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Your Supplement Stack May Be Working Against You

Most people treating aging are managing a stack. NAD here, CoQ10 there, something for mitochondria, something for the enzymes that bind it all together. The stack grows. The results stay vague. What if one molecule was already designed to do most of that work, and the problem was simply that standard delivery methods never get it inside the cell?

Pharmacist Nayan Patel has spent 25 years on that question. On this episode of Regeneration Effect, Dr. Yi Song sits down with Patel to trace glutathione from its discovery -- a molecule so difficult to formulate it sat largely untouched for over 140 years -- through the cyclodextrin breakthrough that finally makes it bioavailable at the cellular level, and through the clinical cases that shaped his thinking on dose, timing, and who actually needs more.

The Drug Model That Treats Aging Like a Subscription

Fresh out of pharmacy school in 1996, Nayan Patel had plans to eliminate disease. What he found instead was a system designed to manage it. Every patient he saw was being prescribed medications they would take indefinitely -- not to resolve the underlying condition, but to suppress its symptoms. The math was simple and discouraging: patients were buying subscriptions, not solutions.

That observation redirected his career. Rather than continue to dispense maintenance medication, Patel moved into compounding, customizing formulations for individual patients. It was during that period that a client asked him about anti-aging, a concept so new in the 1990s that Patel did not know what it meant. The question sent him to the research. Glutathione, already documented as the body's most powerful antioxidant, was the answer he kept landing on. Nobody had figured out how to make it work. He decided that was the problem worth solving.

“The only thing I was allowed to do was manage people's problems, not get rid of them. People were basically buying a subscription on prescription medication for the rest of their lives, knowing that nothing was going to go away -- everything was just going to be maintained.”
— Nayan Patel

One Antioxidant to Outperform Every Other

Patel describes antioxidants in three tiers. Bucket one holds glutathione alone. Bucket two contains the body's own secondary antioxidants -- catalase, glutathione peroxidase (GPX), superoxide dismutase (SOD), carnosine, alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin E, CoQ10. Bucket three holds everything taken from outside the body: vitamin C, antioxidant serums, chlorella, blueberry extracts, superfoods. His claim is not subtle. Glutathione in bucket one, he argues, is more powerful than buckets two and three combined. Not just a leading contender -- an order of magnitude above the field.

What most people do not know is that glutathione's primary role is not simply antioxidant defense. It also handles liver conjugation and detoxification. In practical terms, one molecule is handling what a full supplement cabinet attempts to approximate.

“You can combine every product in the world. The power of antioxidants is nowhere close to what glutathione can do by itself. And that is only for antioxidants. On top of that, glutathione is also there for conjugation and detoxification of the liver.”
— Nayan Patel

Why the Body Cannot Import Glutathione From the Outside

This is the part that unravels most of the commercial glutathione market. The body produces glutathione intracellularly -- inside the cell -- and the molecule cannot be absorbed from the bloodstream and transported inside as a whole unit. What actually happens when you take standard glutathione (IV, liposomal, oral) is that the molecule is broken down outside the cell into its amino acid components. Those amino acids are transported in and used to manufacture fresh glutathione inside. You are supplementing precursors, not the molecule itself.

That has two implications. First, many commercial glutathione products are essentially amino acid delivery vehicles, regardless of how they are labeled. Second, the rate-limiting factor is not whether glutathione is present in the blood, but whether the cell has everything it needs to synthesize it internally -- and aging erodes most of those inputs in parallel.

“The body produces its own glutathione intracellularly. Your body cannot take glutathione from outside and bring it inside the cells. It can only transport nutrients like amino acids, and those are what will be used inside the body to produce your own glutathione.”
— Nayan Patel

The Molecular Chain That Breaks When We Age

To synthesize glutathione, the cell needs three amino acids (glycine, glutamate, and cysteine), two enzymes to connect them, two ATP molecules for energy, and one NAD molecule for electron transfer. Every component must be present. Miss one, and synthesis stops.

Aging depletes nearly all of them in parallel. NAD declines. ATP production slows. Enzyme activity drops. So even someone eating clean and keeping amino acid levels up still sees glutathione production fall because the supporting chemistry is eroding. The body is missing parts -- not just one, but many at once. This is why stacking individual supplements for each component tends to create gaps rather than coverage. One missing link, and the whole chain fails.

