full day with cold plunging, hyperbaric chambers, doing some treatments, doing massages, whatever, and still not ready for the next day yet because, "Oh, my God. I'm just getting too old now."
[0:16:45] SCOTT: So, talk to us a little bit about the distinction between glutamine versus glutamate as one of those three amino acids that create glutathione. We know glutamine can be in the body turned into glutamate. But we also know that glutamate has the potential to lead to excitotoxicity. And that elevated levels of glutamate in the brain are associated with some neurodegenerative conditions as well. Is there any risk that if we're taking lots of glutathione that then is getting broken down into those three amino acids that we could be ultimately raising our excitotoxic burden?
[0:17:25] DR. PATEL: That's an excellent question. And I've done so many interviews over the last few years, and nobody's ever asked me this question ever before. I'm glad you're talking about this thing is because it's a real problem. It's a real problem. Because what we are seeing is we have excessive amount of glutamate in our brain that's leading causing issues with memory issues, mild cognitive reduction. So people, "Oh, I'm not thinking better. Am I going to get Alzheimer's?" I said, "No, you got too much glutamate in your brain."
And every supplement that's out there today, any glutathione supplement that you take, your body actually breaks it down into three amino acids and reconstructs and remakes the glutathione for your body again, right? And so, in that case, you can take orally, let's say, a thousand milligrams. But your body only needs only needs 100 milligrams to produce glutathione. The rest of the 900 milligrams becomes the three amino acids. There's a potential that every supplement that's out there today has a potential of increasing glutamate in your brain.
Of course, it has to come from glutamic acid to glutamate, but there's a potential, including intravenous form of glutathione, right? Even intravenous form of glutathione. People are injecting many from, two to four, up to ten grams in case of Parkinson's patients. And your body – even the one that you inject intravenously gets broken into amino acid.
The study was done in 1991 where they injected two grams of glutathione. And what they saw was, in 90 minutes, there was a rise of cysteine in the blood and not glutathione. And so, what the conclusion was that the body is breaking down into amino acids, glutamine, glutamic acid, cysteine, and glycine. And the glutamic acid can come into glutamate and can be neurotoxic. And so, that's a great question.
But again, that's why the technology needs to exist where the glutathione that you take, whatever form you take it, is not actually converting or breaking down into various amino acids. And if it doesn't do that part, then all it can do is help as an antioxidant, helps to conjugate, and helps to detoxify your body. It's the best way to do that part.
And the question that you asked about glutamate in your brain, that's why if you think about it, the treatment to reduce glutamate in your brain has always been taking N-acetyl cysteine. If you take NAC by itself, not the whole glutamate, just NAC by itself, it has the potential of binding with the glutamate in your brain and help reduce the glutamate, reduce it down. It's not enough to make glutathione. But it can bind with glutamate and cysteine and reduce the glutamate in your brain as well.
[0:20:30] SCOTT: So, it's interesting, and I guess it was a better question than I thought, because I thought you would say, "No, no, no, that's really not a concern." But what I'm hearing is, if you're taking glutathione in forms that are broken down into these three amino acids, that you could potentially increase glutamate excitotoxicity. But if you're taking it in a form that doesn't break down, that gets delivered directly into the cell, into the mitochondria as glutathione, that we don't have that same issue.
So, does glutathione cross over the blood-brain barrier into the brain such that, if it's there arriving in its whole glutathione form, that it actually then could be helpful for people that are dealing with neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's, or Parkinson's, or other types of similar conditions?
[0:21:19] DR. PATEL: Yes and no. The first part is yes, that the glutathione can cross the blood-blood barrier if it's delivered or if it's produced endogenously or produced – if it's into cellular levels of glutathione. That can absolutely penetrate across the blood-brain barrier. And you can see the brain mapping studies that have been done to show that your body has pockets over the glutathione levels are increased. That is true.
The part that is not true is that does it help reduce Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, Huntington's, all those diseases is because those diseases have progressed over 25, 30 years. And even though the root cause was a high amount of oxidative stress, but that oxidative stress was not in proper check for all these years, have triggered into multiple different conditions that sometimes they are irreversible.
Even though we can help with glutathione, help with reducing oxidative down, for it to reverse Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, all these diseases, is you're going to do 100 different things to fix a lot of different issues to basically help with the conditions like these major illnesses that we have.
And I always look at Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, all those diseases as 100 things have to go wrong before you get one disease. We label it as one problem. But in reality, you have 100 different problems. But if I tell you there are 100 problems, then nobody will do anything about it, right?
[0:23:00] SCOTT: I want to talk a little bit about the different forms of glutathione, Oral, Liposomal, nebulized, IV, topical, or transdermal like you have made available. And I want to understand a little bit about how much of those different delivery system remains as glutathione in the body versus being broken down and then relying on the body to convert it back into glutathione. And then how long do each of these forms actually even last in the body? In other words, what is the relative potential clinical benefit of each of the available delivery methods?
[0:23:39] DR. PATEL: Okay, so I'll answer the last question first because that's an easy one. The glutathione stays in the body anywhere from four to six hours. 12 hours, at the most once your body produces internally. The key is to basically body producing internally uses up within 10 to 12 hours and then keep on producing on a regular basis. If any glutathione product that you take that's going to increase the glutathione levels intracellularly, it's going to increase at the most 8 to 12 hours.
Now, if you look at all the different supplementations that are out there, every one of them that I've known – and you mentioned a few them, nebulized, the injectables, the liposome technologies, the capsules of just pure glutathione. I made into suppositories. I made into eye drops. I made into all these different forms of things at my company pharmacy in my lifetime. I made all these products. None of them actually gets absorbed as glutathione ever.
And to me that was very shocking when I first heard it, right? Because if you measure the glutathione level and if the level goes up high, then it says, "Hey, it got absorbed." Just because your level increased, that doesn't mean that your body absorbed the glutathione. And there was two trials that were done that solidified my thinking was that there was a trial done at University of Texas in Austin where they gave 26 kids oral liposome glutathione, 13 kids, and the other 13 kids were given transdermal liposomal glutathione.
In both kids, what they found out was the increase of glutathione in the body was non-significant. But what they did see was an increase in cysteine, taurine, amino acids profile went up, which was significant enough for them to realize that, "Hey, no matter what you do, the body is actually breaking down the peptide into three amino acids." And then the amino acids are later being used to produce its own glutathione. The glutathione levels do rise maybe a week later. In some cases, six hours later, they do rise. But that does not mean it's been absorbed. Okay?
And the question that will be asked is what do I care? My levels are high. What do I care how it got there? I'm okay, right? And the thing is you need to worry about it. Because, yes, if your body has no problems, then okay. Fine. Go for it, right? But as you start aging, your amino acids are okay but now the enzymes are reducing. Your ATP is reducing. Your NAD is reducing. All of a sudden, you can take all the supplementation products and the body can only go from low, low, low to maybe low normal.
And low normal is not normal enough for me because it needs a high normal. And the gap is always causing damage to the body. And so, the topical versions that we created – again, when I went to research on glutathione 20 years ago, actually it was 24 years ago, but at first, I was doing research on glutathione, I didn't plan for topical product. My plan was to go for a stable product of glutathione.
The first thing we did was we stabilized the glutathione at a room temperature in a water-based system. I thought my job as a pharmacist was done. Somebody's going to take my product and do some more further studies and make it available to the public. And honestly, nobody has interest in there. Nobody did have interest in it. Later on, I say, "You know what, I'll try it myself again."
I took the product and started taking by mouth. It tastes awful, by the way. I said, "Oh, geez. There we go again." I squirted it into my nose and my nose burned it off. I said, "Oh gosh. Nobody's going to squirt it in their nose either." And so, the only thing I saw was that the only way I can increase my level is if I can reduce the degradation of glutathione internally. The only route left for me was topical route was left.
But topically the glutathione is such a large molecule, it never gets through your skin. Forget the skin. I can maybe bypass the skin by doing injections, or doing some laser therapies, or open up the pores by something, or ultrasound. I can get through the skin itself. The biggest issue I had was getting through the cell wall membrane. Because glutathione needs to be intracellular. Keep in mind, it cannot be extracellular because extracellular doesn't do much for us.
My second piece was how do I get inside the cell? And so, that's why, even if you take suppositories, or eye drops, or inhale solution, even though it works, it's not because the body's absorbing glutathione. It's breaking down and remaking the glutathione again. When I did topically, I had to figure out a molecule that the body, the cells needs it. And can I hide inside that glutathione? And that's what my technology increased about the dextrin technology that I've introduced for the first time.
[0:29:13] SCOTT: Essentially, a Trojan horse delivery system for the glutathione.
Now you mentioned in that study at the university that the topical glutathione was still broken down into the three amino acids. But with your technology, correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding is that that's not the case. That it doesn't get broken down and it does get delivered as glutathione to where we need it in the body.
