 Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. You know it's been referred to as the mother of all antioxidants, the master detoxifier and the maestro of the immune system. I'm talking about glutathione, one of the most essential molecules for helping the body fight off illness and prevent premature aging. In fact it's been shown that many people who suffer from serious health conditions lack a lot of glutathione in the body. And unfortunately due to poor diet and the abundance of toxins in our environment the majority of us are also running low on glutathione. But my guest today is here to help. After a quick break I'll introduce you to Dr. Steve Morris, a physician and chief formulation scientist who specializes in developing nutraceuticals and cosmetic formulations. Dr. Morris has a passion for discovering alternative ways to promote well-being and when it comes to supporting your glutathione levels he says he's cracked the code in a bit. We'll dive into Dr. Morris's research on some of the most incredible ways to support your health so you feel and even look like a younger, healthier you. So Dr. Morris it's great to have you on the podcast. So first of all for everybody who wants to know what the heck is glutathione and why do we need it? I know that's a big one but let's start there. No, that's a great question. I think to start off we probably need to back up just a little bit and talk about what the heck is a free radical? We hear that word all the time. We hear that we're constantly exposed to them and we are both inside our bodies and outside. And the main thing to know is that free radicals and toxins are basically just unstable molecules looking for stability. Glutathione as you mentioned is the maestro or master antioxidant in the body. It neutralizes or renders inert those free radicals and toxins at a very efficient rate and that's its main role in the body. So I've written in the Energy Paradox and elsewhere that glutathione is really the master antioxidant within mitochondria, the energy-producing organelles in most of our cells. So what's the difference between an antioxidant that we use that term rather freely? Yes we do. And glutathione. Glutathione is a true antioxidant, true? Yes, it's called an endogenous antioxidant meaning it's made inside our body. So in essence the best antioxidant that we have our bodies make. We just need to give it the right building blocks so to speak and we're going to talk about that so our bodies can optimally make the right amount of glutathione. Antioxidants, vitamin C and quercetin, vitamin E, we could list off a number of them. They're all good. Those are considered exogenous meaning they come from outside the body. We ingest them. They go in and they do a similar type reaction we're going to talk about as well to help render these bad molecules harmless. So you're right I think a lot of people certainly have been told that well you can swallow a lot of antioxidants but there's some convincing literature that you could swallow all the antioxidants in the world and they probably aren't going to do a whole lot for you and may in fact be harmful. A lot of people still like to point to the old vitamin E study in smokers. Vitamin E consumption worsened lung cancer and we go down, remember that study? And that vitamin C and excessive doses can turn into a pro-oxidant rather than an antioxidant. You're right, glutathione we make ourselves and in a little bit we're going to talk about swallowing glutathione and yeah. So what's the secret to glutathione? How does it work? How does it mop up free radicals or neutralize them? Well you know what it comes down to one simple thing and honestly it really is a simple sulfur. Glutathione has what is called a sulfhydro group. All that means is it's a fancy term for the fact that it has a sulfur atom attached to the molecule that has a hydrogen atom attached to that sulfur and that sulfur readily wants to give up its hydrogen or electron to neutralize these free radicals if that makes sense and that's the secret behind glutathione, that's how it works. Sulfur, it's that yellow stuff and isn't that the stuff that makes rotten eggs smell like rotten eggs? Exactly, if you've ever been to Yellowstone you'll be very familiar with that. Yeah and you smell like you think well how can that be good for my body? It's vital for your body in many ways and I don't just mean you know for antioxidants. Sulfur is used to make many of the building blocks of all the tissues of our body, it is used in our immune system, it's essential and so yeah we have to get an adequate amount of sulfur to be able to make glutathione. Yeah I think it's fascinating that many Star Trek fans know that we're a carbon based life form but it's perfectly conceivable and many people would argue that we're also a sulfur based life form and I think we probably forget that at our peril. Like you're pointing out sulfur is right behind copper is probably what we need most out of the elemental table. You're right absolutely right yeah I mean I think the general public would be surprised if they knew the types of metals and different things in our bodies that catalyze the reactions that make us make us move and alive every day, chromium for instance, selenium, gold, silver I mean all of these are utilized in the body to catalyze reactions. Okay so you're talking about reactions in sulfation and people have you know heard I'm sure they've heard about sulfur, some people are aware of sulfites, some of the things we use to keep wine from going bad, what's the difference and why is sulfur different than sulfites and should we be worried about all these different forms of sulfur? Very good question so you'll hear two