Recovering from Covid, Long-Covid, and Vaccine Injuries: Nutritional Aspects, Part 2a: General Detoxing with GLUTATHIONE + NADH, Probiotics, et al
In Part 1, I collected and reported findings of independent researchers that: The spike protein is toxic. Covid vaccines produce more spike proteins for far longer than does the virus. The vaccines carry other toxins and allergens too.
In this post, I discuss: The liver is the body’s main detoxifier. Glutathione is a major part of the liver’s neutralization of toxins (relevant to brain fog too). And NADH recycles glutathione. Milk thistle and other substances help the liver detox. Also:
Probiotics—good bacteria in the digestive tract—do worlds of good: aid digestion (including digesting some or all of the lactose involved in lactose intolerance), produce numerous needed nutrients, ward off yeast infections and bad bacteria (and their toxins) in the GI tract (relevant to brain fog), strengthen the immune system (to fight viruses), help with allergies (relevant to brain fog), interact with the brain via the “gut-brain axis” (also relevant to brain fog). More is being reported regularly (a revolution in understanding that has blossomed in the last decade or so, although Carlton Fredericks was talking and writing about probiotics in the 1970s and 1980s).
Summary for Quick Action, Subject to Fine Points Discussed Below:
Glutathione Options:
1) Injections of 2 grams to 4 grams glutathione daily, fastest option if available.
2) Reduced glutathione 500 mg. capsules 4 or more times daily, preferably on an empty stomach (1/2 hour before, or 2 hours after, eating), or with meals if it upsets an empty stomach or is otherwise inconvenient. Couple it with 5 mg. to 20 mg. NADH lozenges (Swanson or Enada brands). NADH recycles oxidized glutathione into the antioxidant/detoxifying form.
3) NAC 3000 mg., alpha lipoic acid 300 mg., selenium 300 mg., vitamins B2 100 mg. and B6 200 mg., and L-glutamine 3,000 mg. In three equal, divided doses, near meals. Provides slower but longer creation of glutathione, plus extra advantages of NAC, selenium, B6 and B2. Source: Dr. Akins’s Vita-nutrient Solution.
4) Basic, unprocessed food high in animal-source protein is last here in order of immediate effect, but should be first in importance for long-term maintenance of healthy glutathione levels.
The above summary is presented for you to get going simply and quickly, but to make best use of this information, you will find some things in the following that will help you get the maximum benefit. It may seem overly fussy or unnecessarily detailed, but in my experience, small distinctions sometimes make big differences.
Clarifying Misleading Nomenclature and Technical Terms
(You can skip this section if you already know what oxidation and reduction are, and why niacin is short for nicotinic acid, but isn’t nicotine.)
Since we must burn—oxidize—food for energy, why do we need to inhibit oxidation by using anti-oxidants??? And why do we want to reduce glutathione; don’t we want to increase it? Yet glutathione is a potent anti-oxidant in its reducedform (GSH). Here’s why.
“Oxidation” refers generally to the chemical process of an atom or molecule grabbing electrons from other atoms and molecules. Oxygen does that, but so do many other chemicals that are often the product of imperfectly burned food, or the products of white blood cells producing hydrogen peroxide to kill viruses, or the products of many other bodily chemical processes.
The electron-grabbing chemicals are called “free radicals” and can be very damaging.
(You might well wonder what happens to the electrons that are grabbed. Does the atom that loses the electron(s) then become a free radical that wants to grab another atom’s electron(s)? Sometimes, yes, that produces new free radicals, but in many stable molecules, the electrons are shared, because the grabbed electron comes from an atom that has one or two electrons in the outer electron shell to share. For example, when oxygen grabs electrons from two hydrogen atoms, each of which has an electron to give up, the electrons are shared between the oxygen and each hydrogen atom, forming H2O, water. That sharing is the nature of the chemical bond that holds atoms together to form molecules.)
“Reduction” is the reversal of oxidation. For example, when iron rusts, the rust is the product of oxidizing iron. Reversing the process reduces the rust back to iron; hence the confusing terminology. Much as catalytic converters are used to clean up automobile exhausts, nutritional anti-oxidants are used by the body as reducing agents to clean up the dirty byproducts of bodily chemical reactions.
So in buying glutathione, you want reduced glutathione, the active antioxidant form, sometimes abbreviated as GSH. When GSH acts as an antioxidant, it becomes oxidized, gets used up, and is called GSSG.
Vitamin B3 was originally called “nicotinic acid” because the vitamin was originally produced from nicotine, according to an internet source. “Niacin” was chosen to avoid confusion with the drug nicotine. (Similarly for “niacinamide” replacing “nicotinamide”).
The Nutrients In Detail
Glutathione
Various ways are available to increase your body’s stores of glutathione. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
1. Injections
In his radio broadcasts in 2020, Jerry Hickey of InviteHealth several times cited the Covid-19 case of a woman who was rapidly failing due to low oxygen until her son, a medical student, consulted a doctor he trusted and was advised to give her 2 grams of glutathione (or was it 4 grams?). He did, she recovered dramatically within one hour, and recovered completely within a few days with continued treatments of injected glutathione.
