Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Over 45 million Americans suffer from tinnitus, or constant buzzing or ringing in the ears. This can impact sleep, blood pressure and overall health. The good news is that there are nutrients that can help.
Mushrooms contain a good amount of fiber, but are also packed with antioxidants. It’s these antioxidants that a lot of the scientific research has been focusing in on, especially for immune health and inflammation.
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph
Subscribe Today!
SAMe, or S-Adenomethionine, is a compound that we naturally make in the human body. Our highest concentrations are in our liver and our brain. SAMe has been shown to help maintain a stable mood and to support joint and liver health. But this compound has also been studied for its benefit against depression. Depression effects about 15 million Americans each year. The annual cost for treatment is about $50 billion.
What is SAMe’s role in the body?
This compound does a bunch of things in the human brain. It has an anti-inflammatory effect because it raises the level of a very key antioxidant called Glutathione. Glutathione levels vary from person to person and they drop with age. It breaks down peroxides which is important for the brain. Your brain is a super, high-energy organ. There is a great deal of circulation needed, in order to carry all of the calories from your food to your brain so you can use that for energy. In fact, is it thought that your brain takes 20% of all of the calorie content from each meal! Yet, your brain is only 2% of the dry weight of your body. As a byproduct of using sugar for energy, the cell releasing peroxide. This can damage and destroy the cell, so the body has to have ways to find the peroxide, which is where Glutathione comes into play.†
SAMe has to be enteric coated (an additional coating) in order to get past the stomach acids and the intestinal enzymes, which can deactivate and breakdown SAMe.
Besides this nutrient helping to restore antioxidant levels in the brain, it also creates neurotransmitters. We know of about 100 neurotransmitters in the brain. Some are needed for energy, others are needed for sleep and the immune system. SAMe is involved with four key neurotransmitters†:
Clinical Research on SAMe
An arm of the government that is within the Department of Health and Human Services is called The Agency for Healthcare Research And Quality. Their job is to collate evidence so that different organizations and agencies can base clinical guidelines off of them. When it came to SAMe and depression, researchers compiled 28 human clinical trials in their meta-analysis. In all 28 trials, SAMe worked; it improved the Hamilton Rating Scale for depression (a questionnaire that helps doctors judge how severe depression is and how to guide them regarding treatment).
The Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, The Department of Psychiatry at New York Medical College, Baylor Research Institute in Dallas, The Department of Psychiatry Michigan State University, Browne University Department of Psychiatry, The Department of Psychiatry UCLA, Columbia University Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston published a review of SAMe for clinicians in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. The review included 115 human clinical trials and found promising evidence of the efficacy and safety of SAMe, when used as mono-therapy (used with an anti-depressant).
Published in the American Journal of Psychiatry from the Center for Treatment Resistant Depression from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Researchers added SAMe to the SSRI drugs of 73 patients who had major depressive disorder. They found that if they added SAMe to the drug (in patients where the drug was not working), the drugs started to work. It was far superior to placebo.
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.
NAC is an important amino acid for numerous functions throughout the body. It has recently been studied in clinical trials for its benefit for the COVID-19 infection, along with fending off oxidative stress and inhibiting H. Pylori bacteria.
In Part 2, we are going to dive further into the studies and science behind the very important and powerful antioxidant, Glutathione for lung health and beyond with Chief Scientific Officer and Pharmacist, Jerry Hickey, Ph.
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph
Subscribe Today!
Several days ago there was a very important headline. It concerned a mother in Brooklyn, NY who had COVID-19 and, like many others sufferers, she had trouble breathing. The New York Post headline reads, “New York Mom With Coronavirus Saved By Medical Students Quick Thinking“. The otherwise healthy 48 year old Brooklyn woman was desperately ill with Coronavirus. She was so short of breath, she couldn’t speak. The family was extremely worried because she could not stand up without passing out, due to her shortness of breath from the virus. The hospital they rushed her to did not have COVID-19 testing available at the time, and doctors sent her home with a suspected COVID-19 infection and a diagnosis of pneumonia. Her other symptoms included fever, body ache, dry cough and the loss of the ability to taste or smell.
Her 23 year old son James Bruzzese is a medical student at CUNY and was worried about her severe respiratory tract symptoms. Her doctors used prescription drugs to help her, which reduced some of the symptoms but nothing was improving her breathing. Her son contacted an association which he interned for – Dr. Richard Horowitz – at the Hudson Valley Healing Arts Center, who treats Lyme disease patients. Dr. Richard Horowitz suggested trying a supplement called Glutathione.
Ease Airway Inflammation with A Unique Omega-3. Listen now >>
Dr. Horowitz’ Research
Glutathione is a very important antioxidant in the human body, especially in the protection of our upper respiratory tract and our lungs. Dr. Horowitz uses it to reduce inflammation in his Lyme disease patients. He said, “When you get a viral infection with a huge amount of inflammation, you don’t have enough Glutatione to protect your sensitive lung tissue.” Meaning, you cannot make enough to meet your body’s needs during an infection, as levels drop very quickly just like Vitamin C and other nutrients. According to the family, after one 2000mg dose of Glutathione, they witnessed a “miracle”. According to the patient, Josephine Bruzzese,”Within an hour, my breathing got better. It was amazing. I sat up. I got up.” She made her bed and states, “I went and I took a shower.” She took the pills for five days and had no relapse, her son said.
GSH is the accepted abbreviation for Glutathione. Dr. Richard Horowitz and James Bruzzese just published their experiences with GSH in the journal Respiratory Medicine Case Reports. They also discuss a second Coronavirus patient with breathing issues in their journal article. This patient also had tremendous difficulty breathing. Unlike Mrs. Bruzzese who swallowed a Glutathione supplement, they gave this other patients an IV dose of Glutathione. The patient says he soon “felt much better” and “within a half an hour, it helped with the breathing symptoms, in particular.”
Dr. Purvi Parikh, an infectious disease and immunology specialist, at NYU Langone Hospital said, “Glutathione may help in calming the immune system over reaction to the Coronavirus, known as cytokine storm.” For more information on cytokine storm, click here!
What is Glutatione and why is it so beneficial?
Glutathione is a very tiny protein that is made by our body of three amino acids. It functions as a powerful antioxidant protector throughout the body. It is highly concentrated in our brain, our eyes, our lungs, our heart and many other tissues. It is very active in our major organs of detoxification, like the kidneys, liver and lungs.
Our immune systems white and red blood cells also have to be rich in Glutathione. This helps protect our red blood cells while they carry and distribute oxygen, which is attached to the iron-rich hemoglobin within the red blood cell. Glutathione also protects our immune cells from their own chemical arsenals so that can survive and go on to kill viruses and other microbes.
When we use oxygen and sugar to create energy, there is a release of a vast pool of free radicals. This occurs in every cell of our body. Free radicals are highly unstable; if left unchecked, they can kill our cells. Levels of this free radical activity weakens and ages us. These same free radicals are part of many dangerous diseases because they cause inflammation, which damages our organs and tissues. These disease cause co-morbidity, or things that commonly occur with the initial disease like high blood sugar and diabetes.
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.