“To produce glutathione, you need three amino acids: glycine, glutamate, and cysteine. You also need two enzymes to connect them, two molecules of ATP for energy, and one molecule of NAD for electron transfer. As you age, even if one thing is missing, you cannot produce glutathione.”
— Nayan Patel

What NAD Supplements Actually Do (and Do Not Do)

NAD has become one of the most marketed longevity supplements of the last decade. Patel is not dismissive of it -- but he is precise about what it does and does not do. NAD is an electron transfer molecule. It does not produce energy; it moves it. The analogy he uses: a light switch does not generate electricity, it routes it. Useful, but not the source.

The implication is that taking NAD in isolation, without addressing the rest of the synthesis chain, may produce limited results. Patel tested his own NAD levels after saturating his glutathione for several months. His NAD came back normal. He stopped supplementing five years ago. His levels remain in normal range.

“NAD is an electron transfer molecule. The only thing it does is transfer energy -- like a light switch. A light switch does not produce electricity. It routes it from one side to the other. It is important, but not as important as people think.”
— Nayan Patel

Six Years to Build a Molecule That Reaches the Cell

The clinical observation that drove Patel's research was simple: IV glutathione lasted five to fifteen minutes in the body before being excreted. Patients were paying significant sums for a molecule that was washed out before it could do sustained work. Liposomal forms did not resolve the problem either -- unstable at room temperature, fragile encapsulation. In 2001, one of his researchers suggested applying a cyclodextrin technology they had been exploring for other molecules. Cyclodextrin is a ring-shaped carrier capable of trapping smaller molecules inside its structure and reducing particle size significantly. It took six years. By 2007, the formulation was functional. It has been in prescription use since 2010 and available over the counter since 2021.

“Glutathione was my number one product sold as an IV, and it did not last in the body for more than five to fifteen minutes. I wanted results for twelve hours a day. I was not going to accept paying so much money for something that is excreted before it does its job.”
— Nayan Patel

Oxidative Stress Is the New Penicillin Problem

Patel draws a historical parallel that reframes the conversation around aging. Penicillin, introduced in the 1940s, extended human life expectancy by approximately 20 years by addressing what was then the leading cause of premature death: bacterial infection. Today, you would not take penicillin to live longer -- because infection is no longer the primary threat.

The primary threat now, he argues, is oxidative stress. It underlies more than a thousand diseases and conditions. Addressing it would have a cascade effect across the entire spectrum of chronic illness, the same way antibiotics cascaded across infectious disease. The implication: glutathione, the body's primary defense against oxidative stress, may be the most consequential longevity intervention available right now -- not because it is a treatment, but because it supports the body's own repair capacity.

“The number one cause of death today is oxidative stress. If I can reduce oxidative stress, it has a cascade effect on over a thousand diseases and conditions. That is how we can extend life -- not by doing interventions, but by identifying what is killing you today and stopping it.”
— Nayan Patel

When Dosing Goes Wrong -- and When Higher Is Warranted

Patel learned the hard limits of dosing through clinical experience. Early on, he was administering 600 mg to 1,000 mg IV doses to patients with Parkinson's and severe conditions. Within a short period, patients were experiencing rashes, itching, diarrhea, stomach cramps, and headaches -- Herxheimer reactions, the body's response to rapid toxin release faster than it can clear the byproducts. The doses had to stop.

Through blood testing with a physician colleague in Utah, the optimal dose was established: 100 mg, administered twice daily via nasal spray, four sprays per session. That dose, via cyclodextrin delivery, is bioequivalent to approximately 10,000 mg of IV-administered glutathione in terms of what the cell actually receives. That said, higher-concentration formulations are appropriate in specific cases: severe liver disease, multiple autoimmune conditions, advanced metabolic disorders, and oncology support. Many oncologists now use Patel's higher-concentration product concurrently with chemotherapy to protect healthy cells -- allowing more aggressive treatment without proportional cellular damage. These higher doses are typically temporary, running three to six months before returning to maintenance.