words commonly now and they're demonized it's sulfites and sulfates switch the eye for an A, sulfates the only difference between a sulfate and a sulfite molecule is that a sulfate has four oxygen atoms attached to a sulfur and a sulfite has three oxygen atoms and like you said we use them as preservatives frequently in foods, personal care products, many of the surfactants you know soap a long time ago used to not foam, it foams now because we use sulfates and sulfites, the problem those two ingredients actually are not bad for you they're not carcinogenic they but there are individuals who are sensitive and some individuals who are actually allergic to them and so it's sulfite and sulfate are actual molecules containing sulfur, sulfur is a completely separate thing you need sulfur to live your body's made of it so they're too completely and along that line as well you know there are people who have you know allergies to sulfa drugs, Trimethoprim, Sulfamethoxazole is one of them and you know that once again that has nothing to do with the sulfur atom it's the actual drug gotcha yep so so so sulfur is very important in sulfation and it's role in phase one and phase two detoxification in the liver can you can you walk us through that yes I can absolutely I really wish I could show this picture but basically in the liver the body the body has two let me see if I can bring you bring you back up here the body has two ways that it detoxifies or naturally gets rid of toxins okay so everything that we ingest passes through the liver the liver liver and kidneys for that matter and those those two organs are basically filters phase phase one detoxification utilizes an enzyme called cytochrome P450 or they just abbreviate it CYP450 these enzymes they do kind of a quick and dirty way getting rid of stuff they either oxidize the free radical reduce it or they hydrolyze it by putting hydrogen atoms on it which renders it inert or they dehalogenate it and what that means is is halogens are specific atoms like chlorine for instance is a halogen argon some of the other you know elements in the periodic table they remove those these enzymes do and it makes the free radical once again inert or harmless and those are typically the fat like fat soluble toxins okay things that are that are fatty in nature water soluble toxins that we we ingest or were exposed to those go through a conjugation pathway and what that means is is you know in the case of glutathione glutathione attaches itself to that toxin and by doing so once again makes it harmless and then the body simply passes it out the kidneys and into the urine but that the key the key point here is is that glutathione is is utilized in both phase one and phase two detoxification in the liver hence why another reason why it's called the master antioxidant and so so just kind of follow up with that so if glutathione attaches to a water soluble toxin and it's then excreted in the urine what you're saying is we got to make more glutathione because we're constantly losing it yeah in to a degree yes we are and in our bodies normally are able to do that just just fine but with time age you know exposure to to to toxins chronic disease diabetes cancer heart disease hypertension a lot of things we're seeing in you know the Western world more and more autoimmune disorders the body becomes less efficient at not only producing new glutathione but it becomes less efficient at recycling it we'll talk more about that too well that's probably a you know that's a good jumping off part how do we you know recycle glutathione yeah good good question so glutathione once it's it's primary primary way that it works is it readily donates like I said this this electron or hydrogen atom to the free radical and makes it so it feels complete so it's complete and it doesn't go around scavenging because normally free radical is what they do is like I said they're unstable that they will pull an electron or hydrogen atom from wherever they can get it and unfortunately if it's from DNA you're gonna have damage to your DNA if it's from anything inside the cell you're gonna have damage to the cell and that's why they're so bad so once you make this free radical hole it no longer wants to go around pulling things off and make you know making a muck of things basically basically so the when when glutathione donates its hydrogen it then binds to another glutathione that has also donated its hydrogen okay and it makes what's called glutathione disulfide and we abbreviated it instead of GSH because the hydrogen is gone we abbreviate it GSSH okay and so that's also floating around in our bodies but we have an innate mechanism to recycle this there's an enzyme called glutathione reductase and what it does is it takes that GSSH it's useless and adds a hydrogen and an electron and a hydrogen to each one of them and creates two brand-new glutathione molecules so so why if that happens and as a natural process why are so many of us deficient in glutathione very good questions well there's a couple a couple of reasons one we talked about a little bit touched on low low sulfate intake in our diets I don't think I mean I you know people are more health conscious today but you know some of the foods that you probably ought to look at you know eating more and ingesting that are higher in sulfur meats so turkey beef chicken fish you know for more the vegan route plants such as you know seeds grains legumes nuts walnuts in particular are high in sulfur chickpeas couscous eggs obviously are high in sulfur allium vegetables and that's a class of vegetables and you're gonna be like well yeah they'll smell they'll have kind of a pungent aroma and they're reason-wise because they're