[0:29:36] DR. PATEL: Exactly. And the thing is the dextrin technology that we have introduced is very stable. It's very stable. It doesn't get broken down, but it delivers. It's like a cone shape, a round shape, cone shape molecule that you can stuff some things inside. It doesn't get broken down itself. But what it does, it bypassed through all the membranes, all the tissues into the intracellular levels. And over there, it delivers glutathione. And so, it gets through your skin membrane, gets through your cell wall membrane, and it gets intracellular within seconds if not minutes. And right away, you will see the increase in glutathione levels.
[0:30:16] SCOTT: Maybe one thing that I'm learning from our conversation is it's not only those glutathione forms that are passing through the digestive system that get broken down. Because you also mentioned that even when you take an IV, that it gets broken down into the three amino acids as well. It's not only the digestive system that breaks glutathione into its three amino acids, correct?
[0:30:39] DR. PATEL: That's right. Even sublingual drops are the same thing. Suppositories are the same thing. Eye drops are the same thing almost for me too. And so, all of them, unfortunately, were not good to raise glutathione levels.
[0:30:53] SCOTT: We live in a sea of environmental toxicants and toxins, heavy metals, chemicals, pesticides, mycotoxins. Which of these do you view glutathione as a primary tool for supporting the binding and excretion from the body versus maybe being more supportive of the chronic inflammation or the oxidative stress that might result from them? And then kind of building on that, I know mycotoxins, for example, we tend to think of glucuronidation, some heavy metals, we tend to think of sulfation. Not everything is primarily addressed or detoxified with glutathione. Can you talk to us about the role of glutathione in what is probably the number one cause of chronic illness today, which is our environment? And what are some of those toxicants that Glutathione can help us to address?
[0:31:48] DR. PATEL: Here's the thing, it's all about what your body can do. If your body has to do 10 jobs, and the number one job is taken from them, which consumes 80% of your time. If you don't do that any longer, then the body can do the rest of the work very, very easily. Conjugation, what glutathione does, is the major, major way to detoxify your liver and other parts of your body. And if that job is taking care of it by glutathione itself, by increasing those levels to a high normal ranges, then the body can actually function other parts of the job that it has for sulfations, or glucuronidations, and whatever other functions are, methylation, right? It can function better. Even though I know glutathione is not going to help in every single component out there, but what it does is that it does its job so effectively, it spares the time and the energy that the body has to do all the other functions.
Now, at the university over here in California, Western University School of Medicine, did a small little clinical trial. This was a 30-patient human trial, which was, again, IRB approved. We were able to do human trials. Went to the ethics committee to make sure they can use glutathione on humans. It was a three-day trial. And in three days, they were able to show beyond doubt that, within the first four hours, they saw a reduction of the MDA level, which is the malondialdehyde levels, that went down within the first four hours. That's a marker for oxidative stress. Literally, you can apply topically and help reduce oxidative stress down within the first four hours.
Then what they did was they took the blood in a test tube, they infected the blood with mycobacterium infection. Now, glutathione is not an antibiotic. Don't get all hyperactive on me. It's not anti-bacterial. It's not anti-viral. It's not an anti-infective drug at all. What they were really measuring is that, "Hey, does glutathione aids in the process? Does it help your body fight its own problems?" Right? That was the target.
They applied glutathione topically, drew the blood, infected the blood with mycobacterium infection. And three days later, they did a slew of tests to check all the cytokines. They want to check IL-2, IL-12, TNF-α, interferon gamma. They want to check all the cytokines. These are cytokines that are actually protective or our own body's defense against infections. And sure enough, in three days they saw a significant rise of all these markers to help with inflammation, to help active T cells, help active macrophages to deal with this infection.
And so, the conclusion was that, "Oh, my god, our body has ways to protect itself on its own." We don't need a drug from pharmaceutical companies to help save us. What we really need is we need to enhance our own body's defense. And if we can enhance the glutathione levels, we can help with that help alone. We can go fight the war inside our body. And so, that was a conclusion from that. Anyway, I just want to share this with you.
[0:35:22] SCOTT: I mean, the way that I'm kind of thinking of this, you're talking about using exogenous glutathione is a way to offload things that the body needs to do. It almost to me sounds a little bit like dialysis for the kidneys, right? That we're using glutathione as a way to really offload a lot of that.
I know in the book you talk about things like BPA, and phthalates, and parabens, flame retardants, PFOAs, formaldehyde, PCEs, lots of things that glutathione can support the body in dealing with. I want to understand a little bit more about what exactly does glutathione do with these environmental toxicants? Is it primarily supporting the liver where the concentrations are highest? And thus, our phase one, phase two type detoxification is better? Is it getting into the blood and into the tissue where it can maybe grab to or bind with toxicants and help to shuttle them out of the body?
You used the term binder, and I've heard that as well. But does glutathione have a systemic effect? Or does everything need to first move through the liver? And how is it different from a binder-like activated charcoal or chlorella in terms of how it helps the body to address environmental toxicants?
[0:36:42] DR. PATEL: It is way different than charcoal or chlorella because it is not a binder in the sense that it doesn't go around tissues and start binding things from tissues as well. Well, not that I know of. All my studies that I've done, we've only been able to measure in the circulatory system, like blood. And so, what we are assuming at this point is that it is helping your liver process all these toxicants. And once the liver processes all the toxicants, the body is able to handle more from the tissues.
I think that glutathione only works with liver personally, but I could be wrong as far as I know. As long as I can keep the liver completely clean, then the liver can handle more of these toxicants from the tissues. And I'm not sure how the transfer system is built into where it brings toxicants from the tissues back to the liver. And I had a very famous person that had mercury issues to the point that he had a hole in his body due to mercury. And, well, he used glutathione just to help him with the energy. But over 18 or 24 months, he was able to see his mercury level drop, drop, drop.
Again, mercury is not supposed to be in the liver, but his trace amount is over there. And he was doing some urine testing to see his levels of mercury. And after he could first go diagnosed with this problem in the hospital, the mercury levels was off the charts. And over time, the levels in the urine was reducing and reducing and reducing. And he felt better and better and better. And it's been about six years today since he first had this problem. And even today's date, he makes sure that his glutathione reserves are always to the highest. And he attributes himself that this is one thing that helped him the most to help with his mercury. But, again, keep in mind, it is not in the liver. And how do you get it from the tissues? It has to come to the liver somehow. And from there, it will conjugate and it will help you get rid of it.
[0:38:50] SCOTT: Building on the environmental toxicant discussion, we have I think more awareness these days of EMRs, electromagnetic radiation, EMFs, as another environmental toxin that affects our health. Is there any protective role of glutathione in mitigating the effects of our frequency environment or EMF exposures?
[0:39:14] DR. PATEL: There is somebody who's doing studies on it. There's a lady in California that has approached me. And she's been doing studies on EMFs, and Wi-Fi, and the 5G networks and see what effects is on oxidative stress on your body. It does increase oxidative stress. So in that sense, yes, the glutathione can reduce oxidative oxygen stress down. But is there more than oxidative stress at this point? I don't have a clear answer for that one yet. It does work with oxidative stress, and that's all I can say at this point.
[0:39:47] SCOTT: I want to talk a little about the phases of detoxification. So, some people talk about three phases of detox. The first two, phase one and two in the liver. Phase three being kind of the transport out of the body. Some talk about a phase 2.5 detoxification, which is the flow of bile from the liver into the gallbladder and then into the intestines. What is the role of glutathione in terms of these phases of detoxification? If we consider that phase one detox can create more toxic byproducts, if phase two cannot neutralize them, then we have a potential problem. If we have an upgraded phase one and a downgraded or down-regulated phase two, we could create more toxic substances endogenously. Does glutathione have some role in mitigating the potential damage of the byproducts of phase one if our phase two is not yet optimized? And which phases of detoxification does glutathione support? Is it both phase one and phase two?
[0:40:53] DR. PATEL: I always look at my mentors and they always tell you that begin with the end in mind, right? The first thing is to make sure your bowel movements are accurate. Your urination system is working great. That way, the phase 2.5 or 3 detoxification, which is eliminated out of your body, is perfectly done, right? After that is completely done, the most important part to me is phase two. Because phase two is actually conjugating, binding, getting rid of those toxicants out of your liver, right? That's the most important phase. That's where I would say 80% of the work the glutathione does is on phase two, is to help with that one.
Now, it does support phase one. We work with physicians that are doing just gene testings, and they're all always measuring the CYP genes, cytochrome P450, especially the 1B2 and things that are helping neutralize hormones, for example, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, things like that. And if they have this gene defect or gene mutation, they're actually prescribing them glutathione and they see a positive impact in the transport of all these hormones so they can effectively dose these people and not make them toxic.
And so, it may not be aiding in phase one, but it's absolutely helping them somehow. And I don't know how glutathione is doing that part, but the doctors are using these products for that particular reason. Now, of course, if you have the phase one, it's all about enzyme production of the glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase. And if it's not there, then, of course, the phase two, the glutathione is going to be helping them. Glutathione gets to do a lot more hard work, but the phase one has to be activated somehow. I assume that glutathione has a role in it. I'm not sure how.