“What I found out was this molecule was getting into the cell membrane and detoxifying the body so fast that people were having Herxheimer reactions -- rashes, itching, diarrhea, stomach cramps. We only need 100 milligrams, four sprays, twice a day. That 100 milligrams, via this technology, is equivalent to roughly 10,000 milligrams of IV push in terms of what the cell actually receives.”
— Nayan Patel

Why Blood Tests for Glutathione Are Often Misleading

Standard lab tests for glutathione are unreliable by design. The molecule oxidizes within seconds of a blood draw. By the time the sample reaches a standard analyzer, a significant portion has already converted to its oxidized form. What you are measuring is not your circulating reduced glutathione -- it is an artifact of sample handling.

Patel's research team developed a workaround: drawing blood directly into vacuum conditions and freezing samples at minus 80 degrees Celsius within minutes of collection. The results held across populations. Everyone tested -- from students to professors -- was running higher oxidized glutathione than reduced. His own serum glutathione levels run low-normal, because he is supplying precisely the amount his body needs daily. The body does not store excess. The signal worth watching is not the serum number -- it is the downstream function: metabolic markers, inflammation markers, liver function, heart function. When those improve, the glutathione is doing its job.

“My doctors are measuring the metabolic markers, the enzymes, the inflammation markers -- liver function tests, heart function tests. All of those are improving. If those are improving, the glutathione is doing its job. The serum number is not the signal. The downstream function is.”
— Nayan Patel

Medical & Regulatory Disclaimer

Informational Purposes Only: The content on this page is for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

FDA Regulation & International Practice: Dr. Yi Song practices regenerative medicine in Colombia. The therapies discussed—including the systemic application of expanded Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells (UC-MSCs)—have not been approved by the FDA for the treatment of specific diseases. These treatments are administered in Colombia in compliance with local regulations.

Individual Results May Vary: Testimonials and case studies represent individual outcomes and do not constitute a guarantee of specific results.

0:00 INTRODUCTION: THE GLUTATHIONE REVOLUTION

Dr. Yi Song: Hi, we are another day on the ocean here in Drake Passage. We are happy to have Nayan Patel, a pharmacist, with us today. We are going to talk about glutathione and everything about longevity from Dr. Patel's point of view. Nice to have you here.

Nayan Patel: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

0:32 WHY A PHARMACIST STOPPED PRESCRIBING DRUGS

Dr. Yi Song: Do you want to talk a bit about how you got into glutathione?

Nayan Patel: Absolutely. Glutathione -- when I first started was back in 1996 when I came out of pharmacy school. I thought that everything I needed to learn from pharmacy, I now knew. You go out there and save the world, right? Take care of people, get them off medication, take care of their diseases. I had some massive plans.

What I found out was the only thing I was allowed to do was manage people's problems -- not get rid of them. We cannot take the problems away; we just manage them for the rest of their lives. People are basically buying a subscription on prescription medication, knowing that nothing is going to go away, everything is just going to be maintained. That is not a deal for me or for my family. People are looking for solutions. I want to get rid of this problem, not manage it.

So I started working on different ways. I began doing compounding medications, making customized formulations on my own. People started approaching me. Someone said, "Hey, do you have something for anti-aging?" I said, "What is anti-aging?" This was the 90s. I didn't know what anti-aging was. I thought it meant age reversal. How can you reverse age if we cannot even stop it from aging?

Then somebody said, "Can you make me a vitamin C product?" I said, "Really? Vitamin C is not produced by humans. Why would you make a product that is not even produced by humans? Why not work on something called glutathione?" I had no idea what it was at that time. I researched antioxidants and found that glutathione was the best. But it was too hard to make, it smelled, it had been around for 140-plus years and nobody knew how to do it properly. So I took it on with my research team. The journey began in 1999. Today, I have mastered this glutathione molecule -- how it interacts with the body, how it can do the job of thousands of different medications. I wrote a book about it called The Glutathione Revolution.

Dr. Yi Song: Is that on Amazon?

Nayan Patel: It is on Amazon, yes.

4:02 THREE ANTIOXIDANT TIERS: GLUTATHIONE OUTPERFORMS THEM ALL

Dr. Yi Song: In my understanding, besides glutathione, there are also other antioxidants in the human body. Can we talk about them? Things like alpha-lipoic acid, curcumin, carnitine?

