Glutathione

What it is claimed to help

These are the uses attached to Glutathione in research, clinical practice, or marketing. Listing a claim is not endorsing it — tap any of them to see every other compound carrying the same claim.

What the human evidence actually is

Split by route. Oral and topical glutathione have small skin-lightening studies with modest results. Intravenous glutathione for skin lightening has been the subject of explicit regulatory warnings — the Philippine FDA cited serious adverse events including Stevens-Johnson syndrome, kidney injury and deaths linked to unregulated IV use. Oral bioavailability is also genuinely poor since it is broken into constituent amino acids.

How it is supposed to work

The body's principal intracellular antioxidant and phase II conjugation substrate; inhibits tyrosinase and shifts melanin toward lighter pheomelanin.

Safety

Oral is benign. Unregulated high-dose IV use is where the documented harm is.

Storage and handling

Lyophilised peptide is generally stored at 2–8 °C, or below −20 °C for long-term storage. Reconstituted in bacteriostatic water (0.9% benzyl alcohol) a solution is typically treated as usable for about 28 days refrigerated, versus roughly 24 hours for plain sterile water, which has no preservative. Add the water slowly down the vial wall and swirl — never shake, which shears peptide chains and foams the solution.