[0:43:05] SCOTT: We know glutathione is an antioxidant. It's commonly working through the reduction of oxidative stress. That said, we have a redox or reduction oxidation system for a reason. And oxidation can help us manage microbes in the body, may help to inhibit some cancers, though I know it can also promote them and can potentially negatively impact chemotherapy as well. But if we take so many antioxidants, could that potentially benefit some chronic infections within us and ultimately be detrimental? Or maybe the glutathione then is kind of a double-edged sword. If we're dealing with something like chronic Lyme disease, should we address the infections before using glutathione? And building on that, should we use glutathione every day or should we pulse it so that we still have some balance in our redox systems?
[0:44:06] DR. PATEL: Okay. Let me talk about redox and multiple use of antioxidants and also dealing with Lyme or other chronic conditions that people have. There is such a thing called overdosing on antioxidant. And it doesn't exist today. Well, it does exist today, but it never exist until now. And the reason is because there's nothing you can do to improve your antioxidant systems in your body to super physiologic levels. Because nothing in the body can – everything is controlled by human body in terms of production of glutathione using of vitamin C, using of alpha-lipoic acids, or vitamin E, or whatever, right?
Until the advent of topical form of glutathione, where the body accepts it as is and use it as an antioxidant, we never have to worry about antioxidants being overdosed. Today, we do have to worry about it now. Because with the advent of topical form, I can actually increase your levels to a super physiological levels. And that is actually not good for us because antioxidant system is great, but you cannot have zero oxidative stress. The body becomes extremely lazy and all the defenses goes down.
Being said that, do we take glutathione before the exposure? After the exposure? How long do we take it? As I said earlier, the half-life is very short, 4 hours, 6 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours. If you use it twice a day, every day, you're still going to have some time during the day where your body still hasn't produced some on a daily basis. Again, this is not a hormone. There's no stimulus coming from our pituitary or hypothalamus to telling the body to produce more glutathione. It doesn't do that way. It's a peptide, but it needs amino acids. It needs ATP, NAD. And the body can produce enough. By taking an exogenous form of glutathione, your own endogenous productions may slow it down, may shut it down. But it doesn't go away ever because the body will produce it all the time.
Can you use it before, during, or after treatments? I have patients, doctors that have been using it throughout the journey and there's no reason why you can't use it anytime during the day or anytime during the cycle. If you have exposure to Lyme, for example, but you have no symptoms, you can still use it. You're taking antibiotics to do the bacteria, you can still use the glutathione and basically reduce inflammation down and help with the macrophages itself. If it's post-infection, if you just have the toxicants, yes, it can help with conjugation and that becomes a long-term therapy as well.
I believe – and this is, again, just my personal belief. I have no proof, or no data, or no clinical trials to back this up yet. Is that if we catch early on Lyme and if we're dealing with the antibiotic and the glutathione to dealing with the conjugations and binding all the things that we can today, that I think we can limit the biotoxins or all this exposure for the rest of your life. Can be reduced dramatically. Again, I have nothing to back it up yet, but this is a good theory that I'm working on right now. And I'm hoping that we'll be able to prove it in the next few years with the help of some physicians working with us at this point.
[0:47:38] SCOTT: Building on the redox discussion, we can have many symptoms and conditions from too much oxidative stress. But we can also potentially have symptoms resulting from too little. Or instead of what is called oxidative stress, we're then talking about reductive stress. How do we manage the use of glutathione so that we don't shift from oxidative stress to reductive stress, which is also potentially problematic?
And then building on that topic, maybe it's a good time to talk about what people might observe or experience symptomatically if they're using too much of your transdermal or topical glutathione. What are some of the things that would clue them into, "Maybe I've gotten into that too little oxidative stress realm?"
[0:48:23] DR. PATEL: Absolutely, again, great question because this is what stopped me from releasing the product to the public when I first discovered this in 2007. When I first discovered this in 2007, we were giving mega doses of topical glutathione because the literature supports the use of 500 milligrams or 1,000 milligrams per day. And so, when we give 500 milligrams per day topically, we had so many reactions happening to people that figure out what's happening over here. Why are people reacting so badly?
And so, the first thing I found out was, you know what, let's stop this thing. I didn't find out what dose I'm going to give you, right? We started giving with 50 milligrams, 100 milligrams, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, up to 600 because we give them a per dose. What we found out was 100 milligrams got you to very high normal ranges. If I give you 200 milligrams, it can go further higher, but now we're getting very close to a peak that can push you. If you're otherwise extremely healthy, can push you over the edge and make you into reductive stress.
And so, my dose basically came down to 100 milligrams twice a day is what we look at it. When I do that part, I don't have any issues whatsoever in getting people into relative stress. Now, once in a while, people may get that part and that's just temporarily, maybe for a day, or half a day, or some of that. They will probably stop the products, stop using the product for maybe half a day or a day and they're back to normal again.
Because keep in mind, if you're breathing oxygen, your body's in constant amount of stress all the time. It's always there, right? Even though there might be a brief moment that you are in relative, but that's a very brief moment and they'll pass within a very short amount of time. I'm talking about hours if not half a day.
What are the symptoms? That's a question that everybody should know because it's like I can do whatever. As long as it works, great. Nobody knows. Nobody needs to know. Well, what if something goes wrong? What are some of the symptoms like those? So far, we have observed a few things that shows to me. One is that people can get a headache. And the headache comes because if you have too much oxidative stress in your brain and now it's completely zero and other round, people may experience some headaches. People have experienced stomach cramps. Or sometimes they have experienced diarrhea. Some people have experienced extreme amount of fatigue.
And, again, fatigue may not be something that is a relative stress situation, but this could be something with people with high amount of toxicants in the body, that the body is basically dislodging all those toxicants and the body is getting extremely fatigued because you cannot process so much toxicants out there. But besides the fatigue, the stomach cramps, diarrhea, headaches is what – the last thing is rashes. Rash on your body. Those three things are signs and symptoms of too much of glutathione. If it happens two months after using the product for the very first time, that means it's time to take a day off.
[0:51:52] SCOTT: It sounds like there's two different potential scenarios for those types of symptoms. One, that you're just starting to incorporate glutathione. You're maybe then mobilizing some toxins in the body. And so, that maybe is more of a detoxification reaction. Or there's also the reductive stress type of response. And so, maybe they have similar symptoms, but they are a little different, are they not?
[0:52:15] DR. PATEL: They are similar symptoms, but they're different in the sense that, initially we can basically call it this is a detox reaction. And later on, we tell them, "Okay. You should be clean by now." And now if it happens two months down the road, this is more than likely it's too much of glutathione.
[0:52:37] SCOTT: Does glutathione help us to reduce oxidized lipids in the body? If we think about oxidized LDL, for example? Or maybe even protect us against oxidized oil if we're consuming foods at restaurants where they cooked in the food preparation process? Or maybe consuming seed oils that are oxidized. Is there a role in glutathione sin protecting us in those scenarios?
[0:53:02] DR. PATEL: Absolutely. We had one of the doctors present at a case at a webinar at the World Anti-Aging Congress, and he presented two cases. In both of these cases, what they're measuring was oxides cholesterol in the body. And once you get oxides cholesterol, it's really hard to get rid of it very fast. And, basically, what they say that, "Hey, if you don't deal with it, it ends up with heart disease, diabetes, all kinds of other slew of problems."
And they were measuring apoB as one of the markers for that one. And within six to eight weeks, both the case – well, he has done hundreds of cases, but he was presenting those two cases. And in those two cases, they were able to show the reduction on all the oxides cholesterol within six to eight weeks, which in the past could not even happen in six months to a year sometimes.
[0:53:59] SCOTT: Do you recommend that people test glutathione levels or test oxidative stress levels to then be able to implement their glutathione support in a database manner? And if so, what tests do you find most helpful?
[0:54:16] DR. PATEL: The test for glutathione, which is a serum test or RBC test of glutathione, if it's low, it doesn't mean you're low. If it's high, it doesn't mean you're okay. Because you have no idea when your body produces glutathione. You have no idea when the highs and the lows are. And so, it's very hard to predict based on a blood test what the glutathione reserves are.
The better markers would be something to measure oxidative stress markers. MDA levels is one of them. 80H or 4-HNE. I mean, other people using these markers. A bunch of companies have approached us saying that, "Hey, we can measure all your oxidative markers. And if your product works, well, we can combine them together with testings and treating them." And I'm still evaluating all those test kits right now to make sure that those are true markers and that we are able to affect those markers. And does that represent oxidative stress in your body or is it just good markers to have, right? I'm evaluating those tests at this point. And, hopefully, by next year I have a clear answer for that as well.
[0:55:29] SCOTT: And to that point, blood levels may not correlate to the levels of glutathione in the liver where it's most critical, right? They could be very, very different.
I, personally, in my chronic illness journey with Lyme disease, with mold illness, dealt with symptoms that were very persistent related to herpes zoster, the chickenpox virus, shingles, though I've never had shingles. And this year, I did two really significant things to focus on chronic viruses. One of them was using some herbal formulas from Beyond Balance. The second was using your products, the Auro Glutaryl. And in the past, I would have to do low-dose immunotherapy about every eight weeks to manage the symptoms that were coming from the herpes zoster. This most recent dosing cycle, I went for almost double that.
