Paul says, "Do you still take Avmacol, and if so, what dosage? Is there any risk to having too many antioxidants from Avmacol? Also, if you're already eating an antioxidant-rich diet." For those of you wondering what Avmacol is, Avmacol is the top sulforaphane supplement, hands down, on the market. It's made by a company called Nutramax.

They are unparalleled in terms of their quality control. I've actually never seen any supplement company with such rigorous standards. They have over 12 publications using their sulforaphane-based supplement called Avmacol, A-V-M-A-C-O-L. It is the supplement that I take.

And I take two of the extra-strength Avmacol tablets per day. According to many of the studies, actually one of those extra-strength Avmacol tablets per day, you can get some of the benefits. For example, I see people asking in the chat, "What are the benefits of a sulforaphane supplement?" Keep in mind, I'm calling it a sulforaphane supplement. The supplement itself actually has the precursor to sulforaphane, along with the enzyme that converts it to active sulforaphane.

I just don't want to get into all the nitty-gritty here. For simplicity, I will refer to it as a sulforaphane supplement. Studies have found that this form of sulforaphane supplement increases glutathione in both plasma and in the human brain. These are both human studies.

Glutathione is the major circulating antioxidant that we have in our body. It's the major antioxidant in the brain. It's very relevant for a variety of things, including just normal aging, normal brain aging. Very relevant when it comes to any type of stress on the brain, including insufficient sleep, psychological or emotional stress, brain aging, neurodegenerative disease, and dementia.

Also, traumatic brain injury, those types of things. There are studies showing that increasing glutathione in the brain has massive benefits in terms of improving outcomes with respect to TBI. It is an important brain antioxidant. There are also a couple of studies showing that children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder that take Avmacol, specifically Avmacol, were able to improve a battery of tests that are done to assess the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder and there were improvements across the board compared to a placebo control.

So, there are other studies showing that glutathione is beneficial in the brain for autism spectrum disorder as well as other neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and ADHD. So, really what we're talking about here is anything that can boost our brain's natural antioxidant system. This is glutathione. It's really going to have a benefit across the board with brain function.

And what I'm talking about here is everything from autism spectrum disorder to schizophrenia to dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Now, it's not going to be the kind of stimulant or nootropic effect that you would feel from caffeine. That's not what I'm talking about here. But it is going to have brain benefits at the end of the day.

So, that's one major reason to take Avmacol. Another reason is that human and animal studies show sulforaphane activates the major phase II detoxification enzyme system. And that is because sulforaphane is the major natural dietary, I would say dietary or natural product activator of a system called NRF2 in our bodies. NRF2 is what is called a transcription factor.

All that means is it's like this master regulator of many different genes. And what it does is it turns on all these genes that are involved in detoxification. A couple of human studies come from China, where air pollution is very high. Individuals that are given the sulforaphane supplement are able to detoxify benzene, which is present in air pollution.

It is also present in wildfire smoke. Smokers are taking in a lot of benzene. They're able to detoxify benzene by 60% after just 24 hours. Huge effects.

Participants were also able to detoxify acrolein. Acrolein is another carcinogen found in air pollution, and it can also form when foods are cooked. So, detoxification is another area that the sulforaphane supplement is really beneficial for. And I want to mention here that bisphenol A, BPA, one of the major plastic-associated chemicals, and its sort of sister product, BPS, you'll find a lot of products that are claiming they're BPA free.

That's great, except for the fact that BPS is often used to replace BPA, and it may be as bad as, if not worse than, BPA. These are endocrine disruptors. They're disrupting hormones. They're not good.

Well, sulforaphane, the pathway that detoxifies benzene involves the same enzymes that also detoxify BPA. Some animal studies show that can be beneficial in terms of detoxifying BPA toxicity. If you give rodents sulforaphane, there's yet to be a human study. It is my belief that there's no reason why this wouldn't translate to humans.

We just have to show it. We just have to prove it. And so that's another reason why I have my whole family taking sulforaphane. I have them taking Avmacol because we are completely bombarded with plastic.

You just have no idea. That is true even for those of us doing everything we can to mitigate plastic exposure. If you go to the grocery store and buy chicken, poultry, steak, whatever, it's vacuum sealed in this plastic wrap. That stuff is shedding particles.

Those microplastic particles do have BPA attached to them. So we're just constantly being exposed to it. So, that is another reason why I take these sulforaphane supplements. I cannot overstate how strongly sulforaphane activates the detoxification pathway.

It also quiets down another pathway called phase I biotransformation enzymes. These are enzymes that you want to be quieted down. You want them to be turned off because they're responsible for converting what are called procarcinogens into carcinogens. You would be surprised by how much we are exposed to these procarcinogens.

Cooking meat is one source. We're getting tons of these procarcinogens. Now, our bodies can either convert them into potential carcinogens or not.

And so you want to have this activated NRF2 pathway because that NRF2 is shutting down those enzymes that will convert procarcinogens into carcinogens. So, lots of reasons to take Avmacol. Do I think it's going to give you too many antioxidants? No.

The reason for that is because sulforaphane is more of an indirect antioxidant as opposed to taking, for example, a vitamin C supplement or a vitamin E alpha tocopherol supplement. What I mean by that is when you're taking a direct antioxidant like vitamin C, like vitamin E, those micronutrients, which by the way have other functions besides being an antioxidant, right? Vitamin C is a cofactor to make collagen, for example. It is also an antioxidant. Those antioxidants directly bind to pro-oxidants that we are exposed to, that we generate in our body from just normal metabolism, and they sequester them and prevent them from damaging our DNA, which can lead to cancer.

They prevent them from damaging our cells, causing cellular aging in a sense. You do not want too many of those antioxidants because some oxidation helps activate the antioxidant pathways in our body like glutathione. Sulforaphane does not directly bind to pro-oxidants. It is activating NRF2, which then activates our antioxidant genetic pathways, stress response pathways.

This is similar to what exercise does, right? Exercise is actually a little bit of a stressor. It is activating a variety of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory pathways, including NRF2. So, at the end of the day you can kind of think a little bit like sulforaphane's a little bit like exercise in a way where it's a little bit activating that stress response pathway.

Sorry, I thought that was going to be a rapid-fire question, but I saw that many people were actually asking questions about sulforaphane in the live chat, so I thought I would take some time to address it. I will say again that Nutramax is the maker of Avmacol. You can buy it directly from Nutramax.com, which is what I do. Also, sometimes I order it from Amazon.

Amazon, you want to make sure that Nutramax is the supplier. Various companies have appeared and copied Nutramax. So, there have been some companies that have made counterfeit Avmacol supplements. And I talked to some people at Nutramax and they said that they went and tested these fake supplements and they were very bad.

Please remember that this does not relate only to Avmacol. It applies to all supplements. You really have to be careful and make sure you're getting them direct from the manufacturer. If it's on Amazon, make sure it comes directly from the manufacturer rather than a third party because, unfortunately, now there's a lot of people out there that are just okay with making fake supplements and that is a major problem.