high in sulfur and that's onion garlic leeks scallions shallots shallot yeah all of all of those types of vegetables are very very high in sulfur and then there's the cruciferous vegetables that most of us are exposed to and eat and that's broccoli cauliflower cabbage if you ever notice these vegetables that I'm listing off here you put them in the fridge or you cook you cook them and then put them in the fridge and then you get them out if you open up the container you can smell the the sulfur you can you can actually smell it in in in the product arugula is another one kale and radish believe it or not is also high in sulfur so you know looking at all these and trying to include them more in your diet that's one reason why we're deficient you know include a thion the other one it's kind of a hard one to tackle and that's environmental toxins you know there's only so much you can control we live in a world we live in the world that we live in you know and you know recently with COVID and wearing masks and personal protective equipment we've been more conscious of that but the truth of the matter is you're gonna be exposed to environmental toxins it's just it's unavoidable things to mitigate that obviously are you know staying away from things that you know are harmful cigarettes alcohol you know where you live there's only so much you can control there too if you live by a refinery I mean you know those are things that are kind of out of out of our control so that one's kind of a hard one and I tend to kind of steer away from that because it really can't control certain things the third one and this is a really big one especially is is gut health yeah Dr. Gunder you're very familiar with this that the human microbiome which is basically the the bacteria in the intestinal tract out the cells in her body it's like it's like 10 to 1 it it it's literally an organ in and of itself the intestinal tract has its own nervous system it and the bacteria the good bacteria produce certain things molecules that benefit our body when we get dysbiosis which is a fancy term for you know more bad bacteria versus the good and that can happen with you know chronic antibiotic use poor diet you name it we get a disbalance and really it's there needs to be a balance of good and bad bacteria leafy green vegetables contain high amounts of biotin that biotin is then converted to fat free fatty acids which are good for us and that is done by the bacteria in our intestinal tract the intestinal microbes also produce biotin and other key elements that modulate the immune system and help with glutathione production yeah I think the intestinal microbiome which is you know been my area of interest now for 20 years yeah these guys there are sulfur loving the bacteria and one of the things that when I was writing in the energy paradox that surprises many people is we've always been taught as as physicians that hydrogen sulfide which is you know the rotten egg smell is a toxic gas yep and in fact it follows a hormetic curve hydrogen sulfide is actually one of the most important we're now called post biotic gases there are and hydrogen sulfide is really critical for gut communication to our mitochondria to our brain and there's even some really cool evidence that hydrogen sulfide is very important in preventing atherosclerosis so we've kind of ignored the contribution of the microbiome and getting back to your subject sulfur for too long alright so so glutathione so if it's you know if it's the mother of all antioxidants how come most people have have never heard of it yeah that's I I thought about that I think there's probably multiple reasons but I think two of the biggest ones the first one is straight out COVID-19 people have become enamored and they should be more aware more educated in immune health and by doing so you know people are seeing more glutathione products in the market it's being talked about more so I I feel that that's that's definitely part of it also you know we've got more we have more than ever patients you know our people here especially in the Western world with type 2 type 2 diabetes which is a which is an inflammatory disorder heart disease which you're obviously an expert in as well as there's been just an enormous surge in people with auto immune disorders and so I think you know with people getting more educated getting online reading more they're seeing there's a common link between all that and it's it glutathione is that molecule I think the second reason is really that you know you know this is something that's been taught I mean in a medical school and in medicine for forever it's it's just starting to get out there now and I think it's just just a matter of it's just timing honestly so I'm glad I'm glad people are becoming more educated it's a good thing well okay so it sounds like we ought to be getting more glutathione and I'm sure a lot of my listeners can go to the health food store and they may see an entire row of glutathione or glutathione products there's pure glutathione there's NAC and acetyl cysteine and we might touch on the FDA controversy with that there's liposomal glutathione and then there's NACET which you're going to talk about but okay so there's this whole vast array and then when you start reading about glutathione so many times you see well you could don't waste your money glutathione will be broken down and it won't be absorbed and you're just throwing your money away help us out here okay let's do it so yes to a degree taking straight up glutathione the majority of it is lost in what's called the first pass effect and what the first pass effect is basically when you ingest something like I said it goes in your stomach and then it passes