I know I've made some progress. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how glutathione can potentially support the body when we're dealing with chronic viruses. And then extending on that, is there a role for glutathione in the COVID and long COVID landscapes? Or have we seen correlations between glutathione levels and COVID outcomes?
[0:56:45] DR. PATEL: Wow. okay. I don't know you're going to ask me these questions. I had this article ready right here. This was just published in the Journal of Antioxidant Treatment of Acute and Long COVID, Diabetes, Myocardial Infarction, and Alzheimer's. A potential role of glutathione in making those conditions.
Glutathione is not a drug to deal with any of those diseases. What does glutathione does? So, let's talk about the viruses first, because that was my first aha moment back in 2009 when we had a case of a person with shingles and we sprayed the glutathione on top of it and the pain went away like instantaneously. And she was complaining because she didn't want to take narcotics because the pain was so bad. She came with a prescription to the pharmacy. The prescription was for narcotic. And she goes, "I hate to take narcotics because I have young kids. I don't want to be all drowsy. And I don't want to do this part." And about the same time, I had this topical glutathione. I was like, "Hey, do you want to spray this on and see if it helps with the pain?" And sure enough, the pain went away.
The pain came back in four hours. She applied every four hours, and she never got the pain. But to her surprise, the shingles went away in one day. Of course, it didn't go away. It just suppressed it. But suddenly thinking, I said, "What does the glutathione do again?" All it's doing is build up your own immune system, right?
This was back a long time ago. Ever since then, I have given to my family members with flu, and shingles, and whatever, any viral infections they get. We just keep it. Hey, just use every four to six hours. Use it for a couple of days. And the symptoms subsides. Just go back on a maintenance dose twice a day and you should be okay.
Long story short, we had to deal with something major in 2020. This was COVID. And, of course, nobody knew what COVID was. Well, at least we did not know what COVID was and how you're going to deal with the situation? All I can do is that I want a fighting chance for my body to literally fight this infection on its own. The only way I can do that part is that can I make sure that I have enough oxygen coming to my body so the body doesn't go into less levels of oxygen? Basically, go to a ventilator and eventually die, right?
And so, we were using glutathione topically for patients. They were coming with severe symptoms. Not myself, but the University Hospital at Western University in Pomona, California, they were using this topical glutathione. And later on, they published a manuscript that said, "Hey, we use this product. And what it did was they actually helped reduce oxygen stress down, helped improve oxygen-carrying capacity. So the body had a fighting chance to deal with the virus." It is not an anti-viral. It's not anti-infective at all. But it gave a chance for the body to survive and the body to thrive. And so, yes, we’ve been using this one for patients as an adjuvant therapy for all these conditions to just help enhance your own body’s defense system to deal with these problems.
[1:00:13] SCOTT: Let's then shift from viruses to yeast and fungal issues, people dealing with mold illness, mycotoxins we talked about that it can support the liver, support the body with the mycotoxin side. But with the potential for colonization of these fungal organisms maybe in the sinuses, maybe in the gut, we also then have the yeast or candida discussion that we know that yeast can produce acetaldehyde that can also lead to many symptoms.
So, talk to us a little bit about in these fungal yeast mold-type issues, is the role of glutathione primarily aimed at removing the toxins, the mycotoxins, the acetaldehyde that are produced by these organisms? Or does it also have some other role in supporting the body against fungal colonization as well?
[1:01:09] DR. PATEL: I'm not sure about the colonization, but I am sure about the toxicants byproducts. It does help reduce the acetaldehydes and the mycotoxin loads and things like that. I personally when I go diagnosed with a little bit of mold into my body, of course, my doctor freaked out because he said, “Oh, my God. You got so much mold.” I said, “No, mold has been extreme in my urine because I'm taking glutathione every single day, you know. So don't get too excited.”
But I do have the symptoms of mold, so I said, “You know what? Besides my glutathione, I did take some binders like charcoal.” I didn’t take charcoal. I take cholestyramine, and that really helped me reduce my fungal load into my body. Glutathione by itself is not going to be sufficient, but it will help reduce the mycotoxin load, the byproducts of this fungus to help reduce that down. When that is reduced, I believe if you reduce that alone, it can also reduce the potential of colonizing really fast as well. But you still need to have antifungals, antimicrobials to help deal with these problems as well.
[1:02:20] SCOTT: It’s interesting that you mentioned seeing more mycotoxins in your urine from the glutathione. Many practitioners actually recommend using glutathione before doing the urine mycotoxin test to try to get some of that intracellular mycotoxin burden out of the cells and into the urine so that we can get something that is a little more reflective of reality. I'm assuming we could use your products as a provocation for a urine mycotoxin test as well.
[1:02:49] DR. PATEL: I did it myself. I was patient number one. Since then, the doctor that is my doctor, she's been using it for all her patients now.
[1:02:59] SCOTT: Let's talk a little more about what we discussed briefly earlier, which is kind of that oxidized versus reduced glutathione, the recycling of glutathione. As I understand it, glutathione or GSH becomes oxidized, and then it's in the form GSSG. If we have higher levels of oxidative stress, are we then more likely to have our glutathione become oxidized?
What are some of the things that we can do to maximize the recycling of glutathione so that it can stay in its health-promoting form as long as possible? Are there certain supplements that facilitate that? Then specific to your products, are there any recyclers built into your transdermal products? For example, I know that it has ascorbic acid or vitamin C. Is that why it's there, or is it there for another reason?
[1:03:52] DR. PATEL: Yes. It's already built into my product, but yes. GSH and GSSG molecule, they both stays in equilibrium. Most physicians will measure that as markers for oxidative stress, is if you have too much GSSG molecule and not enough GSH, that means you have a lot more oxidized glutathione and not enough reduced glutathione. That means your stress levels are pretty high. That's what they will say.
Again, I would beg to differ with that statement because I'm not sure what the glutathione levels are actually when they're measured. Is it high, low, middle? We don't know that part yet. The GSSG molecule is much more stable. I understand if that levels are high, that means that is a true number, right? The key is how do we keep them in the equilibrium, right? If a GSSG molecule is high, then you increase GSH to make sure it's leveled off.
Now, glutathione is very difficult to make in your body. Whatever you can do to recycle glutathione is always advocate, right? The best thing we can do to give our body non-pharmacological would be to stay in the sun for about 10 minutes a day. Ten minutes a day gives you enough energy to recycle all your glutathione. When you stay in the sun for 10 minutes, you feel more energized. If you feel good, if you feel like, “Oh, my God. I'm just getting all this energy from the sun,” what it's really doing is recycling the glutathione GSSG to GSH again.
If you're looking for medications, the best one that we have is ascorbic acid or vitamin C, either in a form of a fruit or form of a supplement. Ascorbic acid is the most active form of vitamin C that works chemically to help give the energy back to GSSG molecule to make them glutathione. That's one of the reasons why it is into my product. It's a very small amount because, honestly, too much vitamin C – vitamin C by itself is a pro-oxidant, so too much vitamin C can also cause oxidative stress. It’s not a good thing. But then you do the right amount to recycle the glutathione.
That's why when people take vitamin C, guess what, low dose, it works as a master antioxidant. At a high dose, it becomes a chemotherapy drug. That's why people inject high-dose vitamin C for cancer patients to help with cancer. But high-dose vitamin C is actually a pro-oxidant, right? Vitamin C is not a very smart molecule, okay? It's just a very simple molecule, it's just one property, and it is a pro-oxidant. But at low concentration, it revives the glutathione. Besides that, you have CoQ10, alpha-lipoic acid, and other molecules like those, but they're not very effective as much as ascorbic acid is.
[1:06:51] SCOTT: Let's talk a little bit about the sulfur side of glutathione. You mentioned kind of that stinky egg smell. I think people are familiar with that. It seems that many people don't tolerate glutathione, and that can be in some cases due to the sulfur primarily coming from the cysteine. I'm wondering if we see, in people who are more sulfur-compound-sensitive, do we see the same reactions with your transdermal products? Or do people tolerate glutathione better if they also take something like molybdenum to support their sulfur metabolism?
[1:07:26] DR. PATEL: Molybdenum is something that my doctors recommend all the time to their patients if they have sulfite allergies. When I do my treatments, I always look at it and say, okay, if you reduce the glutathione dose down to what your body can tolerate, guess what? You're not going to have sulfite reaction, which is the rashes and the itching and things like that. Then every three to seven days, you increase the dose. If there's no problem, you increase again. If there's no problem, go back to four sprays twice a day, which is a normal dose. By doing so, there's no need for molybdenum-type products. Even people with sulfur allergies, sulfur sensitivities are able to tolerate that.
I have patients that cannot drink red wine because they have sulfite allergies. Thirty days later, they're able to tolerate red wine, a glass, without getting all flushing and itching. It’s just a matter of time. Yes, you can use molybdenum products to reduce the sulfites. But my thing is I've reduced the dose down to which your body can tolerate and slowly, slowly, slowly increase the dose up. By doing so, I'm getting better results with less medication.