Nayan Patel: Great question. If you think about glutathione as an antioxidant, I put it in bucket number one -- that is one bucket by itself. Bucket number two is the body's own production of antioxidants: catalase, glutathione peroxidase (GPX), superoxide dismutase (SOD), carnosine, alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin E, CoQ10 -- the basic ones. Bucket number three is all exogenous products -- things we take from outside sources to help us: vitamin C, antioxidant serums, juices, chlorella tablets, mangosteen, blueberry juice, and so on.

Glutathione in bucket number one is more powerful than buckets two and three combined by itself. You can combine every product in the world -- the power of antioxidants is nowhere close to what glutathione can do by itself. And that is only for antioxidants. On top of that, glutathione is also there for conjugation and detoxification of the liver. That is a bonus. So do we need a thousand different medications, or one glutathione?

5:54 WHY YOUR BODY CANNOT IMPORT GLUTATHIONE FROM OUTSIDE

Dr. Yi Song: So our body endogenously creates glutathione itself. But for some reason the cells cannot absorb it efficiently from the outside?

Nayan Patel: Production goes down over time. The glutathione molecule, without special technology, cannot cross the cell membrane. It has to be broken down outside the cell and then transported in. The body produces its own glutathione intracellularly. Your body cannot take glutathione from outside and bring it inside the cells as a whole molecule. It can only transport nutrients like amino acids, and those are what will be used inside the body to produce your own glutathione.

So all the products available in the commercial market today -- whether IV therapies, oral supplements, creams, or lotions -- are actually broken down into amino acids, those amino acids are transferred in, and your body makes its own glutathione internally. As we age, we produce less of it. But the decline is happening because the entire synthesis chain is degrading.

7:23 HOW AGING DEPLETES GLUTATHIONE AT THE MOLECULAR LEVEL

Nayan Patel: To produce glutathione, you need three amino acids: glycine, glutamate, and cysteine. You also need two enzymes to connect those three molecules together, two molecules of ATP for energy, and one molecule of NAD for electron transfer -- so that electricity keeps flowing to the energy sources and everything can fuse together to make one glutathione molecule. As you age, even if one thing is missing, you cannot produce glutathione. NAD declines, ATP declines -- everything declines.

8:00 THE SUPPLEMENT STACKING TRAP

Nayan Patel: People say, "If I take NAD, it is a master molecule, it is going to change the world." Well, it may. But NAD is an electron transfer molecule. The only thing it does is transfer energy -- like a light switch. A light switch does not produce electricity. It routes it from the outside source to the inside. Transferring electricity is important, but it is not as important as people think.

So as we age, if anything in the chain is missing, glutathione declines. You can take all the supplements in the world -- but if one amino acid is missing, or one enzyme, or the ATP, or the NAD, the whole chain breaks. So what do people do? They stack. I am taking glutathione, I am taking NAD supplements, I am taking something for mitochondria, something for enzymes -- five or six different things to do what one glutathione molecule does.

Dr. Yi Song: So you are saying those people doing so many things are actually being inefficient?

Nayan Patel: Exactly. And sometimes someone stops one supplement because they did not notice a direct benefit from that one -- and then nothing works. The whole chain fails.

9:29 DOES GLUTATHIONE REPLACE NAD SUPPLEMENTATION?

Dr. Yi Song: In your opinion, do you think you only need glutathione when you age, or do you actually also need to supplement NAD?

Nayan Patel: That is a tough question, and I want to answer it correctly because I have used energy supplementation myself. What I found is that once glutathione levels are saturated -- and everybody has a different saturation point, depending on their health and vitality -- in my case, within two and a half to three months, my energy levels normalized. After that, I never needed energy supplements again. In some cases it may take about a year.

I tested my own NAD levels. They came back fine. I stopped supplementing almost five years ago. They are still in normal range.

Dr. Yi Song: When you supplemented NAD, did you do it intravenously, intramuscularly, or by pill?

Nayan Patel: I used the same cyclodextrin technology I developed for glutathione -- applied as a nasal spray. Unfortunately, I only make that through prescriptions, so people in the US need a physician's prescription.

