Energy and Glutathione with Gina Nick, NMD - #138

Energy and Glutathione with Gina Nick, NMD - #138

00:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to the EnergyMD podcast where we help you resolve your chronic fatigue, whether it's from long COVID or chronic fatigue syndrome, or you don't know, but you're just struggling so that you can get back to living your best life. So really excited about today because we're going to be talking with Dr. Gina Nick all about glutathione, which is one of the body's major antioxidants.

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and detoxifiers. So let's learn a little bit about her. So she was a world-renowned naturopathic physician, researcher, and formulator based in Newport Beach, California. With a dedication to holistic wellness, she's known for her expertise in treating a wide range of health concerns from autoimmune diseases to addiction recovery, anxiety, and more. After graduating from medical school, she became the director of research for a leading supplement company.

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She has since held the roles of executive healthcare consultant to local and government agencies and president emeritus of the California Naturopathic Doctors Association. As the founder and director of Health Bridge in Newport Beach, California, her practice was awarded top medical practice 2017, a testament to her commitment to excellence. Gina, thanks so much for joining me today. Oh, my pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. So,

01:24

In our program and the work that we do, we're really focused on energy and resolving chronic fatigue and long COVID. So I wanna get into how glutathione affects those things. But first let's get down to definitions so people understand what we're talking about. What is glutathione? So glutathione is an antioxidant. It's actually what's called a tripeptide. So it's a combination of three amino acids to manufacture in every cell in your body.

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and it is like the key detoxifying agent in your body, but it doesn't just detoxify, it helps with lowering inflammation, binding to heavy metals and so forth and really helps with energy. When you talk about chronic fatigue syndrome, things like that, it works really well to protect the mitochondria of the cells, the powerhouse of the cells where energy is produced. There's over 100,000 clinical research studies on glutathione.

02:22

Most people don't realize that. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a close association between low glutathione levels in your body and things like Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, cognitive decline. So many different health challenges can be in some way connected to how balanced your cells are in producing glutathione and maintaining levels of glutathione.

02:50

I'm always curious whether that's because there's a genetic predisposition to low glutathione or whether it's because when people have heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, et cetera, those end up depleting glutathione. What do you think? I think most of the time it has to do with the levels getting depleted. We're exposed to so many more toxins today than ever before, whether it's heavy metals, pesticides, organophosphates, et cetera.

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or even exposure to viruses and yeast and mold and fungus, et cetera, in levels that just are so much greater than they've ever been before. And so our body's natural production of glutathione can go down so the levels diminish quicker. So I think our bodies have a higher demand for glutathione now more than ever before. Also just the quality of our foods,

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quality amino acids we're getting in our diet, the amount of quality antioxidants we're getting in our diet because glutathione requires a lot of different antioxidants to recycle itself and go into a form that's actually active and does what it's supposed to do. I think the genetic side of it is probably on the rise in terms of a genetic defect where your body isn't able to manufacture glutathione efficiently and effectively.

04:17

Big picture wise, I think it has more to do with just the sheer volume of exposure to toxins that we're all facing, including radiation. So then how does glutathione get depleted? Is it like putting out fires trying to deal with all of these toxins and infections? Yes. Yeah. So it's a main component in...

04:44

whole detoxification pathway that's happening in every cell of our bodies. It happens a lot in the liver, but in all cells. And so there's this elaborate human detoxification system that I don't know about you, but I didn't really learn about in medical school. I've learned about it afterwards just on my own. I've had a natural fascination for what is this human detoxification system, but it's an actual system in our body, just like the cardiovascular system or the

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And so, and it's comprised of detoxification organs, like our colon, our liver, our kidneys, our lymphatic system, our skin is the largest detoxification organ. And glutathione is a key component to all those organs and a key component to that whole system, which essentially takes bad stuff that we're exposed to and converts it to a form that can get out of our body through that system so that it doesn't cause harm to ourselves, to the mitochondria of ourselves.

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and DNA damage.