The rapidity of initial improvement suggests to me that the glutathione improved her lung function, which it does naturally, allowing her lungs to absorb the oxygen she needed to breath.
The need for several days of treatment suggests to me that it took just those few days for the glutathione to eliminate the virus (by strengthening the innate immune system, see Natural Anti-Infectives) and detoxify the spike proteins.
In fact, glutathione performs essential and healthful effects in every cell in the body, so it could have multiple tonic—and anti-aging—effects.
The difficulty with this option, of course, may be in getting injections on a timely basis.
2. Glutathione Pills
The antioxidant form of glutathione is called reduced glutathione, or GSH.
It was long thought—and some sources still incorrectly say—that glutathione could not be absorbed in the GI tract, so couldn’t work as an oral supplement. Dr. Robert Atkins wrote as much, in his book “Dr. Atkins Vita-nutrient Solution,” copyright 1998. Dr. Atkins added that glutathione becomes readily oxidized in capsule form and therefore becomes inactive (as might be expected of a strong anti-oxidant in contact with airborne oxygen).
Then, in or around 2000, I heard Dr. Harry Demopoulos explain on Dr. Atkins’ radio show that glutathione could be stabilized and could be absorbed when taken orally. He was marketing his patented form of glutathione in specially packaged capsules, individually wrapped in aluminum foil blister packs with vitamin C, and, if memory served, inert nitrogen gas instead of normal oxygen-containing air. And it had to be taken on an empty stomach.
I bought Dr. Demopoulos’s glutathione, and it worked. It produced a surge of heat and energy about one hour after ingestion on an empty stomach. Unfortunately, his product became unavailable years ago, and I have relied on the set of nutritional precursors listed above.
(I get this heat surge from pantothenic acid and NADH too. Some people with ancestry in the northern part of the Eurasian continent have evolved genes that produce more heat during active exertion. Consistent with that, I get inordinately hot when active and inordinately cool when inactive. All three nutrients are essential parts of generating energy from food.)
Recently I restarted taking glutathione pills from Jarrow (a well established brand), but I don’t get hot from them. I don’t know if it is because I am getting what I need from the precursors I take, or if the glutathione in the capsules I take has been oxidized, or if my vitality is declining as I age. Yet Chris Masterjohn (see his Substack) says he gets good effects from Jarrow’s glutathione.
Setria says its trademarked glutathione, available in several retail brands (but not Jarrow), was proven in a clinical trial to raise blood levels of glutathione, but all that may mean is that Setria spent the money to conduct the trial.
The question of the glutathione being oxidized, whether in processing or while in the capsule, is unanswered to my satisfaction. Please leave a comment if you have had success with a particular brand.
Fortunately, even if the glutathione in some brands is oxidized, NADH (see below) will restore its antioxidant power and keep recycling it. And, if your body makes enough NADH naturally, you won’t even need NADH supplements; but that too is a question.
Finally, some brands say take on an empty stomach or between meals. Others say with meals or don’t say when to take it at all. I trust Harry Demopoulos’s advice: for best results, take on an empty stomach.
What’s best for you will depend a lot on your own situation: price, availability, need, potency, convenience, and your own biochemistry. You will have to try various options and see, but don’t give up if the first option does not seem to work immediately; give it time, perhaps a week to detoxify. If still unsatisfactory, try another way.
NADH
The basic molecule is called NAD, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. The antioxidant form is called NADH—able to donate an electron. The oxidant form is called NAD+ (able to grab an electron).
Healthy, young people create NAD from niacin or niacinamide. Both are forms of vitamin B3, but their non-vitamin properties are different.
As people age or have special nutritional needs, getting vitamin B3 alone, especially only if at the RDA level, won’t be enough. Then supplements of NADH or precursors are needed.
The most interesting thing about NAD is that the body needs and uses both forms. First NADH gets oxidized by restoring glutathione, or restoring co-enzyme Q10 or other antioxidants; then the body uses the oxidized NAD (NAD+) to generate energy (such as burning food for fuel), and NADH gets produced again. So NADH can in effect recycle itself countless times; hence the immense value of even small amounts of NADH in detoxification and much more.
I learned of NADH when Dr. Atkins interviewed Georg Birkmayer MD PhD, who made the first NADH supplement. Instructions were to swallow the small pill on an empty stomach and get a burst of energy five hours later that lasts for five hours. I tried it and it worked as advertised. Now I can find only the sublingual form, which is supposed to work much more quickly. You can try it both ways: Dissolve it under the tongue or swallow it with water on an empty stomach (2 hours after a meal or ½ hour before eating) and see for yourself—best early in your working day.
I like Swanson’s sublingual NADH because I know it works for me and is the cheapest form I can get when it is on sale, usually at 20% to 30% off. If you get the 20 mg. size and split it into fours, you get 5 mg. cheaply, a good starting amount.
This sublingual NADH is cheaper too than the following precursors to NAD:
First stage: The basic vitamin, niacin or niacinamide, (Ok, it is cheapest, if doses in the tens of milligrams or more work for you.)
Next stage: NMN; seems totally unnecessary and costly too.
