Supplement research

Glutathione has 72,118 papers because it is inside every cell you own

This page explains why publication counts for endogenous molecules are misleading, using the two largest literatures on this site. It makes no claim about supplementation and contains no dose, schedule or route.

Why the paper counts are so large

Glutathione is a tripeptide present in essentially every cell in the body, central to how cells handle oxidative stress. NAD+ is a coenzyme involved in a large fraction of metabolic reactions. Both are studied constantly, because you cannot study cellular metabolism without encountering them.¹⁴

So a search returns 72,118 papers about glutathione, and the overwhelming majority are measuring it, tracking it, or describing pathways it participates in. Very few are about giving it to a person as a product.¹

The trial records are ordinary

• Glutathione: 72 verified registered trials, 5,528 participants.
• NAD+: 71 verified registered trials, 7,763 participants.
• Both have reached phase 4.
• Neither has an FDA-approved product in the form typically sold as a supplement.²³

Seventy trials is a solid record. It is also about one thousandth of glutathione's publication count, and that ratio is the entire point of this page.¹²

How the number gets used

Decades of research and thousands of studies are literally true statements about glutathione. Placed next to a product, they imply that the product has decades of research behind it, which does not follow at all.¹

The same construction works for any endogenous molecule. It is among the most effective ways to make a supplement sound established, and it requires no false statement anywhere.¹³

The question that separates them

Ask whether a study gave the compound to people and measured what happened. That reduces glutathione's 72,118 to 72 trials, and those 72 are the ones capable of answering a question about taking it.¹²

Common questions