Hi,

So ive been reading a lot this week about glutathione and how its helps the body because it's such a powerful antioxidant we produce naturally but is usually depleted, especially in the chronic-pain community.

Its been suggested that consuming undenatured whey protein is the best precursor to help the body produce glutathione along with l-carniteine.

Does anyone have any experience with this and do you think it would help in any way with SFPN?

Thanks,

Jim

Jim, I doubt that eating undenatured compared to denatured whey protein will make any difference.

When any protein food reaches the stomach it will rapidly become denatured, mainly because of the low pH (~ 1,5-3.5) in the stomach and also because a stomach enzyme (pepsin) will rapidly cleave any protein-rich food into small fragments, regardless of whether it enters the stomach in native (not denatured ) or denatured form.

ok, you make an interesting point.

I had read though that for whey protein to be effective in raising glutathione it must be kept unheated and unaltered at all times during the manufacturing process as this protects the main proteins that supply cysteine, which is deemed the most essential of the three glutathione precursors. However, when the whey protein becomes heated/ denatured it loses a lot of these things...

If the protein enters your body though, presumably the stomach needs to allow it into the body without destroying it? Im sure im probably missing something...

Jim, if whey protein becomes denatured it will not change the fact it, same as all other proteins, contains cysteine. Your digestive system (not just the stomach) will convert all proteins into their constituent amino acids - these, including cysteine, can be transported into the blood - cysteine can then, among other things, be used to make glutathione.

In general, whole proteins can not cross the gut (stomach, etc) wall into the blood unless something has gone wrong.

What the gut does is to break down large molecule into their small components (amino acids in the case of proteins, sugars in the case of polysaccharides like starch, etc). These small components are transported into the blood where they are used for many functions.

Ok cool, thanks for clearing that up, Kiwi. I had no idea about the details of those digestive functions.

Interesting that i managed to find so much reference to undenatured whey being 'the only whey' you should consume for glutathione production, when its clearly nonsense. I guess i should do my biology homework more often

One further question regarding Glutathione and SFN: do you think that an increase in production would have any benefit on SFN? Or should i just dismiss the whole idea?

ahh sorry, ive just seen there are a bunch of threads already on glutathione. It was just that i had spelled it incorrectly when doing a forum search previously... \o/

Glutathione

Glutathione for PN?

Boosting glutathione help nueropathy?

and there i was thinking id found something new out...

(forum moderators feel free to delete this thread)

You might want to consider picking up Dr. Horowitz's new book How Can I Get Better? He is such a bright guy. Just searching the ebook version, it lists 99 results for Glutathione.

I just started reading this book. You don't have to necessarily have Lyme to find this book beneficial. He has chapters on pain, autonomic nervous system, mitochondrial dysfunction, immune dysfunction, and environmental toxins etc. He also talks about IVIG through the book for resistant neuropathies and talks about nerve antibody panels. It's very interesting.

Here is a link to the book. How Can I Get Better?: An Action Plan for Treating Resistant Lyme & Chronic Disease: Richard Horowitz: 9781257548: Amazon.com: Books


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ahh great, i read the previous book by him but i didnt know there was a new book out. Will definitely pick this up, you're right he clearly knows his stuff and it goes way beyond Lyme.

Thanks!