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So what does it mean if somebody can't tolerate glutathione, if they feel worse when they take it? So it depends on the dose that they're taking. So the form of glutathione that you take can play a big role in if you can't tolerate it. But usually it has to do with the sheer volume of toxins that your body is facing. And so as you detoxify, sometimes you can feel worse before you feel better. So it's like...

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how it goes. And so there can be like an increase in inflammation as your body's processing through all this stuff. And that can make you feel worse initially. And so sometimes in that case, it just has to do with lowering the amount that you're taking, maybe taking it more frequently, taking it in more what's called physiologic doses so that your body can handle it. And so oftentimes if somebody can't tolerate like an IV of glutathione or an injection of it.

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or higher dose, just taking doses that are, like I said, more closely mimic what your body naturally produces or even what's in our food supply. So fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh meat, there's a lot of different seeds, nuts, walnuts, all have glutathione in them. And if you can tolerate fresh fruits and vegetables.

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you know, in general, you don't have a food allergy to something. You can tolerate glutathione. I mean, your body manufactures it, right, on its own. So typically it has to do with, like I said, if you've got like an overproduction of toxins or exposure to toxins and your body is just so bogged down that it's detoxifying too quickly. And sometimes that can cause more harm than good. Yeah. Yeah. I found that sometimes

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if people aren't tolerating glutathione, they'll tolerate the precursor, N-acetylcysteine. And it seems like it's detoxifying at a slower rate potentially. Why do you think that potentially NAC might be better tolerated than glutathione in some cases? NAC isn't as...

08:02

doesn't suck up as many antioxidants to keep itself balanced as glutathione does. So glutathione requires a lot of cofactors, things like selenium and vitamin E and C and D to function properly, to go from what's called an oxidized form to a reduced form, which is the active form that has the effect. And acetylcysteine is a precursor to the production of glutathione. It's one of those amino acids. I said that there's three amino acids that...

08:30

comprise glutathione. So cysteine, glycine, and glutamic acid. So cysteine is one of them. And it also can tend to be a rate limiting step to the production of glutathione. So taking NAC can really help with boosting your levels naturally. Is there ever a case in which somebody might wanna take both NAC and glutathione? So, you know, I love complexes. Like when I'm formulating a supplement, I like to, you know, put

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complexes together. And so taking NAC with glutathione, you would be taking the straight glutathione if it's in a form that's actually the reduced form that actually gets absorbed by your body and isn't broken down by your stomach acids, it gets into your cells where it has the effect. Taking that and then also taking NAC would better maybe guarantee that your levels remain elevated.

09:30

I think taking one or the other is likely good enough in terms of boosting your glutathione levels. If you really need glutathione daily and you're experiencing long COVID or you have foggy thinking or you have any sort of autoimmune condition or chronic condition with an inflammatory component, things like rheumatoid arthritis or Hashimoto's and things like that.

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you may be better off taking straight glutathione in a form that gets absorbed by yourselves. Yeah, it's interesting. Because then you don't have to rely on the other amino because with cysteine, that's one of the peptides, right? But then you still need the glutamic acid and the glycine, right? And vitamin C and D, etc. Yeah, it's interesting how sometimes as practitioners we get in our minds about

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what the research says about a particular substance and miss it for the whole picture because if we're looking at research on N-acetylcysteine, I would imagine the research can be extrapolated to the glutathione and there's probably research out there. Oftentimes we think about N-acetylcysteine being good for the lungs while there's research on glutathione being good for the lungs as well. And so it's kind of like, are they, is it just N-acetylcysteine essentially just kind of like a weaker version?

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that's kind of limited by the other peptides, not having the other peptides. Exactly. Exactly. So your body can take N-acetylcysteine and if it has the other components can then manufacture the glutathione.

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So for me, I mean, if I'm gonna choose between NAC and glutathione, I would take straight glutathione. But N-acetylcysteine can be a little less expensive typically than a quality glutathione supplement. And so look, clinically, most of the research on NAC, the reason why it works is because it's elevating levels of glutathione, truly. That's the reason why. And so it's one of those things where clinically, if NAC is working, great.