11:37 NAD DELIVERY: IV, INTRAMUSCULAR, OR NASAL SPRAY

Dr. Yi Song: Why is intranasal NAD application better than intravenous or intramuscular?

Nayan Patel: Intravenous is actually the best application for NAD -- it gets straight into the system and it is amazing. The problem is I am needle-phobic. I do not like needles. So I am always thinking about a solution that bypasses them. The nasal dose has to be much higher to get adequate absorption, but it works for me.

Dr. Yi Song: Have you ever done NAD intravenously yourself?

Nayan Patel: No, I have not done intravenous. But I used to make IV NAD and I watched patients receive it. If the infusion rate goes too fast, the chest gets heavy. And I tried it once myself -- within seconds I would feel the nausea. Stop the infusion, the nausea goes away immediately. Start again, it comes back.

Dr. Yi Song: Even when you go slowly, it is the same thing. What is the mechanism?

Nayan Patel: I do not know why the nausea happens. But the bigger concern clinically is the chest pressure, not the nausea. Intramuscular shots at 25 milligrams are much more tolerable -- even then you may feel a tiny sensation, but it is spread out and manageable. If people can do IM shots of NAD, that is by far the best option after IV. I just hate shots, so I figured out the nasal technology.

We now have NAD, tirzepatide, oxytocin, PT-141, and several other peptides available as nasal sprays through Central Drugs Compounding Pharmacy.

Dr. Yi Song: What about BPC-157?

Nayan Patel: BPC is not yet legal for compounding in the US. It is a 15-amino-acid peptide, so once it becomes legal it will not be difficult to produce. We will get there.

15:31 WHY MOST GLUTATHIONE PRODUCTS NEVER REACH THE CELL

Dr. Yi Song: Without encapsulation or protection, glutathione is not stable at room temperature -- it would oxidize very quickly.

Nayan Patel: Correct. It gets oxidized fast. But this bottle of mine has been sitting at room temperature for a long time and is still clear. That is the dextrin technology, not liposomal encapsulation. Liposomal products must be refrigerated -- room temperature breaks them down. With our cyclodextrin technology, we have actually compressed the glutathione molecules into particles small enough that even significant heat cannot break the molecule apart. We ship these in delivery trucks that reach over 100 degrees in summer and the product holds.

We did not release this to the public until 2021, but we had been selling it through physician prescriptions since 2010. The reason I kept it on prescription for so long was to monitor every patient -- how much to give, how often, what symptoms appeared, what results we were seeing, whether there were side effects. Prescriptions let me control the research while it was still in progress.

18:00 SIX YEARS TO CRACK THE CYCLODEXTRIN DELIVERY SYSTEM

Nayan Patel: I used to make IV glutathione. It was my number one product. But it did not last in the body for more than five to fifteen minutes -- then it was excreted. I was not willing to accept that. I wanted results for twelve hours a day, not fifteen minutes. Liposomal forms did not give me the results I expected either. So I said there has to be something else.

One of my researchers said, "At the university I was working on cyclodextrin technology for protein molecules. This glutathione is a small tripeptide -- it should work." We started the project in 2001. Six years later it was done. By 2007, we had perfected it. We use a cyclodextrin technology to reduce the particle size and then encapsulate it in the dextrin structure so it can be delivered to the cell membrane.

Dr. Yi Song: Can the dextrin technology be used for other peptides?

Nayan Patel: Yes -- peptides, not proteins. Anything under roughly 40 amino acids. Proteins I am not sure about yet. We make tirzepatide and semaglutide nasal sprays using the same technology. The absorption is not as strong as IM shots, so the dose is adjusted accordingly.

Dr. Yi Song: So when you do GLP-1 nasal spray, is that using the same dextrin technology?

Nayan Patel: Same technology. The absorption is not quite as efficient as intramuscular, but as long as I do not have to take a needle shot, I am fine with adjusting the dose.

20:34 THE TWO-SUPPLEMENT MINIMALIST PROTOCOL

Nayan Patel: I am a firm believer that the less you do for your body, the more it appreciates you. Every time you put a drug inside the body, the body has to figure out what to do with it. In Antarctica you see nature completely untouched and it is perfect. That is how I think about the human body -- it works with its own processes. Forcing it to adjust to what we put in does not work as well as working with what is already there.

