Cysteine supplementation improves the erythrocyte glutathione synthesis rate in children with severe edematous malnutrition

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Glutathione in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The researchers tested whether early dietary supplementation with cysteine could restore a normal GSH concentration and synthesis rate in these children.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 16 children taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are infants, both men and women.

Erythrocyte cysteine and GSH concentrations and the fractional and absolute synthesis rates of GSH were measured in 2 groups of 16 edematous malnourished children, 10 boys and 6 girls aged 6-18 mo, at 3 times after hospital admission: at approximately 2 d (period 1), when they were malnourished and infected; at approximately 11 d (period 2), when they were malnourished but cleared of infection; and at approximately 50 d (period 3), when they had recovered.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

Because people in this Glutathione study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Acetylcysteine, Deuterium, Dietary Supplements, Erythrocytes, Glutathione, Glycine and Kwashiorkor.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Glutathione in 16 children.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2002 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Glutathione compound page, all human trials.