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If you're feeling like you need to boost your levels more or you get tested and it appears that your glutathione levels could use some help, take straight glutathione. Yeah, I definitely started off with glutathione and I do believe that the research is better with glutathione, but I have so many sensitive people in my programs and consequently, I was just finding so many people reacting to it just because it is...

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really great at pulling out heavy metals and chemicals and molds and people weren't able to tolerate because their pathways, exit pathways weren't as open as they needed to be. So we had to keep pivoting back and giving them less doses of glutathione or taking it every other day or once a week. And so it's like, so I ended up moving more towards the N-acetylcysteine for that very reason but still understanding that relationship and that the glutathione is I believe a superior agent. I mean, it is.

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It is, and I'm a fan of taking lower doses more frequently. We're exposed to toxins day to day. So just logically, I'm very much about whole food based nutrition. As director of research, standard process nutrition, which is all about whole food complexes. So that's kind of my bias. And so I believe in taking

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like glutathione in a lower dose that more closely mimics what you should be getting in your diet, but most of us are not relative to the amount of toxins we're exposed to. And so taking it daily with some of the cofactors like vitamin C, vitamin D3, magnesium, et cetera, zinc. I like also adding zinc with glutathione as well. So that's balanced, right? You're kind of giving your body what it needs to.

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maintain homeostasis. So glutathione is under tight homeostatic control. So giving it too much doesn't really make sense to me anyway. It's almost like your body's going to be fighting to keep those levels balanced anyway. But that's just clinically in my practice. And I will still sometimes give injections of glutathione. It's on a case-by-case basis, depending on the patient and what's going on.

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But I've just found that giving the doses that are like closer to say 250 milligrams to 500 milligrams of a well absorbed form of glutathione with the cofactors, it just works. Nice. So let's talk about what forms you prefer are best absorbed, et cetera. So there's a lot of different ways to take glutathione. There's IV glutathione, which

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some doctors will say is a waste. It's not like the molecule is too big. Even if you get an IV of it, none of it really gets into the cells where it's going to have the effect. So that's one theory out there. And there are certain doctors that are really passionate about saying it's a total waste. And so I don't do IV, but I will do intramuscular injections for addiction and things of that nature or severe autoimmune conditions because I see the clinical results in my practice.

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So there's that. There's also nasal. You can have it, you can do like a nasal spray or a nebulizer. A nebulizer is good because it kind of gets down into the lungs. And so if you're having like an upper respiratory issue that can be valuable. Although glutathione smells because of that sulfur component and it tastes bad. So there's liposomal glutathione which is an oral form of glutathione that is considered to be well absorbed.

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What I found over the years is patient compliance was an issue, doesn't necessarily always taste great or you have to refrigerate it. And so finding a form of glutathione, there are oral forms, like using forms of glutathione that are branded and research with double-blind placebo-controlled studies proving that it boost blood levels by 30 to 35%. So there are forms that are in capsule form, for example, that do work.

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It's a fallacy when people say that there is no way you can get glutathione in your body if you take it orally. That's not true. So for me, just from being in practice for so long, I'm interested in giving my patients something that they're going to take regularly and that's going to work. So patient compliance is a big thing for me. So it's lovely if the research shows that.

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taking a nasal form of glutathione is where it's at. But if my patients can't tolerate it, then it's useless. I have a nephew who was diagnosed with autism when he was a couple years old. And my sister reminds me to this day, I wanted him to take glutathione so bad, and couldn't give him an injection. He wasn't going to have that. As his aunt, I couldn't do it. And he wouldn't take the liposomal form. And...

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I didn't blame him because I won't take the liposomal form. And so, you know, even back then he's 16 now, but even back then I was like, we've got to have a way to get glutathione into these kids who need it where it doesn't taste horrible, but it still works. You know, so, so there is, so I formulated, you know, a product and that was part of the inspiration for why I created it. There's also topical.