Final precursor: “Niagen,” which is nicotinamide riboside. Life Extension markets it as “NAD+ Cell Regenerator” (confusing, as NAD+ is actually a form—the oxidized form—of the NAD molecule itself).
Niagen makes me wonder if niacin or niacinamide combined with d-ribose would also boost creation of NAD. Niacin can produce a flush, but the flush is averted with “flush free” niacin (IHN, inositol hexanicotinate) or niacinamide. D-ribose is a sugar that is very much involved in energy and DNA production. Trying it can’t hurt.
Probiotics
Rich food sources of probiotics are bacteria-fermented foods: yogurts, sauerkraut, kimchi, and such—as long as the bacteria are live cultures. These introduce good bacteria to mouth and throat on contact. They also do slowly colonize the lower GI tract, being weakened in the stomach.
Look for yogurts with Lactobacillus acidophilus among the live cultures present, because it lasts longer in the GI tract, according to Carlton Fredericks in his radio broadcasts in the 1970s.
Probiotic supplements for mouth (anti-cavity) and throat (anti-infection) can be gotten as lozenges.
Pill supplements will colonize the lower GI tract faster than foods will, while missing mouth and throat.
Amounts of probiotic bacteria in the pills are usually listed in the billions of CFUs (colony-forming units). The more varied the strains of bacteria they hold, usually the better. Unfortunately, they are usually listed as of time of manufacture, with no information on how many CFUs have survived in storage and shipping before you swallow them.
InviteHealth’s Probiotic Hx employs special tight-weave capsules to keep out oxygen and doesn't need refrigeration, according to Jerry Hickey. And he chose five strains of bacteria that have been proven in clinical trials to have very specific beneficial effects. For example, the strain identified as Bifido bacterium animalis subsp. lactis revitalizes NK cells (natural killer cells). These tend to grow inactive as people age. These are the white blood cells that fight viruses after the frontline innate immune cells tire, after roughly three days—just when Covid-19 gets deadly in older people whose NK cells had become inactive (Discussed here). The other four strains of bacteria also improve immune function. And all are said to help support other probiotic bacteria.
A few other brands have begun to address this issue of survival after time of manufacture. For example, a Swanson probiotic with 20 billion CFUs at the time of manufacture, with 16 distinct strains, says “provides an effective level of bacteria until at least the ‘best by’ date.” I interpret this to mean that 20 billion CFUs will reduce to at least a few billion. And it says store in a cool, dry place; no mention of refrigeration. Healthy Origins’ “natural Probiotic” with 30 billion CFUs is similar; refrigeration preferred but not required.
Otherwise, the better brands say for best use, refrigerate after opening; but that leaves open the question of how they were treated in the warehouse, shipping, and in the store (even if the store carries them in a refrigerated section).
Please share a comment if you have found one brand to be helpful.
Getting probiotics daily is especially important because the pesticide glyphosate (brand name Roundup) kills good bacteria. It is widely prevalent and becoming more so, because glyphosate is used for GMO sugar beets, corn, soybeans, and canola oil. Glyphosate is also sprayed on non-GMO grains and some other crops at harvest time for quicker and cheaper harvesting, and new uses of glyphosate keep popping up. Organic foods are the best way to avoid glyphosate, but even they get polluted a little bit by glyphosate’s presence, due to airborne spread and physical contact.
Food and Food-Related Supplements
Glutathione is composed of three amino acids: cysteine, glycine, and glutamic acid.
Cysteine is a sulfur-containing amino acid and is the least prevalent of the three amino acids. Thus it is considered the “rate-limiting” factor in the body’s production of glutathione, although some evidence suggests that glycine may be rate-limiting for some people.
Cysteine is found primarily in animal foods (meats, fish, dairy, eggs); these should be unprocessed for many health reasons, and best if organic or 100% grass fed. These foods also are rich in methionine, which the body can convert into cysteine; though the body needs methionine for many other things too, thus limiting how much cysteine is created from methionine.
NAC (N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine) is the safe and available form of cysteine you can buy as a supplement, usually as 600 mg. pills.
NAC has other important uses too, such as for the lungs, and to protect against absorption of heavy metals in food or medical injections (such as in an MRI with contrast, containing gadolinium). (Source: Jerry Hickey, Invite Health).
Selenium can sometimes be lacking in foods grown in selenium-poor soils. It has several good properties besides aiding in making glutathione, and is best to be added as a supplement in doses as high as 200 mg. daily; while you can use the 300 mg. dose recommended by Atkins to get maximum glutathione production in the body.
Other antioxidants in fruits and vegetables—and supplements—are necessary in their own rights, and can take some of the burden off NADH in recycling antioxidants generally. That leaves more NADH available to recycle glutathione.
Cruciferous vegetables contain various sulfur-containing substances that aid in detoxification. The compounds in them that are the most studied are sulforaphane, DIM, and indol-3-carbinole. All are available as supplements.
Finally, milk thistle supplements aid the liver and kidneys in detoxification.
More posts are coming, the next one on brain fog, but I expect them to be much shorter. I extended this discussion because detoxification must be done well or all the other measures will be seriously impaired.
Please share my Health posts with people who you think might be helped by them.
Good Health to You!