I have found one product so far that fits that philosophy: glutathione. My entire supplementation stack is glutathione and magnesium. The reason for magnesium is electrical discharge -- I do not ground myself every day, and magnesium is my workaround for that. I take it as capsules and as a magnesium chloride gel I apply to my legs. The gel works better than oral for electrical discharge, but the capsules are easier to maintain.

Dr. Yi Song: Have you tried soaking your feet with magnesium chloride?

Nayan Patel: I have not done the foot soak specifically, but I use a magnesium chloride mixed with shea butter on my feet as well. Anything with magnesium, I am open to it.

25:56 OXIDATIVE STRESS IS TODAY'S PENICILLIN PROBLEM TO SOLVE

Dr. Yi Song: We cannot blame the pharmaceutical companies alone, right? The whole system was set up a hundred years ago. You grew up in Zambia, and your family is from India -- where most people use natural approaches. They do not use pharmaceuticals or surgery, and they live about the same lifespan.

Nayan Patel: And I would bet they have a better quality of life in the overall sense. They are not stuck on a medication subscription for the rest of their lives.

That said, the number one drug ever invented for longevity was penicillin in the 1940s. Before antibiotics, people died of tuberculosis and basic infections. Antibiotics and improved sanitary conditions together lifted life expectancy by approximately 20 years. That is remarkable.

But today, you would not take penicillin to live longer. Because the number one cause of death is no longer infection. The number one cause of death today is oxidative stress. If I can reduce oxidative stress, it has a cascade effect on over a thousand diseases and conditions we do not even fully understand yet. That is how we extend life -- not through interventions, but by identifying what is killing us today, stopping that, and seeing what the next horizon is.

27:02 WHAT OVERDOSING GLUTATHIONE DOES TO THE BODY

Dr. Yi Song: Is there a dose of glutathione that is too much?

Nayan Patel: Yes. Before I had developed this product into its current form, I was injecting patients with two grams, five grams, even ten grams per shot -- particularly for severe Parkinson's cases. When I started applying 600 to 1,000 milligrams, people started having reactions: rashes, itching, diarrhea, stomach cramps, headaches. Something was clearly wrong.

What I found out was that the molecule was entering the cell membrane and detoxifying the body so fast that patients were experiencing Herxheimer reactions -- the body's response to toxin release that is faster than it can clear. We stopped those doses immediately.

One of my physician colleagues in Utah offered to run blood tests on his patients while they used the product, to find the right dose. The result: 100 milligrams, twice a day, four sprays per session. The molecule only stays in the body four to six hours, maybe eight hours at most. Two doses per day covers the window.

And that 100 milligrams, via cyclodextrin delivery, is bioequivalent to approximately 10,000 milligrams of IV push in terms of what the cell actually receives. Why would you do more?

28:11 THE OPTIMAL DAILY DOSE AND WHY MORE BACKFIRES

Nayan Patel: I am a minimalist. I want to do as little as possible for the body and have a profound impact. Two years ago, I had never hiked in my life. My son -- 18 at the time -- asked me to join him on a glacial expedition in northern California. A 28-mile hike over two days. Out of 21 people on that trip, all of them regular hikers, only four made it to the summit. I was one of the four. When I came back down, I thought my body would be destroyed. I was still jumping around.

That told me my body was there when I needed it. Not because I exercise intensively every day, but because my baseline capacity was intact. My daily exercise is light: stretches for my back and shoulder muscles, two to four minutes on a vibrating platform doing squats, and a walk with my dog once or twice a week. That is it.

I also use a soft-shell hyperbaric chamber at home three to four times a week. I have been doing that for about three to four years. The soft shell requires longer sessions than a hard shell, but the benefits are similar and it fits my budget.

If you have a lot of money, you have no time. If you have no money, you have plenty of time. I have plenty of time. I want to be the example for a younger person: the less you do as you grow, the more the body appreciates you. Eat clean food, drink clean water, and do a couple of targeted things that aid the body's own processes. Glutathione, in my view, does exactly that -- gently removing oxidative waste so the body can perform better.