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So there's some research on topical glutathione being helpful and well absorbed into the cells. Smells not the greatest. So again, patient compliance is an issue. Nice, so then what's the one that you formulated? What form is that? It's, so this, I got inspired. I back up a little, I was hired by a

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company who manufactures oral glutathione to research it in my practice because I was so, you know, I wrote a book about detoxification and I created the standard process purification program and all this. So they wanted me to study it in my practice. And so I did. I'm like, wow, this stuff is amazing. But you know, they paid me to do a real deep dive into glutathione. And so once I did that and I was out speaking to doctors and patients about this, I'm like, this is amazing. Why doesn't everybody know about it? Why?

18:05

Why isn't it out there? How do I, you know, and then it was at that time that I was like, I want to make glutathione a household name. I want everybody to know about it and have access to it. So I decided a young daughter, and I really don't like when, you know, she's given candy and things like that. And I liked candy as a kid. I'm like, I want to create a form of glutathione that is like candy, but has no sugar and actually helps the brain versus sugar that harms the brain.

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And so I created a glutathione pixie stick. It actually tastes like a pixie stick, but it has the well-absorbed form of glutathione in it, but it also has glycine as a sweetener, and glycine is one of the amino acids that makes up that tripeptide, as well as magnesium and zinc and vitamin D, so some of those cofactors, so it gets absorbed better, and you're also giving your body some of the things that it can use on its own to manufacture more glutathione.

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if it needs even more. So it's a pixie stick. That's great. And so you said a well-absorbed form. Does that have a particular name? Is it a particular isomer? So the brand is called Cetria glutathione and it's created through a fermentation process. But it is a combination of those three amino acids.

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and they did the clinical research on it and proved that it actually boosted blood levels. And that was at a time when everybody was saying, researchers were saying, doctors were saying, glutathione doesn't work if you take it in a capsule. And so this was really awesome when I came across it and saw the research on it and then use it in my practice, more importantly for me, and saw that it was working for so many different issues. I really saw a benefit with,

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menopausal and menopausal women in terms of treating the symptoms that they were having, like hot flashes, sleep issues. And I'm like, wow, without taking hormones, without taking bioidentical hormones. Yeah. And so that's the form that I like to use. It's not inexpensive, but I see it as worth it because it actually gives you the results you want.

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without having to get an injection or use a nebulizer, things like that, or take the liposomal form, which is good. Liposomal is good. I just don't like it, the taste. Politically it's great and it works, but. And so then what's the dosing? What's the dosing for kids? What's the dosing for adults? Yeah, so.

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I created a glutathione pixie stick for kids and it has 125 milligrams of the cetrioglutathione, but then it also has double the amount of non-GMO derived vitamin C, buffered vitamin C, because vitamin C and glutathione work together, as well as vitamin D3 and magnesium and glycine and all those things. And then the adult pixie sticks have 250 milligrams.

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of the cetria glutathione. So it's something where it's not some high, high dose. It's something you can take regularly. And I've said forever, I've been passionate about detoxification since I got out of medical school. And I'm a big fan of doing something daily to support your detox mechanisms because we're exposed to toxins daily. So I'm always telling patients, just consciously make a decision.

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whether it's taking glutathione, whether it's getting in the sauna, which is a great way to remove toxins, what are exercise? There's a lot of different ways to support that human detoxification system. But that was kind of the idea behind the dosage for these was what's a solid amount that if you were super wonderful about eating all your fresh fruits and vegetables and they weren't laden with.

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pesticides, even if they're organic, sometimes they have pesticides on them anyway, and things like that. In a perfect world, what would you actually be giving your body that it needs to have the levels that will keep you healthy and well? Low glutathione levels are associated with cancer. Low glutathione levels are associated with tension deficit disorder, autism, you name it. There's so many conditions. And I think the reason for that is because

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it's so essential to the human detoxification system, you know, and it's manufactured in all the cells in our body. So it kind of speaks to the importance of it. And it's not just like you're replacing a deficiency, it actually has function in the body to remove heavy metals and chemicals and molds. And so is it, and improve immune system function.

