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(Health Secrets) Boosting glutathione may be the anti-aging strategy you’re looking for! Antioxidants fight free radicals to keep people looking and feeling younger. But what if you are consuming plenty of high antioxidant foods and supplements, and still not looking and feeling younger? You might be surprised to know that boosting glutathione is an ignored health secret. Follow these tips to slow the aging process by increasing your production of glutathione, the critical antioxidant.
Glutathione is one of the antioxidants the body makes naturally, creating it in the liver. But as we age, the ability of the liver to produce glutathione diminishes. This does not bode well for us, considering that aging itself produces increased cellular oxidative stress that is added to the stress produced by life in the modern world. However, there are ways to increase the body’s production of glutathione.
Why We Need Antioxidants
Oxidation occurs on a cellular level during the body’s efforts to produce energy and fortify cells by metabolizing oxygen. The oxygen atoms or molecules that are not fully absorbed become free radicals, which are unstable atoms missing an electron. Free radicals go on a rampage in the body, robbing cells of their electrons to balance and stabilize themselves. Then the atoms robbed of their electrons become free radicals too, and continue the oxidation process, robbing electrons as needed from other sources.
This chain reaction changes the identity and function of those atoms as they combine in unnatural ways, leading to cellular and DNA damage. Eventually, myriad health issues and diseases will breed freely in an environment where free radicals rule. This is the downside of oxidation, similar to the way metal becomes rusty with exposure to air.
We can’t stop breathing, so there will be some free radicals loose from just that. And the air we breathe is loaded with toxins and heavy metals that create more free radicals. Then add the toxins in many of the foods we eat, and include any pharmaceuticals that we may have taken. Top all this off with the psychological stress of our modern lifestyle pressures. Well, it is amazing that many of us are still walking and talking!
We do need much protection from all this to be able to walk and talk better and to feel and look younger. Therefore, whatever can neutralize the free radical oxidation process is necessary. Enter antioxidants, including the most overlooked yet most important one of them all, glutathione.
Glutathione is the key to detoxification, a stronger immune system, and putting the brakes on aging.
Glutathione is the premier antioxidant. It is the basic intracellular antioxidant essential for producing maximum antioxidant activity from all other antioxidants, such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, CoQ10, and all the blueberries you can eat. Glutathione removes toxins from cells and protects against radiation.
But there is a catch. Taking supplemental glutathione can’t substitute for what your body produces. The body’s digestive system breaks down supplemental glutathione and inhibits its distribution to the body’s cells where it needs to be.
The body produces glutathione in the liver from three amino acids: cysteine, glutamic acid, and glycene. Enough glutathione is needed to catalyze and maintain all the antioxidants you consume for your protection. Glutathione even acts to ensure other antioxidants don’t become free radicals themselves by regenerating and recycling them.
Many health experts now consider diminished glutathione production as the root cause of accelerated aging and ailments that are considered a normal part of aging, including Alzheimer’s, inflammatory conditions ranging from allergy to arthritis, asthma, COPD, Parkinson’s Disease, and coronary and autoimmune diseases. DNA damage resulting from free radicals often leads to cancer.
The loss of glutathione is a loss of a basic health foundation. But by boosting glutathione levels, the empowered immune system creates a bedrock of good health.
Glutathione in our bodies can go inactive when it becomes saturated from doing its work, but it can regenerate itself. Under ideal conditions, 10% of our glutathione remains inactive, while the other 90% is active or reduced with missing oxygen atoms.
It’s glutathione with missing oxygen atoms that has the ability to heal damaged cells by grabbing free oxygen atom electrons (radicals) and balancing the other antioxidants. This is the function of normal metabolism’s waste removal of free radicals by glutathione. But it is the barrage of additional toxins from our environment, aging, food, and anxiety that is usually too much to maintain that 90/10 ratio.
As the active glutathione drops below 90% and allows the inactive to increase beyond 10%, the struggle for optimum health becomes a losing battle. It becomes too difficult to remove toxins naturally. As toxins build up, active glutathione diminishes even more. Active or reduced glutathione is also known as GSH, while inactive or oxidized glutathione is known as GSSG. When GSH falls below 70%, darkness descends upon one’s health, aging accelerates, and it is time for big trouble.
How to Increase GSH (active or reduced glutathione)
Knowing that supplements labeled as glutathione are lost in the digestive system and not available to be assimilated by cells, what delivery systems can enhance the body’s ability to create and maintain the proper level of GSH? Intravenous glutathione will have immediate results for extreme situations, but cannot contribute to the cycle of circulating GSH. These are like recharging a car battery with a non-functioning alternator. As soon as the battery drains, the car stalls again!
Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., uses a special nebulizor that he created for boosting glutathione levels to COPD and emphysema patients at his Tacoma, Washington, clinic. He has obtained excellent results, but circulating GSH cannot be maintained after those direct treatments. It’s still necessary to introduce precursors that stimulate our livers to create and deliver GSH to our cells.
So it’s important to feed our bodies the GSH precursors: cysteine, glutamic acid, and glycene. Of these three amino acids that generate GSH (active glutathione) in the liver, cysteine is considered the most vital link. That’s because it’s a nutrient that’s virtually absent from our diets. It has been discovered that cysteine, balanced properly with glutamic acid, and glycene, stimulates GSH production. Two other potent antioxidants, S-Adenosylmethionine (SAM-e) and N-acetylcysteine (NAC) are also known to boost glutathione.
In addition to any supplementation you may wind up using, here are some foods that are beneficial for the GSH-glutathione circulating process. It is important to consume organic foods, as the toxins inherent or added to conventionally farmed foods minimize GSH levels.
All meats are high in cysteine, but unless you can go truly organic and grass fed, the hormones and toxins will virtually neutralize GSH. Watermelon, walnuts, and avocado, asparagus, broccoli, and tomato are good choices for glutathione enhancement, as are most dark green leafy vegetables. Ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, wheat germ and oat flakes round out this list.
The discovery of glutathione’s presence and process is relatively recent, and awareness of glutathione’s importance in slowing the aging process has straddled both alternative and mainstream medicine. This one single agent supports and encompasses all antioxidant activity for anti-aging, a stronger immune system, and good overall health.
For more information:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/glutathione-the-mother-of_b_530494.html
http://experiencelife.com/article/glutathione-the-great-protector/
Published with permission from AlignLife. Original article link is here.
