Glutathione Film, Everything You Need to Know About It, From Absorption Rate to Side Effects

Hello. I am pharmacist Jinny.

If I were to choose the most sought-after nutritional supplement these days, I would say glutathione. I have already introduced this ingredient several times through research. In particular, recently, glutathione products in the form of a film that is absorbed through the oral mucosa seem to be gaining popularity.

Accordingly, curiosity about the film form is also increasing. I also often get questions about whether the film form has a different absorption rate compared to the existing oral intake, whether it is true that glutathione is ineffective when taken orally, or whether there are side effects when taking glutathione. So today, I will try to organize the most frequently asked questions through various research results.

1. Glutathione film, is there no difference in absorption rate when taken orally?

Glutathione has a low absorption rate when taken orally. This is because glutathione is quickly broken down by body enzymes as it passes through the gastrointestinal tract [1]. For this reason, some people consider intravenous glutathione injections, also known as “white jade injections.” Many people say that it is difficult to choose intravenous glutathione injections as a routine management method due to the psychological burden of having to get an injection, or the financial and time costs.

For this reason, the academic world has been continuously researching ways to 'take' glutathione more easily and increase its absorption rate. One of them is oral dissolving film. Since oral dissolving film absorbs the active ingredients into the oral mucosa, the ingredients enter the circulatory system directly without passing through the stomach. Therefore, it can reduce losses that occur during the digestive process.

In fact, a review paper published in the international academic journal Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology in 2022 reported that when glutathione is taken orally, less than 10% of the dose enters the bloodstream, whereas when taken in the form of an orally dissolving film, more than 80% of the dose is absorbed into the systemic circulation. In short, this means that glutathione is better absorbed when taken in film form than when taken orally [2].

“As discussed, glutathione is rapidly absorbed by the oral route and reaches sufficiently high blood levels to be therapeutically effective. Studies comparing gastrointestinal absorption with oral absorption have demonstrated that the latter is far superior in that glutathione enters the circulation directly and reaches high levels quickly.”

2. Glutathione, is it not effective even if you take it?

"Our study results show that oral glutathione intake improves liver metabolism and improves non-alcoholic fatty liver disease."

3. Glutathione, can there be side effects?

Glutathione is one of the antioxidants naturally synthesized in the body and is a component that originally exists in our bodies. In addition, the US Food and Drug Administration, known to be the most strict in evaluating the safety of food ingredients, has given glutathione a GRAS rating, stating that it is ‘generally safe for human consumption [5].

Of course, just as any ingredient known to be good for health can cause unexpected side effects when administered in large doses over a short period of time, intravenous injections of high doses of glutathione can cause side effects, including allergies. However, most human glutathione application studies reported in the academic world so far have confirmed that no serious side effects were observed even when adults consumed 250 mg to 1,000 mg of glutathione daily [6].

In this regard, a review paper published in Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology in 2017 reported that glutathione is generally non-toxic and has the property of detoxifying toxicity caused by excessive intake of amino acids [7].

"Glutathione is safe to use as a dietary supplement… and most clinical trials have not shown any significant side effects. Conversely, it may act as a detoxifier of toxicity resulting from excessive intake of amino acids.”

Today, I have compiled all the questions about glutathione that I have received most frequently through various papers. As I explained in the text, the academic world has evaluated that, after extensive review, a relatively new method of intake, oral dissolving film-type glutathione, has greatly improved the low absorption rate of oral glutathione intake. In addition, human application tests reported so far have shown that oral glutathione intake provides health benefits without serious side effects, so you do not have to worry too much about the effects and side effects.

Finally, I would like to end this article by sharing two things to consider when choosing glutathione. First, the higher the purity of glutathione, the more it is absorbed into the body. Since it is usually used in products in the form of a raw material called L-glutathione yeast extract, I recommend checking the actual L-glutathione content when checking the purity. Recently, we have seen a lot of glutathione using liposome technology. Liposomes are drug delivery vehicles with a similar composition to our cell membranes, which minimize the loss of ingredients and increase the absorption rate, so it would not be a bad idea to choose glutathione using liposome technology.

If you have any further questions about any ingredient, please leave a comment at any time.

I Jinny, will read it carefully in the form of a paper.

I hope you have a healthy day both physically and mentally. This was Jinny.

[1] Giustarini, D., Milzani, A., Dalle-Donne, I., & Rossi, R. (2023). How to Increase Cellular Glutathione. Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) , 12 (5), 1094. [2] Sharma, D. K., & Sharma, P. (2022). Augmented Glutathione Absorption from Oral Mucosa and its Effect on Skin Pigmentation: A Clinical Review. Clinical, cosmetic and investigative dermatology, 15, 1853–1862. [3] Richie, J.P., Jr., Nichenametla, S., Neidig, W., Calcagnotto, A., Haley , J.S., Schell, T.D., & Muscat, J.E. (2015). Randomized controlled trial of oral glutathione supplementation on body stores of glutathione. European journal of nutrition, 54(2), 251–263. [4] Honda, Y., Kessoku, T., Sumida, Y., Kobayashi, T., Kato, T., Ogawa, Y., Tomeno, W., Imajo, K., Fujita, K., Yoneda, M., Kataoka, K., Taguri, M., Yamanaka, T., Seko, Y., Tanaka, S., Saito, S., Ono, M., Oeda, S., Eguchi, Y., Aoi, W., … Nakajima, A. (2017). Efficacy of glutathione for the treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: an open-label, single-arm, multicenter, pilot study. BMC gastroenterology, 17(1), 96. [5] US Food and Drug Administration (.Gov), GRAS Notices [6] Sharma, D. K., & Sharma, P. (2022). Augmented Glutathione Absorption from Oral Mucosa and its Effect on Skin Pigmentation: A Clinical Review.  Clinical, cosmetic and investigative dermatology ,  15 , 1853–1862. [7] Weschawalit, S., Thongthip, S., Phutrakool, P., & Asawanonda, P. (2017). Glutathione and its antiaging and antimelanogenic effects. Clinical, cosmetic and investigative dermatology , 10 , 147–153.

 

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