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So when it's removing the toxins out of the body, is it operating like a chelating agent? Is it opening up liver pathways? How is it actually doing that? It conjugates. So it'll bind to the toxins and then turn them into a form that's water-soluble and can then get released through your kidneys, your skin, et cetera, and your liver. And so it's, you know, glutathione, it's...

23:41

It works by conjugation. It also neutralizes free radicals. So, you know, reactive oxygen species. So it works as an antioxidant. So again, binds to those free radicals and renders them inactive. So they can't cause harm. I find it fascinating that free radicals tend to congregate in the mitochondria of ourselves, the powerhouse of ourselves where energy is produced. And so, especially like in the brain,

24:09

Our brains are more vulnerable to exposure to toxins and our levels of glutathione get depleted relatively quickly in the brain, making the brain even more vulnerable to having low levels of glutathione.

24:26

Interesting. Leading to things like neuroinflammation. Right. And so do you think that, so on its own, you know, oftentimes I'm combining glutathione with other things. You know, we see a lot of people who have heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, and then nervous system dysfunction. That's what I call the toxic five. And so in terms of removing those out of the body, do you think that you can do it with glutathione on its own?

24:55

So it's what I turn to first. And so I always, you know, there's so many things out there. There's so many key leading agents and I like Pectosol a lot for that purpose, but there's so many different protocols out there for detoxification. And for me, I like to try and simplify things as best as I can and also look to nature for answers. And I know that eating fresh fruits and vegetables

25:23

Eating unprocessed foods is definitely associated with a reduction in chronic illness and a reduction in symptoms associated with toxicity, right? Whether it's exposure to molds or chemicals or you name it. And so to me, it's like introduce that into the body first and then see how far you can get. And sometimes low dose slowly over time can be the best way to heal.

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truly heal your body. And again, there are those cases and I know you have those where it's intense and the patients are experiencing a severe toxicity reaction. And in those cases, I would say glutathione is the first thing I will always turn to. It just makes the most sense to me. And then if we need to add more things from there, we can't. Oftentimes for me, it'll be other lifestyle things like sauna therapy.

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photobiomodulation, things like that paired with glutathione. And again, not just glutathione, but also vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, zinc, glycine. So other things too that support balanced levels of active glutathione in our cells. Okay, great. Why do you think that it is helpful for women who are having those menopausal symptoms?

26:50

because it helps with the clearance of toxic forms of estrogen, number one. So it helps to clear those out. So a lot of times when women are in that perimenopausal or menopausal phase, you know, their levels of progesterone go down, their levels of estrogen go down. And with hormones, you have a receptor and you have the hormone and then they bind together to have the action. So if all of a sudden our bodies aren't making the estrogen, what happens to that receptor initially?

27:19

Well, it's kind of open and there are toxins in our environment, pesticides, et cetera, that are classified as xenoestrogens. So there are toxins that actually mimic estrogen and bind to those receptors and wreak havoc on the body, cause inflammation, cause a lot of the symptoms that women going through perimenopause and menopause face.

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clear out that entire process so that as the levels gradually decline, it's more of just a natural easing into a different phase of life where your body is operating with less hormone while also blocking toxins from wreaking havoc on your system and causing other imbalances. I think that's part of it.

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will cause inflammation.

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it'll increase NF-CofA-B. And so an estrogen deficiency and other hormone deficiencies will trigger inflammation. And so glutathione lowers inflammation. So I think also because of its role in lowering inflammation, it's also helping with that whole process. Glutathione also helps to regulate blood sugar levels. And so that may be playing a role as well.

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everything happening in our bodies. And so as the levels go down, like I said, you've got inflammation, there can be blood sugar dysregulation, triggers storage of fat and sleep disorders, et cetera. And so I think glutathione plays a role in all of that, which is why at the end of the day, patients feel better when they're going through that phase of life and their glutathione levels are balanced.