[1:08:49] SCOTT: Am I understanding correctly that in people who maybe don't tolerate other types of glutathione that they may potentially tolerate your transdermal better? Or would we expect the same type of response?
[1:09:01] DR. PATEL: Same type of response. If they cannot tolerate, all I have to do is reduce the dose down to what the body can tolerate, and it doesn't matter. I can go down as low as you want me to, right? Then slowly, slowly, slowly, over time, build up your tolerance. Because when I say build up your tolerance, all you're doing is reducing all the toxicities out. By doing so, inherently, your body can take more and more of glutathione. I mean, the typical dose of 100 milligrams twice a day is a typical dose. I have patients that can only tolerate maybe 12 and a half milligrams per day, very, very low amount. I've done that before.
[1:09:45] SCOTT: Building then on more sensitive patients, we have the mast cell activation syndrome, the histamine intolerance community. Wondering if you see more issues in that population with tolerance of glutathione and then also with your product. Then building on that, many people who have mast cell activation syndrome maybe don't tolerate fermented supplements very well. Wondering if you can talk to us a little bit about with your Glutaryl products, what is that fermentation process that you use in the creation of the product? Is it using some fungal organism like many digestive enzymes that are using aspergillus, for example, or other creation of, let's say, citric acid which can come from fungal sources as well? Is there any reason for the sensitive patient to be concerned about that aspect of using the Glutaryl products?
[1:10:39] DR. PATEL: Yes and no. I'll answer the last question first, which is the fermentation process. I don't make glutathione personally. I have a company out of Japan who makes it for us, and they do use Saccharomyces as a fungal for the fermentation process. But the glutathione itself is completely purified. Basically, when we get the purified form of glutathione, there is no remnants of any of those fermented products inside, right? That's all been cleaned off, and it's ready available as a peptide coming to me.
When I get this product, my job is to make it into the purest form possible because, as I said earlier, this product is actually entering your body. I have to make sure that it's free of toxicants, free of pyrogens, free of antitoxins. We do vigorous testing to making sure that it is not doing anything else because that's the only way we can give it to people that are ultrasensitive and making sure that they don't react to anything. Because if you're a mast cell activator, that can react to even sniffing something which is a mile away and getting all itchy and watery eyes. I mean, that's no – I cannot introduce my product and say you're going to be okay, right?
Being said that, I would say when I have MCS patients, which is mast cell activator patients that I get is hit and miss. Some people can take the full dose from the very first day with no problem. Some people cannot even take one spray twice a day. They're all over the place. I have come to a conclusion that rather than making people kind of suffer, I tell them, everybody, I said, “Hey, start with one spray. If you're an ultrasensitive patient, start with one spray. If there's no problem, then tomorrow try two sprays twice a day.” If there's no problem, then go to three sprays and then four sprays. If there's a problem, if there is a problem, then you cut back to what your body can tolerate and stay on the dose for maybe three days, four days, up to seven days. Then slowly increase it to the next level.
I have not figured out as of yet which MCAS patients can tolerate them and which one cannot. In the past, I always tell people just use four sprays. If it happens, then cut back because the symptoms will go within half a day or a day, and then you should be okay. Then you go back to the lowest dose possible and then slowly, slowly build up. But is it right for people to suffer? No, I don't think so.
[1:13:34] SCOTT: I want to come back just for a minute and talk about some of the genes that are glutathione-related. You mentioned some of them earlier; GSTP1, TM1, TT1, GPX1. That these can impact our glutathione, our ability to detoxify with some other types of snips like, let's say, MTHFR, though I think MTHFR is a little bit overblown in the chronic illness community, quite honestly. We can use B12 and folate and things like that to really support the optimal functioning of this gene. If we're thinking about a glutathione optimization approach, is there anything that we can do that's kind of specifically supporting those genes so that we're also better able to produce glutathione?
[1:14:21] DR. PATEL: Just because you have the genes doesn't mean you have the expression of these genes, right? That’s the big concerns right now. People are doing some gene mapping studies all the time, and we do not know if the gene expression is already happening or not. It’s going to require further more education on the public side. Before we go to the public, I think we have to educate the physicians that don't scare your patients that, hey, you have these gene mutations. You're going to be watched out, and you cannot make gluten. No, you've been making gluten all your life. It's when the gene expression happens is when you have a problem with it, right?
The question then becomes if you already had the genes, let's say if you have BRCA genes for breast cancer, right? It doesn't mean you're going to have breast cancer at this point. You just have the genes. That means if the conditions are correct, there's a higher potential for you getting breast cancer. Same thing with the glutathione, if the conditions are correct, then this gene expression may limit your production of glutathione for you and may affect your oxygen stress levels in your body.
For me, I always look at these genes and I said, okay, this is good. This is good that you have this problem. Has it manifested in any which way? If it has manifested in any which way, then I can introduce glutathione. Within weeks, I see reduction of this problem. I know, okay, you have gene expression. It manifested. It's under control. Now, for the rest of your life, you're going to be needing this product for sure, right?
For the rest of the people, I would say that, hey, if you had this gene mutation and if you're 30 and above, please, it's okay to take the supplementation once or twice a day. Even if it's once a day is all you can afford, that's okay, too. Or I would suggest that you change your diet to make sure you have cysteine-rich foods in your diet. Do the things that are correct. Help aid in detoxification by making sure your methylation groups are functioning fine. Eating lots of cruciferous vegetables can help you with that part. But aid the process of detoxification in a multi-rich way and don't rely on just one gene testing.
[1:16:36] SCOTT: Yes. I think I totally agree with that. I think looking at SNPs or single nucleotide polymorphisms in general, I would say too many possibilities and not enough probabilities, right? We don't really know what the reality of having or manifesting a problem is.
Let's talk a little bit about intestinal hyperpermeability or leaky gut syndrome. Is there any role of glutathione in supporting the lining of the digestive tract or minimizing the damage that results from the activation of the immune system that results from intestinal hyperpermeability?
[1:17:13] DR. PATEL: I mean, the only thing that we know of is glutamine helping with leaky gut issues. But I can only give you editable results. I have patients that have used for multiple issues with guts. Literally, within a day or two, they see a resolution of the symptoms. That has nothing to do with leaky gut problems or hyperpermeability or any of those problems. All they have is they have crampings, they're not feeling good, and all of a sudden, they're feeling good in about a day or two.
Being said that, I still have not done further studies on issues around leaky gut yet. We do work with a few GI specialists up in California right now, and they've been using this glutathione as just reducing inflammation markers down because leaky gut problem patients have a lot of inflammation to begin with. They have a lot of allergies to begin with. What they are doing is that, hey, let me just get your inflammation down. Let me help you mobilize some toxins out of there. Hopefully, by doing so, your body will fix its own leaky gut problem. I don't know, right? But that's what we're seeing right now.
[1:18:21] SCOTT: Let's talk then about metabolic health, about glucose regulation, about diabetes, which you mentioned earlier. Have you seen glutathione supplementation improving markers like hemoglobin A1C or glucose levels if we're using a continuous glucose monitor before and after the use of glutathione? Does it have a role in supporting metabolism? Then kind of where I was going a little further is if we think about toxins being stored in our body in adipose tissue as a protective strategy and maybe some people being overweight because they're toxic. Could glutathione over time, maybe even applied your transdermal product to the abdomen, could it potentially reduce some of those toxicants in our adipose tissue so that we then no longer need to hold on to that tissue and maybe even lose some weight?
[1:19:20] DR. PATEL: Whoa, that's a loaded question. That's awesome. All right, so let's talk about diabetes first. In my book, we had – one of the pharmacists did a trial on his own. Thirty-five of his patients had high triglyceride levels. Because of high triglyceride levels, they also had very high A1C levels, which is the hemoglobin glycosylated glucose molecules. After three months of applying glutathione, every one of the patients that had high triglycerides were having low triglycerides back to normal, right? I'm sure they were taking some medications along with it. But regardless of what they did, they were able to reduce the triglycerides levels back to normal.
To their surprise, they also saw a reduction of the A1C levels, the glucose levels for all these people that came back to normal except for one. Except for one, everybody else had glucose levels back to normal again. That was back in 2009, 2010, something like that, very, very early in my career. That triggered me to see, okay, what else can I do, right? Over the years, I have helped – I've given to patients with high A1C levels. I had one case in my book that I had. It was my uncle, and I had no idea that he had his issue. My dad kept on giving him the product all the time. Later, I found out what he was doing. His A1C was 14.1, taking three different insulins, three different medications, A1C of 14.1, and obese. He was 40 pounds overweight, obese. Nothing in sight that is going to be normal, nothing in sight, right? My dad gave him some bottle. He said, “My brother, I'm going to give it to him.” That was in March.