through your liver your liver breaks down a lot of a lot of things it just it doesn't pack or the acid in the stomach or the enzymes that the digestive enzymes will break it down so there's a term we use called bioavailability that's just a fancy term for when you ingest something how much of that are you actually getting and how much of it is actually being used for what you're taking it for and so when you take straight up pure glutathione it has a very low bioavailability in the hospital when we have patients come in that have overdosed on Tylenol the the main problem is that they have depleted their glutathione stores and the the only treatment that we really have to get glutathione or to increase glutathione in in their bodies is to aerosolize NAC and that I could always tell when we were when we were treating somebody for Tylenol overdose because on the second floor I could smell sulfur but they would they would do it that way and that administration is a very good way to get the key element which is cysteine we're gonna talk about into the body because it bypasses that first pass effect it goes into the lungs and straight into the bloodstream but ingesting just straight up NAC and acetyl cysteine which is what the majority of glutathione products on the market utilize you're only getting about 10% or less the its bioavailability is very low as well is it still a good product to take sure but it's not near near as effective as what we're gonna talk about in a minute the other one is liposomal glutathione and basically that's you know glutathione that's been encapsulated basically in fatty acids that protect it to allow it to you know get through the digestive tract with enough time to be able to be available there's a problem with that though the body has a built-in has several well more than several hundreds of things called feedback inhibitory mechanisms what that means is the body knows how much it needs of a certain thing believe it or not there is such a thing of having too much of a good thing so when the body senses that it's got enough glutathione it sends a messenger back up and tells the body to shut off the production of glutathione okay it's a default mechanism it saves us because with too much glutathione which liposomal glutathione can do give you too much glutathione you enter what's called a hyper reductive state okay so we're talking about a hyper oxidative state you know we need to get rid of oxidation we got a but being too reduced is also not good as well and that's why NASA is so phenomenal NASA is basically an acetyl cysteine but it has two other chemical groups attached to it an ethyl and an ester group there's fancy terms for a couple other atoms that the ethyl and the ester group allow NASA to be up to 68% bio available to the human body six times the amount the NAC is not only that it doesn't bypass the natural feedback inhibitory mechanisms in the body and even more it readily crosses the protective blood brain barrier that all of us have that protects the brain from toxins and different things NAC and cysteine and other things they don't pass through this does this actually enters the brain and they've done studies shown shown that have shown that supplementation with NASA and their high amounts afterwards in the heart liver brain testes and other vital organs that that are required for life so can you I'll be willing to bet that a lot of people have heard of NAC particularly after NAC supplements disappeared from Amazon yeah after the FDA's announcement that NAC had been declared a drug in the 1930s and it can't be a supplement and and yet people should not be scared number one of NAC but I'll bet you no one has looked up NASA where the heck do you find it well I'm a bit of a nerd I I like to research a lot and I spent a lot of time on PubMed and talking to other colleagues and just you know delving into the textbooks and different things and and and trying to figure out like you know there's got to be a way we can get we can get more cysteine which is the rate limiting factor cysteine is an amino acid we'll talk about that there's got to be a way to get more cysteine in our bodies orally without it breaking down and I stumbled across NASA it it wasn't at the time you know being marketed at all for anything regarding glutathione but you know to research and looking at it more and more was able to see its potential great potential for glutathione production and it's it's you know the blood brain barrier and the fact that it doesn't you know bypass these these natural things that save us our bodies and our bodies I huge potential and so you have in fact a supplement that that contains this right yes yes we do it's we we call it GSH plus GSH is basically a is an acronym abbreviation for glutathione the G stands for glutathione the S stands for sulfur and the H stands for that electron or hydrogen that it donates so if you don't smell sulfur in your product at least a little bit you know you don't have the real thing so that's that's one thing I tell people you know if you get a glutathione product and it doesn't smell a little bad you're you're not getting the right stuff now our our formula contains a lot of other ingredients but before I get into that I want to just touch on a couple of things and one of them is that the key and I said this a couple of times but the key rate limiting factors so if you think about you got a you got an automobile and you know it's the engine works great the electronics are fine the battery is fine but there's no no fuel to put into it it's useless the engine that makes glutathione it's gasoline it's major component the thing that can slow the production of glutathione down is cysteine and like