Quantitation of Brain and Blood Glutathione and Iron in Healthy Age Groups Using Biophysical and In Vivo MR Spectroscopy: Potential Clinical Application

Theantioxidant glutathione (GSH) and pro-oxidant iron levels playa balancing role in the modulation of oxidative stress (OS). Thereis a significant depletion of GSH in the left hippocampus (LH) inpatients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) with concomitant elevationof iron level. However, the correlation of GSH and iron distributionpatterns between the brain and the peripheral system (blood) is notyet known. We measured GSH and magnetic susceptibility (e.g., iron)in the LH region along with GSH in plasma and iron in serum acrossfour age groups consisting of healthy volunteers (age range 18-72y, n = 70). We report non-variability of the meanGSH in the plasma and LH region across mentioned age groups. Themean iron level in the LH region does not change, but the iron levelin the serum in the 51-72 y age group increases non-significantly.Regression analysis of our data indicated that GSH and iron levels(both in blood and in brain) are not related to age. This researchpave the way for the identification of a risk/susceptibility biomarkerfor AD and Parkinson's disease from the evaluation of GSH (inplasma) and iron (in serum) levels concomitantly.