In September, I saw him for the first time. He came to my house, and his grin was from cheek to cheek. I said, “What the heck happened to you? Are you on some diet or something? You lost a lot of weight, and what's going on?” He said, “I'm not going to tell you anything.” He said, “I know you're going to ask me these questions.” He goes to this Kaiser as one of his HMO. He showed me his results. March, his A1C was 14.1. In September, when I saw him was 5.4. The best part was he was off of all insulin. He was off of all medications, except for two of the diabetic medications. He combined those two into one because they make it commercially just two into one. He's all down to one pill with two different medications inside. Now, it's been at least 12 more years since then as of today, and he's still the same person.
Does it mobilize fat? I don't think so, but it can definitely help immobilize those sugars and those toxicants out of the fat tissues. By doing so, hopefully, it can reduce the fat cells, the adipose tissue. What we do have, what we have seen is the reduction of the fat in the liver. But does it transport that out to the rest of the body? That has yet to be found out.
[1:22:42] SCOTT: Let's build on that conversation. I have your product. I've been through maybe half a dozen bottles of it. I keep rubbing it on my abdomen hoping for a six pack, so we're going to see what happens.
Talking about the liver, many people these days are dealing with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or NASH, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis as well. Those can be associated with triglycerides that you've also touched about. But the numbers are really striking, one in four in the US that are dealing with one of these conditions. Do we think that glutathione has the potential to mitigate the factors that contribute to or lead to these liver conditions?
[1:23:26] DR. PATEL: If you talk to any NFLD or NASH providers, doctors, researchers, they'll tell you, "Gluta is no different than me putting them on a diet, or me telling them to eat a cysteine-rich diet. That’ll do the same thing.” I said I get that part, but why not? Why can't you tell them, right? That's a question I asked them. I said, if that's easy, if it works on everybody, then why can't you tell them that this will actually work? Well, it's not a drug, right?
I met a head researcher who's done about 13 or 15 drug trials on NASH patients. Of course, they're looking for the slam-dunk drug that's going to deal with this problem. What's working is just changing your diet, exercise. It works. It bloody works, right? Why can’t doctors tell you that part? Well, nobody's going to do it. But another surprising number by 2040, which is less than 20 years from today, less than 15 years from today, the number that I'm going to estimate is one in two in US is going to have this problem. It's not one in four anymore. It's one in two. Fifty percent of the population is going to have this problem, right?
The way we are going to deal with this problem is multiple issues, right? Glutathione as a supplement absolutely will help with factors leading to this condition. But besides that, having a healthier diet, moving your body, when I say moving, you got to just have to move. I don't care if you're walking, jogging, running, swimming, cycling. I don't care. You got to move your body, right? Moving your body, having a healthier diet, doing few things.
If you know NASH is a problem and NASH is – NFLD is non-alcoholic fatty liver problem. Guess what? People are drinking alcohol anyways. This is just going to get anyone worse. I want to start a culture where people meet at a bar not to drink alcohol, to do something else. Or maybe bars are out of business. I don't know. I don't think so. But that's not going to happen in my lifetime, but that's okay. Wishful thinking, right? I don't wish bad about any business owners, but alcohol is not something that can help us at all, right?
We have two cases, actually four cases, where they were on a transplant list because of high alkaline phosphatase and liver enzymes. We were working with the oncologist over there or the transplant specialist. We put them in glutathione while they were waiting for the liver. Literally, their alk phos went down. Their liver enzymes went down in like 8 to 12 weeks. The doctors are saying that maybe they might not need liver transplant. Let's just watch another six months to a year, but the patients are happy. It's been four years now. Those patients are still not on a transplant. They're not going to need a transplant yet, but they're taking glutathione and having all the levels under control at this point. The doctors are watching them regularly, and they have not needed a transplant as of today. Is it going to help with the fatty liver disease? I don't know yet, but this is the case I have.
[1:26:46] SCOTT: We've talked about glutathione's role in helping the body to deal with many different types of toxicants and toxins. If we get into the hormone conversation, we can think about estrogen dominance. We can think about toxic metabolites of estrogen metabolism and hormone metabolism in general. Does glutathione support more optimal metabolism of our hormones in the body?
[1:27:12] DR. PATEL: What glutathione does is actually metabolizing all the metabolites of these hormones. The two big ones are the estrogen metabolites and the testosterone metabolites. Those are toxic to human body, and those we process really, really fast. Otherwise, they can get into either 2-hydroxyestrones, 4-hydroxyestrones, 16-hydroxyestrones, three different metabolites. One of them is causing cancer. The other two are safer. The body goes through the cancer route all the time because it's an easier path.
What glutathione actually does, it helps you get rid of all this, which are what we call lipophilic or oil-loving metabolites. Make the water soluble, so you can pee it out. That's the key. It does help it – it doesn't affect the hormone levels itself, but it will help with the metabolism.
[1:28:08] SCOTT: Let's talk about the potential role of glutathione in neuroinflammatory conditions. If we think about maybe just depression and anxiety, we know that those can be caused by neuroinflammation. Have you seen application for glutathione in depression, anxiety, or other conditions that many would deem more mental-emotional?
[1:28:33] DR. PATEL: When it comes to neuroinflammation, the best people in the world are going to guess, right? If you're looking for my guess, it's going to be the same as my guess, right? Instead of saying, I'm going to give you some other things at this point. What I'm talking about is that we are working with a couple of neurosurgeons, and they're doing brain-mapping studies of glutathione. They have a technology where they can scan your brain with an MRI spectrometry, and they can see all the hot spots of where the glutathione is. Based on the levels of glutathione, where the spots are, they can predict somebody with brain injury, depression, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, and things like that.
The doctor that I'm working with, he is a team doctor for an NFL team, and so he does all the TBI protocols for NFL. I got interested with him because he has a passion about glutathione, and I have a passion about making glutathione. I think this is a match made in heaven. But his passion was he has published numerous articles of glutathione about testings and figuring out what level of glutathione do we need to have in your brain to have a positive impact. I mean, they have shown studies on helping reducing schizophrenia, mood disorders, depression, anxiety. I'm not sure too much about anxiety yet because anxiety is a lot more complicated. It's a lot of stimulus from outside the brain that can be causing anxiety as well, so I'm not sure about anxiety yet.
The other three is absolutely there's a role for glutathione in helping mitigate those issues. I mean, it's not going to represent any of the other medications that they're currently taking right now. But by improving glutathione levels in your brain, it is absolutely reducing the oxidative stress in your brain. I think everybody has heard this before now. Twenty percent of the oxygen that we breathe in goes in your brain, even though your brain by weight is only two percent of your total body weight. The stress is pretty high.
[1:30:48] SCOTT: We know that glutathione goes down with age. You suggested 30 was a good time to start thinking about this. Can we think of glutathione as anti-aging or healthy aging? If we look at the various theories or models of aging, how does glutathione help us to maximize both health span and lifespan?
[1:31:11] DR. PATEL: I only believe in health span because I think the lifespan only comes if you're healthy. If you're not healthy, I don't care if you're going to live to 120. If you can live the last 20, 30 years in a nursing home, there is no lifespan. To me, it's a health span. The health span – but people ask me. They said, “Hey, you know the secret to living longer? The secret is don't die.” Well, I just – it’s easier said than done. If you're not dead, you're living longer. The question is that what is causing death to us today? Can I reduce the causes of death, right? I cannot avoid accidents. I cannot avoid that, accidents.
But the other nine leading cause of death in the world besides accidents is linked to oxidative stress. If I can reduce oxidative stress down to zero or minimal in less than four hours every single day, twice a day, I can have a potential of making you healthier, stronger. Everything that you are thinking of doing as this physical body can do for you, I can do it for you at any age. For that, I always give an example, and the example is for my dad. He was my patient number one. At the age of 78, he was patient number one. He just had an infarction. His heart was getting weaker. He had a complete blockage over his artery. The doctor put a stent in this and, “I don't know how you survived, but you survive right now. I'm giving you all those medications for –” He had diabetes, arthritis, blood pressure issues. Now, he's on statin drugs and blood thinners and all those things, a list of medication coming from the hospital coming home.
I said, “Dad, what are you going to do?” He said, “I don't take any medications. I don’t have cholesterol issues, but the doctor gave me cholesterol pills. I put a stent in there, so I need the blood thinners.” I said, “Okay. Take your blood thinner. You don't have to take your statin drugs if you don't want to, but here's the thing. I'm going to give you glutathione. This is the product that we are working in the lab for a number of years, and it's ready to be used on the patients now.”
He started using the product, right? Four years later, I lost track that he was using this product every single day, but it was four years later. I started looking back. I said, “Dad, you’re doing very good.” He said, “Yes, I've been walking six miles a day now. I'm doing gardening. My diabetes, I have not taken anything about diabetes. I was just taking this one drug, which is metformin. That's the only thing it took, and my sugar is always under control. Honestly, since I was deprived of sugars all my life, I kind of crave sugars now. I'm eating chocolates and things like that on a regular basis. Not a daily basis but on a regular basis. But my levels are still normal.”
