Effects of oral glutathione supplementation on systemic oxidative stress biomarkers in human volunteers

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Glutathione.

The study objectives were to determine the effect of oral GSH supplementation on biomarkers of systemic oxidative stress in human volunteers.

Why It Was Studied

The tripeptide glutathione (GSH) is the most abundant free radical scavenger synthesized endogenously in humans.

Despite ease of delivery, little controlled clinical research data exist evaluating the effects of oral GSH supplementation.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Forty (40) adult volunteers without acute or chronic disease participated in this study.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Glutathione and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Glutathione.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Glutathione group a baseline to be compared against.

This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.

The study was conducted at Bastyr University Research Institute, Kenmore, WA and the Bastyr Center for Natural Health, Seattle, WA.

What Was Measured

Despite ease of delivery, little controlled clinical research data exist evaluating the effects of oral GSH supplementation.

PubMed files the paper under topics including 8-Hydroxy-2'-Deoxyguanosine, Analysis of Variance, Antioxidants, Biomarkers, Deoxyguanosine, Dietary Supplements and Erythrocytes.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Glutathione.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 8 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2011 (Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.)), a journal based in United States.

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