Reader Joe used the website's "Contact Me" on March 24, 2021 to inquire:
Hello: While browsing the news, he found that a professor at Zhongyuan University in Taiwan is promoting the GSH (cetathione) diet method, advocating the public to take GSH through daily diet, so that it can quickly absorb and convert the antioxidant enzymes needed in the cell organization, which can increase its own antioxidant capacity and directly reduce the chance of PM2.5 entering the human body. I watched this kind of academic experience and directly promoted health food in the video. Although he mainly focuses on "food" and recommends that ordinary people use health food to get GSH. I wonder what the teacher said: 1. Can it work with supplements to absorb GSH to fight PM2.5? 2. If I don’t use supplements and use natural methods, choose more GSH or food that can help the body produce GSH, will it be more helpful to my lungs? Because Taiwan’s empty space is terrible, I believe that this explanation from the teacher can benefit many people. Thank you very much!!
The protagonist of the video sent by this reader is Associate Professor Zhao Mingwei. Although he suggested eating healthy food, he also encouraged everyone to take health supplements. In fact, he was one of the founders of the "Astroman Incident" that was only scared of the storm not long ago. Please see my Astro Vitamin published on 2021-2-27. Therefore, he is certainly advocating taking supplements.
In fact, there are many people who blindly encourage the replenishment, especially when money can make the devil push the mill, which is even more natural. No wonder. However, recruiting associate professors to encourage taking GSH (cetathione) actually shocked me.
First of all, because GSH is synthesized by our body, most people don’t need to supplement it at all. Furthermore, since GSH is a short-link peptide (a small segment of protein), it will be decomposed by gastric acid and pepsin when it reaches the stomach. Of course, in very rare cases, GSH needs to be replenished, so it must be used to use a pin. So, you know why I'm saying "Associate professors are encouraged to eat GSH, which really shocked me."
However, there is actually a way to increase the body's synthesis of GSH, which is to take N-Acetyl Cystein (simplified NAC) supplement. NAC can be converted into cysteine in the human body, and Cysteine can be used to synthesize GSH. Please see the defect information about cetathiamine and acetylcysteine published on 2020-9-9.
Although taking GSH supplements (or eating GSH-rich foods) cannot fight air pollution, it is true that some studies have believed that taking antioxidant supplements (or eating antioxidant foods) can also reduce the harm caused by air pollution to the body. There are also many articles on the Internet that teach people how to use diet to fight air pollution, but in fact, their methods are nothing more than some common things, such as eating more green vegetables, strawberries, citrus, garlic, etc.
Because of this, I published a more challenging article on 2018-4-11. Anti-air pollution, blue and white vegetable sprouts. I cited two research papers to “Certain ” Blue and white vegetable sprouts have anti-air pollution effects. If readers are interested in knowing more, including how to eat green and white vegetable sprouts, please click the link to view it.
However, I must point out that it is not so sure about taking antioxidant supplements (or eating foods rich in antioxidants) to fight air pollution.
Medical journal Respiratory Research published a review on May 2, 2018. Pollution and respiratory disease: can diet or supplements help? A review. Its conclusion is: We have found preliminary evidence that certain nutrients appear to reduce the adverse health effects of air pollution, so further research is very urgently needed. However, designing this type of research is very difficult due to confusing factors such as diet, obesity, malfunction, drugs and environmental exposure.
The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health also published another review article on 2020-1-18 New Opportunities to Mitigate the Burden of Disease Caused by Traffic Related Air Pollution: Antioxidant-Rich Diets and Supplements. Its conclusion is: Overall, we found consistent evidence that maintaining Mediterranean diet and increasing fruit and vegetable intake can effectively resolve the adverse health effects of transportation-related air pollution. Conversely, antioxidant supplements, including fish oil, olive oil, vitamin C and E, provide conflicting evidence.. We need further research to understand why antioxidant supplements have limited efficacy and whether this is related to dose, drug type, medication time, or the population studied.
From these two articles, it can be seen that some preliminary evidence shows that antioxidant-rich diets can relieve adverse health effects caused by air pollution. However, due to the complexity of research and difficult to control factors, it is actually not easy to obtain.
Original text: Add GSH to fight PM2.5?