29:19

Mm-hmm, nice. So I know that you're in the process of preparing for a talk on glutathione and radiation. Can you give us a little bit of some information on that? Sure, so we're exposed to radiation in a lot of different forms. There's ionizing radiation, there's radiation from your television, there's X-rays, there's electromagnetic frequencies, radiation from our devices.

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And there's data coming out all the time on the association with exposure to like electromagnetic frequencies and disease, cancers, et cetera. We've all heard of it from holding a cell phone, the increased risk of brain cancers and so forth. And so what we know is that glutathione protects cells from damage from exposure to radiation.

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all forms of radiation. And so I think that that just in the future turning to glutathione as a way, again, for me, it's day to day, like making sure your glutathione levels are boosted day to day is a wise thing to do to protect ourselves from the bombardment that we experienced from exposure to radiation, which is another form of toxins, a really powerful form of toxins that we don't see.

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but it's causing a lot of harm.

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Yeah. I mean, if you're going to go for an X-ray, yeah, I would boost your levels of glutathione before going in for that X-ray and boost your levels afterwards as well. If you've gone through radiation treatment for cancer, I would look at boost with under the guidance of your oncologist, boosting your glutathione levels back up again afterwards, after going through radiation treatment or after going through chemotherapy, just to help balance everything back out again.

31:20

Yeah, and a lot of people don't realize that glutathione is an immune modulator. Yes. And so oftentimes, vitamin D is an immune modulator, high dose fish oils, and so a lot of people don't realize that that's, we don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but a lot of people who have, I would say the majority, 95% of everybody who has long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome has low glutathione. And so it's like, okay, is your immune system dysfunctional because your glutathione is low?

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because of these toxins or genetically or whatever, or is it because of something else? So yeah, I've always thought that that's really interesting. The immune system has to be functional in order to be able to help get rid of some of these causes that we work on. And so if we don't have something like glutathione on board to help manage the immune system, then your immune system is gonna be more dysfunctional. Yes.

32:17

Yeah, glutathione can help to fight off infections. There was during COVID, there was research that came out showing that glutathione helped to prevent a severe reaction to COVID. Taking glutathione helps to prevent a severe reaction. Why? Because it's boosting, well, it's doing all the things. It's boosting immune function, it's lowering inflammation, it's boosting antioxidant capacity, it's helping to heal the mitochondria, helping to heal cells. And so...

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big picture-wise, it's helping to prevent that cytokine storm and compromised immune function long-term. Yeah, and I think people get concerned when we talk about adjusting the immune system because of something like the cytokine storm that became more common or more well-known with COVID. But when you're talking about it in a modulator, this is modulating the immune system, it's not necessarily stimulating it.

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So it's helping to balance. And when the cytokines are basically out of control, and so it's kind of reining them in. Yes. Yes, which is why I'm so passionate. Like everybody needs to know about taking glutathione. I don't care if you get it from your foods, if you can, or from a supplement, but people need to know about it. It's, you know, in...

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in like the functional medicine world, naturopathic world, we all know about it, but even doctors who know about it don't use it. That's not necessarily the first thing they turn to. And it's like, why not? Right? But parents, you know, for them to know the power of glutathione and the impact it can have on their children in protecting them and keeping them well while they're at school and so forth, that just, it's just one of those things that...

34:06

It's so simple, but it, and it impacts, it's so foundational to health and wellness.

34:14

Yeah, great. And so we, and now you can, it tastes good. And it's a pixie stick. Without sugar. Yeah, it was cool. The first time I created the formula, sent it to the lab, got it back. And it hasn't changed since it just worked. It was like, yeah, yeah, it was during COVID. I was homeschooling my daughter. And I was like, that's it, I'm going to create this formula. I've been creating formulas for a very long time. And I'll create powders for my patients, you know, custom powders. But

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This one was just, it just came back and it was, it just tasted really, really good. No. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, Gina, thank you so much for joining me here today. We're gonna drop all of your links below so that people can check out the Pixie Stick and follow you on Twitter and YouTube and all that sort of stuff. I so appreciate you coming on today. Oh, thanks for having me. Thanks for doing the work you're doing. Thank you.