Glutathione

01 / Dosing schedule

Cited dosing

Glutathione has real but thin randomized human dosing, mostly in Parkinson's disease. The pilot IV regimen was 1400 mg three times weekly for 4 weeks; a later IV study used 600 mg twice daily, and the better-characterised modern trials switched to intranasal 300-600 mg/day.

Glutathione dosing in Parkinson's disease trials

Phase	Dose & frequency
Hauser 2009 IV pilot	1400 mg intravenous push, three times weekly; 4-week follow-up; 21 subjects (GSH n=11, control n=10)
Bao 2018 IV drip	600 mg intravenous drip twice daily; 4-month follow-up; 100 GSH vs 100 control
Mischley 2015 phase I/IIa, intranasal	300 mg/day or 600 mg/day intranasally in 3 divided doses, 3 months
Mischley 2017 phase IIb, intranasal	100 mg/mL or 200 mg/mL solution, one 1 mL syringe three times daily (morning, afternoon, evening) for 12 weeks, then 4-week washout
Maximum intranasal weekly dose	4200 mg/week, chosen to match the 2009 IV pilot dose
CNS-uptake MRS substudy	200 mg intranasal GSH, levels measured over 1 hour

Source · Mischley LK et al. Phase IIb Study of Intranasal Glutathione in Parkinson's Disease. J Parkinsons Dis. 2017;7:289-299 (with the IV pilot dose documented in Mischley LK et al., Mov Disord 2015, and tabulated in Zhang et al. review). ↗

Source indication · Parkinson's disease (IV pilot RCT, IV drip study, and intranasal phase I/IIa and phase IIb trials)

Injection frequency: IV: three times weekly (1400 mg) or twice daily (600 mg). Intranasal: three times daily in divided doses, for 3 months.
Injection sites: n.a. — the IV studies describe intravenous push or drip without naming a venous site; the intranasal trials used a Mucosal Atomization Device attached to a 1 mL syringe, with patients instructed to tip the head back or lie down and inhale deeply.

02 / Reconstitution

Reconstitution reference

The intranasal trials dispensed study medication pre-packaged in sterile capped 1 mL syringes at 100 mg/mL or 200 mg/mL, kept refrigerated, with atomizer tips replaced monthly. The IV studies do not publish a dilution procedure.

Vial1 mL syringe of intranasal study medication (trial presentation)

BAC watern.a. — trials used pre-made solution; placebo was sterile saline

Concentration100 mg/mL or 200 mg/mL (phase IIb intranasal arms)

Example dose200 mg per administration, three times daily = 600 mg/day

On a U‑100 syringe1 mL per administration

Open the reconstitution calculator →

03 / Overview

Protocol overview

Glutathione is an endogenous tripeptide antioxidant, not a developed drug product, and no glutathione injection is FDA approved for Parkinson's disease or for 'oxidative stress'. The IV clinics that sell it are operating outside any approved indication.

The IV regimen everyone quotes traces to one small study: Hauser and colleagues' randomized, double-blind pilot of intravenous glutathione in Parkinson's disease (Mov Disord 2009), 1400 mg by IV push three times weekly, in 21 subjects with a 4-week follow-up. A later Chinese study used 600 mg by IV drip twice daily in 200 patients over 4 months.

Because IV dosing is impractical, the Mischley group moved to intranasal delivery. The phase I/IIa study randomised 30 people with Parkinson's to 300 mg/day, 600 mg/day, saline placebo or watchful waiting, in three divided daily doses for three months, and explicitly chose the 4200 mg/week maximum to match the 2009 IV pilot dose.

The phase IIb trial randomised 45 people with Hoehn & Yahr stage 1-3 Parkinson's to intranasal saline, 100 mg GSH or 200 mg GSH three times daily for three months with a one-month washout, and included an MRS substudy giving 200 mg intranasally to track CNS uptake over one hour. No human half-life for administered glutathione appears in these sources, so it is listed as n.a. Evidence is graded 'limited': small pilots, mixed results.

04 / References