I said it's an amino acid you can take cysteine but once again your body breaks it down and you don't absorb a lot of it so this is NASA is a way to get a cysteine donor is what it's called it basically turns into cysteine once it gets into the body if that makes sense yeah yeah so and we've also included two other key ingredients glutamine which is another ingredient that is in this machine this engine that makes glutathione and then glycine that's a third one that's another amino acid so there's basically three of them that are utilized in the production of glutathione and we have all three of those plus a plethora of other ingredients we can talk about yeah you have several ingredients that really help liver detoxification like milk this will extract yeah here's it in but in the interest of time I know you've talked about too much your your product eliminates that possibility that you can literally overdose on glutathione and have have the opposite effect of what you're looking for yep perfect yeah it eliminates that ability to enter a hyper reductive state and the best way to think about it is to think hyper oxidation is bad we can all kind of imagine that like too much oxidation is bad for you any oxidation really too much reduction in the body which is the opposite of oxidation is bad as well yeah I got it well this is great stuff any other exciting things you're working on that you want to tease our listeners with oh we're working on stuff you briefly you spoke on mitochondria I'm just gonna say something very quickly about that mitochondria actually as we age as well they become leaky they they become the source of the worst free radicals that we're exposed to believe it or not and hence why glutathione is even more important as we as we age we we're working on mitochondrial formulas as well I wanted to touch very briefly as well just on NASA again you mentioned hydrogen sulfide yeah we've been taught that it's this bad thing but it's a key it it actually is a key cellular messenger in the body that helps modulate or control inflammation so it doesn't go out of control and it also helps with insulin resistance and NASA really is only molecule that we know of that that increases the production of hydrogen sulfide so that's that's that's a big deal now it is a big deal yeah because again I think for too long most people and even physicians have been fearful of hydrogen sulfide and you know my gosh it'll kill us but you're right the research that I talk about in the energy paradox it's fascinating how important that chemical is to our well-being so yeah all right well it's like Mars been a real pleasure having you on and it's been exciting for people to hear about glutathione where do people find out more about you and your research well I would point them to to the website try gshplus.com forward slash gunnery all right well we'll keep everybody posted on glutathione and glutathione research and please check out Dr. Morrison his work all right excellent thanks very much thank you on there same thank you for having me appreciate it bye okay it's time for our audience question this question comes from Eola on YouTube who says hello Dr. Gundry could you tell us please if the sprouts are good or bad for the gut thank you well interestingly enough there's actually a lot of research that I published in the plant paradox about sprouts have a very high lectin content particularly when they're very small and just germinating and it was kind of a surprise to me but for instance alfalfa sprouts which are one of the more toxic sprouts to eat is because of the very high lectin content but once the sprout gets beyond just the little thing coming out of the seed then they're actually quite safe to eat so if for instance you're you're worried that your sunflower sprouts that are two or three inches long are dangerous they're not mung bean sprouts for instance are not dangerous so it just depends what you don't don't want to do is get the almost immediately sprouted thing so and I've said this over and over again sprouted breads like Ezekiel which are the miniature immature sprouts maybe one of the most lectin rich foods that you can possibly eat and I've actually seen this in several of my patients who for some reason started eating sprouted bread particularly Ezekiel bread and their autoimmune diseases flared and once we identified that culprit and got it out of their diet things quieted down so great question okay it's time for the review of the week Matthew Blackman on YouTube says thanks dr. G I love taking the time to watch your podcast the plant paradox is a life changer for me great book and easy to read I'm now on to the longevity paradox and I already have the energy paradox so I'm chomping at the bit to get stuck into them you put me on a life-changing journey and I am so grateful for you and your team well thanks a lot Matthew you know that's why I write these books it's for you to get some information that you probably haven't had before and good for you for getting all the books because each time I write a book it's because I've discovered something that you've asked me about that I've learned from my patients and it's you know exciting new knowledge I think and thank you most of you for thinking the same way to pass on and so thank you for writing and again anyone who's listening or watching please send us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast and who knows I'll be reading your letter next and answering your question so I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you we'll see you next week before you go I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes Google Play Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you