33:00 WHEN HIGHER CONCENTRATIONS ARE WARRANTED

Dr. Yi Song: What type of people would need a higher glutathione concentration?

Nayan Patel: I have two concentrations. Standard for most people, and a higher concentration for specific cases. Severe liver disease, multiple autoimmune conditions simultaneously, advanced metabolic disorders -- those people may need the higher concentration temporarily. I also have many oncologist colleagues who use it concurrently with chemotherapy to protect healthy cells. When used alongside chemo, the effectiveness of the chemotherapy is not diminished, but the healthy cells are protected. Doctors can go more aggressive with the chemo. The patient feels better and the treatment can be more effective.

These higher-dose protocols are typically temporary -- three months, six months, up to a year -- after which patients return to the standard maintenance dose.

Dr. Yi Song: Do oncology patients need to dose more frequently as well? Three times a day instead of twice?

Nayan Patel: It depends on the chemotherapy protocol. Some oncologists prescribe twice a day; some prescribe three times a day. It depends on how well the body tolerates it. You cannot put a blanket protocol on everyone. Work with the oncologist to figure out what is right for each individual case.

The one thing I can say is that virtually no one going through chemotherapy will have adequate glutathione levels. The first thing the body depletes under that kind of stress is glutathione. I have done thousands of tests and it never comes back adequate in those patients.

37:50 WHY BLOOD TESTS FOR GLUTATHIONE ARE OFTEN MISLEADING

Dr. Yi Song: Since you have been using glutathione for so long, how are your own levels?

Nayan Patel: Here is the thing. If your monthly expenses exactly match your monthly income, how much money do you have left at the end of the year? Nothing. Same with glutathione. If I figure out exactly how much my body needs each day and I supply that every day, the body has no reason to store it. My levels are going to run low-normal all the time. But that is not the signal to watch.

My doctors measure the metabolic markers, enzymes, inflammation markers -- liver function tests, heart function tests. All of those are improving. If they are improving, the glutathione is doing its job. The serum number is not the signal. The downstream function is.

Dr. Yi Song: It is very difficult to measure intracellular glutathione levels anyway -- once you draw the blood, it oxidizes immediately.

Nayan Patel: Exactly. Standard testing spins the blood, removes the plasma, and measures total glutathione. But in most cases you assume roughly half oxidized and half reduced. If you have a disease, 80 to 90 percent is already oxidized, with very little reduced glutathione remaining. That test is essentially useless.

We have done more controlled testing at the university -- drawing directly into vacuum conditions and freezing samples at minus 80 degrees Celsius within minutes of collection. Even then, what we found across medical students and professors was that oxidized glutathione was higher than reduced in virtually everyone. Students who drank alcohol showed even more oxidized. The conclusion: all of us are deficient in reduced glutathione, starting from roughly age 20 to 29 onward. Before that, the benefits do not justify the cost. After that, virtually everyone needs it.

40:04 WHY YOUR BODY STILL NEEDS SOME OXIDATIVE STRESS

Dr. Yi Song: If our bodies need so much glutathione, why is there a ceiling at all? Why can you take too much?

Nayan Patel: If you take too much glutathione, it becomes counterproductive. This molecule can shift the body from its normal oxidative stress state to a neutral or reduced state. A neutral body is actually bad for us. The body needs to stay slightly in an oxidative stress state -- that is its hyper-alert mode. Zero oxidative stress is not the goal.

What I can do is help you age at a very slow rate -- so that you are living to 120, 150, potentially 180, versus the current 80 or 90. That is the goal. Slow the aging process. Work with it. Do not try to reverse it or stop it.

Dr. Yi Song: Are you also looking for something beyond glutathione?

Nayan Patel: I am. And I am not looking in medicine. I am looking at body movement, at neuroplasticity, at the connection between the brain and the legs. Because when I am 90 years old, I could have the perfect body -- but if I am afraid to walk, or I shuffle, that is not good. I want to stride with no fear. Stronger bones matter, but so does the reflexive confidence that comes from a brain that is still communicating well with the body. That is what I am working on now.

Dr. Yi Song: We will come back and do another episode about glutathione.

Nayan Patel: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me today. I really appreciate your time. Very nice to chat with you.

Dr. Yi Song: Thank you.

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