Has anyone tried IV "push" of glutathione? I did it for around 6 months once a week but had no observable results. I was thinking of going back to it since I saw the article

Glutathione – Getting the k’NAC’k of Parkinson’s disease | The Science of Parkinson's disease

Hi KNPV,

When you read the article, did you click on the link to the blog post by Prof. Frank Church?

In particular, where he said the following:
"- Extracellular GSH cannot be transported easily into neurons, although there is evidence GSH gets past the blood brain barrier;
- N-acetyl Cysteine (NAC), is an anti-oxidant and a precursor to GSH. NAC gets through the blood brain barrier and can also be transported into neurons;"

He went on to say:
"On a personal note, I have been taking ... NAC ... for the past year with the hope that it is performing the task as outlined in this post."

The Yack on NAC (N-Acetyl-Cysteine) and Parkinson’s | Journey with Parkinson's

Thanks, Jeff. I reread the article and yes, better to try NAC. I just ordered some using the dose that was mentioned.

think about it, I.V. glutathione has been around for at least 14 years, do you think if it really helped anyone except for maybe a short term benefit which is quite expensive we'd all know about it? i tried it 12 years ago for 6 weeks and received no benefit. there's a lot less posts now a days on this board from parkies trying alternative treatments, especially with the loss of RICK but years ago glutathione was a major topic. unfortunately a lot of that discussion doesn't come up on search since it was on another board and the old posts were not transferred over when the old board was shut down. so i don't think you're exploring new ground here and were're all just wearing blinders to alt treatments. there has been 2 nasal glutathione trials, maybe you want to look into that. try to find any posting on a social media board where someone said they got a major benefit. in comparison, when the study came out stating 1000mg /day of coq10 delayed progression, i spent $200/month for coq10 but soon stopped, couldn't afford it. but noone wanted to wait for a 2nd trial to verify the results of the first trial, desperate people do desperate things and get taken advantage of. the 2nd study showed coq10 did not slow progression at even higher doses. so this proves that if there is the slightest hope that an OTC treatment might help, parkies will try it and we'll know quickly if it really does help, and it won't take years. so i will stick my neck out and say if NAC or glutathione in the forms that we can obtain currently helped, we'd know about it with just 1 person claiming on the internet that it helped which would trigger a wave of "testers", as did the hype that coconut oil helped an alzheimer patient.



but go ahead and try it, ya never know.

NAC seems to have a side-effect that may actually be beneficial for some. A couple of guys at HU have reported severe constipation when taking 1800mg/day. One thought was that NAC was causing a "drying out" of the GI tract. For myself (at 1200mg/day) and for someone at HU, NAC seems to have had a beneficial effect on our "urge incontinence" symptoms, possibly for the same reason (i.e. a drying-out effect). I'm happy to keep taking it just for that benefit.

I've been taking NAC for about 5 months. I've also been taking mannitol for about 8 months. I've also been doing 40 mins of high-cadence cycling every day for about 16 months.

Things have been going really well since shortly after I started taking NAC. How much of this can be attributed to NAC, or to mannitol, or to high-cadence cycling (or to some combination of these), is not clear to me.

Thank you both for the information. Jeff, do you have a Theracycle? It seems they are very expensive and the only one out there that does the assisted peddling. We have a swimming pool but I discovered when I tried to swim my core body just didn't have the muscles enough to keep me from sinking! HA! What a shock! At least I had the sense to stay in the shallow end. I applaud your cycling every day! We decided to get a treadmill-- used---so at least I can walk in the shade. It's been around 90 and humid every day for a couple of months so walking on the street does not work. My husband had a stroke about 5 years ago and he is doing well, and can use the treadmill, too. We can get them "used" for around $200 so that is really cost effective.

Soccer, the "coconut oil" woman is a doctor and that gave her high credibility. I wonder if that has been tried by anyone on this board. Her story about her husband's benefit was amazing. Back to the "nac," the MRI showing treatment before and after nac was impressive. Glutathione – Getting the k’NAC’k of Parkinson’s disease | The Science of Parkinson's disease I hope I can tolerate the 600 mg doses as my stomach is sensitive.

my advice is to research these topics better, i know the wife of the alz. patient is a doctor but if you research further the benefit was not all that great. that said, a university was supposed to have started a clinical trial on coconut oil and alz. i don't have a link, too lazy.

dr. hauser at USF did a trial testing IV gluta ---- no benefit.
i'm in seattle where the inhaled gluta studies were done. talked to 3 people who tried it and no benefit and expensive since only 1 pharmacy in the area has the blessing of dr. mischele to compound it, at least i think that's the case.

i wish this stuff worked. when i was first diagnosed in 2002 i thought i'd be the first person to beat pd. my pd got worse soon after having my amalgam fillings removed and i thought, ah ha, mercury poisoning caused my pd. i ignored the fact that dentists didn't get pd more often than the avg person. so i tried IV chelations from a MD - she was sure they would reduce my pd symptoms - they didn't. switched to the CUTLER's chelation protocol where you take chelating drugs every 4 hours for at least a month!! did it for 3 weeks and quit. every alt med practitioner ii met thought they could help me or provide useful diagnosis, from andy cutler with his chemistry ph.d - he was living in seattle, to the optometrist who he said could detect mercury poisoning from my eyes - she wasn't sure - to the naturpath that had me take lots of expensive tests but had never treated a pd patient but he was highly recommended, bottom line i became a little skeptical.

you could probably get a bike trainer apparatus which you place the bike on so you can use it indoors and a used bike for $200 and make a stationary bike. that's what i use.

Thanks! It's great you share the info on what you have done already. It gives context to what we read about in medical studies and also what one thinks of attempting. I have a not-so-great medical history. Fell off a horse when I was ten years old, was riding a young horse bareback and they had to come looking for me. I was out cold. Fast forward to a bad case of Lyme disease. Lived in PA at the time "in the country." We had deer herds on our land all the time. I was also an avid participator in dog sports, especially tracking, search and rescue, personal protection, etc. so I spent a great deal of time outdoors...oh, and including gardening. I had, in paticular, Lyme meningitis. That lasted for years and I'm suspecting that PD followed right along.

Hi KNPV,

High-cadence cycling is a bit off-topic, but now that you've asked (and since it's your thread) ...

I don't have a theracycle. I bought a stationary bike (for about $200) that has magnetic resistance. It is very quiet.

I follow the protocol from the clinical trial described in the link below. It specifies a cadence of between 80 and 90 RPM, and a heart-rate of between 60% and 85% of HRmax, where HRmax is simply calculated as 220 minus your age. Forty minutes per session, three sessions per week.

It Is Not About the Bike, It Is About the Pedaling: Forced E... : Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews

My bike has lots of possible readouts, but the only one I use is the timer. I check my cadence every now and then by counting the number of times my right foot goes around in a 20 second period, and then multiply by 3 to give me the cadence (RPM).

I have a second bike (about $50) which is very small and has no seat and no handlebars. I have it placed on a desk/table and I use it for "arm cycling".

I follow John Pepper's advice of not exercising the same muscle group 2 days in a row. I do leg-cycling one day, arm-cycling the next.

Doing the exercise first thing every morning has a couple of things going for it:
- it just becomes part of your daily routine (like eating breakfast);
- after it's done, you then have the whole morning (virtually), the whole afternoon, and the whole evening, to do other things.

Jeff