At the age of 85, for the very first time, he started drinking. Not because he wanted to become alcoholic, but he started having one or two glasses of red wine every Friday or Saturday. I go, "Dad, why?" He said, "Well, I feel good. I feel really, really good. I don't have no problem." At the age of 85, the reason he started drinking was because at the age of 84, since he was walking six miles per day and he has arthritis for 27, 30 years, something like that, his knees were a little bit deformed from those things. Dad goes, “Can I get some knee replacement done? Because I want to walk, but this is – I'm a little wonky.” I said, “Okay, let's go to the doctor.”
The doctor goes, “Oh, my God. You have no pain?” He said, “No, there is no pain.” I said he needs both his knee replaced. Dad goes, “Okay, let's do both at the same time.” The doctor goes, “Oh, no, no. You can only do one at a time.” He said, “No. God, no. The amount of pain you're going to give me. No, no deal. You do both or none, right?” He convinced the doctor to do both knee replacements at the same time at the age of 84. The doctor said six months for full recovery and not to travel. Three and a half months later, he was in India traveling against all odds, against all odds. I mean, they used to call him superman in the hospital. After a day and a half of surgery, he was walking inside the hospital.
Long story short, he lived until the age of 89, which was this year. He felt so good that he started traveling the world. He went everywhere. He was single. He was 89. Picked up his bag, I bought him the ticket, and he just goes. He just goes. He just flies to India, flies to Africa, Zambia, Kenya. I mean, it didn't matter. He went everywhere on his own by himself, right? Nobody – he doesn't have to worry about food. I think he I said, “I'll just pick up and eat. I'll just walk and get my food or whatever.” This year, he was in India, and he ate some street food, and he got some stomach poisoning, right? He got diarrhea, and he didn't hydrate himself very well. He got lightheadedness, fell down in the shower, and broke his skull. Boom, completely.
[1:36:18] SCOTT: Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry.
[1:36:20] DR. PATEL: Of course, the head of the neurosurgeons in America, I called him right away. I said, "Doctor, my dad just fell down and is bleeding internally, brain hemorrhaging.” He goes, “Where is he?” “He's in India right now." He said, "Okay. Give me the name. Give me the hospital name." That's it. Literally, an hour later, I get a call from my dad. He said, “There's somebody is here to see me that he said that my son sent you.” I said, “Whoa.” I said that fast he made an arrangement for somebody to go see my dad. He says that, hey, that dad is coherent. He's talking. His visual is – there's no memory loss whatsoever. If he can survive, if he can survive the next three to four days, he'd be completely okay, right? Dad says, “See, I told you. I'm fine. I'm fine, okay. I'm in the hospital, but I'm okay.” He made all the calls to everybody. He talked to my brothers, everybody. He talked to everybody, put the phone down, went to sleep, then woke up again. One last sentence, this means that I was able to give the best time of his life. The best time of his life I gave him between the age of 80 to 89.
[1:37:33] SCOTT: That's health span.
[1:37:33] DR. PATEL: That's health span to me and that is – to me, I don't care how long you live. It's about how many years can you live. If you don't read a book, this is for somebody else. The book is called Live a Thousand Years. You’re only going to live 80, 90 years. But how to live a thousand years in that time span is about experiences. It's about what you are doing, not how long you're living.
[1:37:58] SCOTT: In our last several minutes together, let's talk about your products, the Auro Wellness Glutaryl and Glutaryl Plus. Talk to us a little bit about what is the difference between those two products. Who should consider using the plus version? How do we dose them? Is once a day enough? Do we need to do twice a day? Then do we need to refrigerate these products, or are they okay at room temperature?
[1:38:24] DR. PATEL: Glutaryl is my flagship product that has been used in all my clinical trials, the blue box. The Glutaryl Plus was actually 1.75 times stronger than the Glutaryl, and that was introduced about a year or two later after we delivered the Glutaryl. The reason is because we had some celebrity clients that really help them get out of the hospital of some major conditions. Because of that, they goes, “Oh, my God. I need the Plus version.” I said, “No, you don't need the Plus version.” But, of course, when you're billionaires, you control what they want. You cannot tell them what's not right for them, right? They're going to do whatever they're going to do.
I had to launch the Plus version to a bunch of NFL athletes, Olympic athletes, some of my billionaire clients, keeping in mind that the Plus is too much for them, and I tell them already. Everybody should use the regular version. If you have major issues that are linked to oxidative stress, autoimmune conditions, acute infections, cancers, where your needs are extremely, extremely, extremely high. All my athletes, they work out so much. They work out so hard that they would use the Plus version. But besides the athletes, everybody else can use the Plus version twice a day.
But even for those people, I strongly recommend to use the regular version first. Make sure that your body can tolerate, that you have no problem. If that's the case, next month, go for the Plus version. Go for three months, six months, up to one year. If you have NAFLD or NASH where your needs are extremely, extremely high because you have fat cells everywhere, you may need the Plus version for about a year to year and a half. After that, everybody needs to be in the regular Glutaryl for maintenance purposes because that's all you need is just to maintain. There's no need to take more off it.
In terms of storaging, we keep everything at room temperature. In the lab, I store everything at a control temperature, which is not refrigerated, but it's limited. More than refrigerated, but it's less in the room temperature. If for some reason you're buying multiple bottles, I would suggest that you store everything in the refrigerator, except for the one, the bottle that you're using. You can store everything outside, no problem. This is especially for people that live in the high heat zone, right? If you're living in Arizona, if you're living in Texas where it's really, really hot during the summertime, we recommend that in a controlled room temperature or in the refrigerator is better for storage purposes. The bottle that you're using can be in room temperature, no problem.
[1:41:10] SCOTT: Generally, we're applying this. I usually apply it onto my abdomen, kind of rubbing it in. It becomes very sticky, and then almost instantaneously just kind of goes to no longer sticky, right? That's when we know that it's more fully absorbed.
Is there any value in kind of strategic application of, let's say, near the ears if someone has tinnitus or near the eyes if they have cataracts or macular degeneration or maybe on an area of psoriasis or eczema? Or would the benefits be the same when we're just applying it to the abdomen to get up our systemic levels? Then maybe extending on that, what about people that want to just apply the Glutaryl directly on their face or directly on areas of age spots to reduce the melanin and improve their cosmetic appearance?
[1:42:04] DR. PATEL: There is a reason why you would apply directly to the affected area, but affected area that is outside. For example, if you have age spots, then, yes, you can apply it straight on age spots. If you have a lesion, psoriasis, or something like that, you can apply the lesions right there. If you have an inflammation pain in your knees, you can apply your knees. But everything else, keep in mind, glutathione, it’s transported intracellularly. Proximity has nothing to do with it, right? If you have issues in your eyes, which is internal, you can apply it to any part of the body, and the body will transport the glutathione to the rest of the body where it needs to be at.
It says the skin conditions, outside skin conditions are better to be at the application side. Some of the inflammation, like if you have inflamed knees, inflamed ankles, inflamed elbows, then, of course, you apply it at the application site as well. It will help you a lot. Everybody else, it doesn't really matter. I do have patients, most of them ladies, they will apply it on their face because it makes the face really, really smooth, like what you said earlier, right? You apply, apply, apply. It gets really, really sticky. But you keep on rubbing it, even if it's sticky, you can't move your arm, you pat it down, you pat it down, you move it, you pat it down. Then all of a sudden, the whole thing goes away. It is really bizarre. Most people, until they see – the first time I said, "Whoa, what the heck happened?" It’s literally gone. It's all in your blood.
[1:43:39] SCOTT: Let's come back to the delivery system a little bit. We talked about that Trojan horse, that dextrin or cyclodextrin that helps to deliver the glutathione molecule to the cell, to our mitochondria. What is the source of that dextrin? Is it potato or corn or cassava?
[1:43:56] DR. PATEL: It is plant-based, but they are not telling me the source of the product. It is – I did ask them about the GMO conditions and things like that because, keep in mind, in my product, I have nothing GMO, not even one. Here's the thing. Ascorbic acid in America comes from corn. All corn in America is GMO. I had to go outside US to get my ascorbic acid to assure people that this is non-GMO and, in fact, is not even corn. We can have ascorbic acid from tapioca which is non-GMO because I didn't want to affect any part of my DNA with my product, right? The question was very many said that, "Hey, where does cyclodextrin comes in?" Only thing that I got the answer from the company, this is a patented system, so they are not revealing the information to me yet, but they assure me that this is non-GMO cyclodextrin.
[1:44:56] SCOTT: Then there are some other components in your formulas as well such as radish root and honeysuckle flower, quaking aspen. Do those have some functional role? Or are they more about the delivery or used to preserve the product? What's the purpose of some of those other ingredients?
[1:45:13] DR. PATEL: Again, so the way we make this product is that the first we do on the glutathione is we put a chemical cap on the cysteine molecule so it doesn't get oxidized. Then what we do is we create a complex of this glutathione inside the Trojan horse. We stuffed this glutathione into the dextrin molecule. Once that process is finished, the outside is still water. That water outside the complex has a potential of getting bugs in there, right?
I use these radish root extracts and all the registered components of the bark extracts and potassium sulfates and all those things is to protect that water from getting infections, getting bacteria or fungus inside. But it never enters the complex. The complex is completely inert. It's something that stays inside the water molecule. Outside the water is everything in there. The complex is by itself that is ready to be getting inside your body.
