The effect of reduced glutathione on alcoholic cirrhosis and erythrocyte deformability

Objective To investigate the effect of reduced glutathione on patients of alcoholic cirrhosis and observe the change of erythrocyte deformability in them.Methods Thirty in-patients of alcoholic cirrhosis were randomly given reduced glutathione(2.4g) intravenously for 2 weeks,and the parameters of their liver function and hemorheology were compared before and after the treatment.Results The serum ALT,AST,TBil and DBil were significantly decreased(P0.01)after treatment with the mean corpuscular volume(MCV) significantly decrease(P0.01) and the erythro-cyte deformability increase(P0.01).The hemorheological examination also showed that the high shear viscosity(P0.05) and low shear viscosity(P0.01) were significantly decreased after treatment.Conclusion Reduced glutathione has protective effect on alcoholic cirrhosis,the mechanism of the effect may be related to the improvement of hepatic microcirculation by the increase of the erythrocyte deformability and the decrease of the blood viscosity.