Vitamin C decreases reduced glutathione in chronic haemodialysis patients: a pilot, randomised, double-blind trial

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Glutathione.

Whey protein has antioxidant properties through its amino acid cysteine, which enhances the biosynthesis of glutathione, the most abundant antioxidant non-protein in mammalians.

The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of whey protein and vitamin C supplementation on OS biomarkers in chronic haemodialysis (HD) patients.

Who Took Part

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

This pioneer trial was a randomised, double-blind, pilot study in patients from a dialysis clinic.

Patients were randomised into three groups (1:1:1) and stratified by HD frequency (2 or 3 times/week).

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and pilot study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Glutathione group and the comparison group should start out alike.

As a double-blind Glutathione study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Glutathione could be set against what happens without it.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Glutathione study would be practical.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Ascorbic Acid, Dietary Supplements, Glutathione, Oxidative Stress, Pilot Projects, Renal Dialysis and Whey Proteins.

Author keywords: Chronic kidney disease, Haemodialysis and Vitamin C.

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 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2021 (International urology and nephrology), a journal based in Netherlands.

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