[1:46:17] SCOTT: And the complex, we're talking about the dextrin with the embedded glutathione.
[1:46:21] DR. PATEL: And the ascorbic acid.
[1:46:23] SCOTT: If someone is exercising or doing other things where there is some benefit from that stress, more of a hermetic response, when would we then apply the glutathione? Are there situations that we want to use it before and then somewhere we maybe want to use it after the activity?
[1:46:41] DR. PATEL: If you talk to anybody right now today, they don't tell you anything. You can use glutathione at any time. Because guess what? It doesn't absorb. It absorbs so fast and can crunch on the free radicals down that you cannot apply this product before you start your exercise. The reason people do exercise, or cold plunging, or sauna, or red-light therapy, or hyperbaric chambers, or whatever, right? All this is what is giving you low, great stress for your body to become stronger. But if the stress is never increasing in your body because you took glutathione beforehand, all of a sudden, "Oh, my God. I'm working really hard and I'm not seeing any benefits."
But if you do all the stressors and now the body is already engaged and the signal is already there in the body, right? People tell you, "Okay, if you exercise, you can exercise for 30 minutes. Because that's how it has to stay up high for 30 minutes, because that's when the body gets activated. Once the body gets activated, the body is already working. At this point, there's no point having more stress left in your body. After the workout, after cold plunging, after your red light therapy, after sauna, after exercise, whatever you do, then go and use the glutathione. And if you're under the age of 30, you'll need it once a day. Once a day is more than sufficient for you.
[1:48:12] SCOTT: So that kind of leads me into the next question, which is the potential challenge for some people is these products are not cheap. And many people with chronic illnesses don't have the funds to use more expensive interventions. They've been at this for many years. So do we think there's a potential over time for the cost to come down as the product becomes better known and we have more scale of manufacturing? Or do you think for those people, maybe using it one time a day instead of twice a day would still lead them to higher ground?
[1:48:44] DR. PATEL: Yeah. And Scott, I'll be very honest with you. It took me a long time to release this product to the public. Because when I first got this product ready, it was going to be cost prohibitive for anybody to buy it. It's not cheap today either. But imagine all my products, my glutathione is not the most expensive ingredient inside here. All my ingredients, first of all, they're all pharmaceutical-grade. My saccharide dextrin is three times more expensive than glutathione itself. And so, when people talk about it, I said, "Oh, my God, they don't know." But they're comparing my product to some other glutathione products out in the market today.
The third part is that if I went to contract manufacturers to produce this product, it would just be very costly product for everybody. Over the last, I would say, 13 years when I was doing all my trials, I brought everything in-house from start to finish, manufacturing, marketing, sales. I have no middlemen. I have zero middlemen in this whole program, right?
If I offer discounts, I'm offering discounts for my pocket, right? And that's how it came down to. Because there is nobody else in between to leach off of this product. Only one thing, to reduce the cost down. Okay? And so, I tried my very, very best to bring the cost down. I have not raised the price for four years. Because guess what? I had enough stock in my office for two years. And two years ago, I bought another set for another two more years. For four years, I never had any price increases because I was able to manage that with the production rate increase and the cost being as low as possible. Yeah, I wish the products can come down in the future. But only thing that we can see is the cost going up. And the only way I can maintain this cost down as low as possible is I keep all the middle people out of here, right?
[1:50:58] SCOTT: And it is cheaper than a glutathione IV.
[1:51:01] DR. PATEL: Oh my God. Absolutely. So, I always compare to it. I said, "If you're going to pay 50 bucks for an IV shot that only gives you a benefit for 15, 20 minutes, hey, for two bucks, I'll give you a benefit for six hours." Right?
[1:51:13] SCOTT: So in those people that do have some cost constraints though, would you suggest that they just use a totally different type of tool? Or would once a day still be a reasonable thing to consider? What would you suggest?
[1:51:25] DR. PATEL: Absolutely. I would say once a day is better than nothing at all. But once a day is also four sprays, though. I would strongly suggest that they do consume cysteine-rich foods on a regular basis. They do some exercise. They should absolutely limit the toxicants inside the body. That means don't take any more alcohol. If you go out in the sun, limit your sun exposure. Pollution air. Try to live in an environment that is free of pollution and things like that. Do whatever it takes. Use makeup that are completely chemical-free, if possible. Or don't use any makeup whatsoever, right? Do whatever you can to reduce exposure down. Increase your consumption of cysteine-rich foods. And then you can take the gluta or maybe only once a day.
[1:52:21] SCOTT: Would I be better to do four sprays once a day or two sprays twice a day? –
[1:52:25] DR. PATEL: Four sprays once a day is better than two sprays twice a day.
[1:52:28] SCOTT: I know you are working on several new ideas and new products. I've heard you talked previously about something in the NAD realm. Maybe something in the CBD realm. Maybe something in the GHK copper realm. So what's the next big thing that we can expect from you? And will these products also include the glutathione? Or would they be entirely separate products?
[1:52:51] DR. PATEL: They may have limited glutathione in there, but not enough to do a supplementation. It's just to make the complex. The cream is complex. I need a Trojan horse, which is glutathione is my Trojan. And so, it'll take something with it as well. So I need that part.
In the future, I have the NAD product ready. I have the CBD product ready, but I have no intention of releasing them right now. Because I don't see a huge benefit in there at this point. I don't see much benefits. And I don't want to deviate my attention from what I can grab my people and help them get at a better place. Yes, I'll make a few sales on the CBD product because it's a hot product right now. People are buying it all day long. But I'll be busy dealing with those clientele and not helping people with oxidative stress, which is the leading cause of death in the world today, right?
Now GHK Copper on the flip side is very promising. Is very promising. In fact, we're doing a soft launch already in the first week of January. When I say soft launch, I'll be releasing this on the skincare side. It's a topic of progress. It's going to be under the skincare arena at least for the first few years until I get all my data out before it ever gets into the wellness arena.
[1:54:13] SCOTT: My last question is the same for every guest, and that is what are some of the key things you do on a daily basis in support of your own health?
[1:54:21] DR. PATEL: All right. The first thing that I do, first of all, I have a morning routine which includes everything that everybody should have, I think. The first thing is, when you wake up, be thankful. I have my three gratitudes every morning. I combine that with my breathing. We all breathe. But, really, we don't breathe because it's an involuntary muscle. I'll consciously breathe to make sure my lungs expands and gets enough oxygen into my brain. And then for about 10 minutes, I will literally meditate on my three gratitudes for the day. I really want to sink in what I'm thankful about today.
And so, I want everybody to be – we have everything we need. We are living in this world today which the kings and the queens in the 16th century did not have it. And we have everything today and more that we can dream for our personal health and wellness or our luxury. And, yet, we are not happy.
And so, I want to basically make people that, "You know what? Look at the glass as half full. Because that half full glass is all you need to quench your thirst." And so, I want people to be happy and grateful. And I practice myself that part. And that brings me more joy than anything else. And really even relates to my own journey in terms of products. Why I only have one part in my website? Because I don't want to deviate from the – I don't want to get distracted from making money towards helping people.
And so, I want to be really, really be focused on helping people and deviate. And I want to remove all distractions out of here. My team has been bugging me to create more products because, of course, they want more money. I said, "No. I want to create something that is meaningful. Otherwise, no intention."
Anyways, I'm thankful for today, Scott. I knew I was having this podcast today. I was dreaming about you this morning. And you were in my prayers today and said, "Hey, thank you for bringing Scott to me today." I know the message is very compelling. I know who you are and what kind of questions you're going to ask ahead of time a little bit because I know how depth you want to go inside. I'm thankful for what you're doing to bring this information to rest of the people. And I'm so thankful for us being together today. And I hope that our path crosses again.
[1:57:09] SCOTT: Thank you so much, Dr. Patel. This was such a great conversation. You were so generous with your time. I appreciate that you're bringing new tools and solutions to our world so that we can all benefit from them. I've been using the Glutaryl now for several months. Thank you for all that you do. And I look forward to seeing more innovations from you over time. So thank you so much for being here today.
[1:57:31] DR. PATEL: Thank you very much.
[1:57:32] SCOTT: To learn more about today's guest and his product, Glutaryl, visit BetterHealthGuy.link/Glutaryl. That's BetterHealthGuy.link/Glutaryl. BetterHealthGuy.link/Glutaryl.
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a positive rating or review as doing so will help the show reach a broader audience. To support the show, visit BetterHealthGuy.com /donate. To get my newsletter, visit BetterHealthGuy.com/newsletters. To follow me on Facebook, Instagram, X, or TikTok, you can find me there as BetterHealthGuy. This and other episodes can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and Odysee.
[1:58:29] ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening to this BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts with Scott, your BetterHealthGuy. To check out additional shows and learn more about Scott's personal journey to better health, please visit BetterHealthGuy.com.
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Disclaimer
The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or as information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health-related decisions with your own personal medical authority.
