What science says about Glutathione For Cancer

There's a general agreement about the benefits of glutathione for fighting cancer. This is mainly because glutathione is suggested to have a dual function when dealing with cancer, as it is able to play both a protective and a pathogenic role. However, some health experts are concerned that this protective role might also extend to support cancerous cells and protect them as well.

Accordingly, health experts supporting the use of glutathione for cancer patients, believe that this supplementation helps protect cells from DNA mutations and aids in the reduction of inflammation.

Furthermore, they suggest taking glutathione because it plays an important role in removing and detoxifying carcinogens. By doing so, glutathione diminishes alterations in the DNA sequence and maintains the cell’s normal function. This helps in the decrease of cancer progression.

Meanwhile, Dr. Thomas Lodi, MD, Internal Medicine, doesn’t recommend taking intravenous glutathione because tumor cells can take advantage of this. According to him, “you are going to support the cancer cells as much as you are going to support the healthy cell”.

Instead, Dr. Lodi suggests taking intravenous N-acetylcysteine (NAC), which is a glutathione precursor, because healthy cells can use it to protect themselves; whereas tumor cells cannot absorb it to defend themselves against therapeutic drugs.

Dr. Alan Pressman, Doctor of Chiropractic, CDN, DACBN, recommends taking glutathione for cancer as he believes that glutathione is “not just as a detoxifier, not just an anti-oxidant, but is an important aspect of treatment for cancer”.

On the other hand, other experts have found that tumor cells have glutathione in them. They believe that upon taking glutathione supplements, these levels will be elevated, thus protecting tumor cells from chemotherapeutic drugs. This allows cancerous cells to become more resistant to therapeutic drugs, thus increasing the progression of cancer.