What Every Filipino Should Know About Glutathione (GSH) and How It Can Be Supplemented.
I created this thread primarily...
- to educate a lot of people (asians especially and PINOYS specifically) about glutathione and its important role in our overall health.
- to correct the misconceptions about glutathione being a "luxury item", as a "whitening agent" and some other false notions.
- to show the 'real science about glutathione' and stop posers from spreading inaccurate information about glutathione just to sell their glutathione products.
- and to inform everyone about the proper way to support and deliver glutathione in the body.
***Will be showing images with a little explanation. More posts thereafter.
1. First, let's talk about our body. From body systems, organs, tissues and down to cells and how to protect it from harmful effects of free radicals.
2. Free Radicals are molecules with unpaired electrons. In their quest to find another electron, they are very reactive and cause damage to surrounding molecules.
3. Free Radicals > Oxidative Stress > Cell Damage > Tissue Damage > Organ failure or Disease. So how can we prevent these damages that leads to diseases?
4. It is only logical that to stay healthy, we have to protect our cells from free radicals that causes oxidative stress. We need an an antioxidant that can neutralize ALL TYPES of free radicals. Antioxidants taken from food sources, vitamins, fruits and veggies is good but NOT enough. You probably don't know this but the MOST POWERFUL antioxidant is already found in our body. And that is...
5. Glutathione (GSH). GSH is found in every cell of the body. It is particularly concentrated in the liver (detoxifier) and spleen (immune defense system. Glutathione reaches concentrations that are thousands of times that of the commonly advertised vitamins such as C, E, and/or A.
6. Exogenous are those taken from our diet (fruits, vegetables, juice drinks, vitamins and others) and Endogenous are the ones naturally produced by our body. Of these 4 endogenous antioxidants, multi-talented glutathione reigns as the king (or queen) of antioxidants. So which antioxidant is more powerful? The vitamins you are taking or the ones that your body produces? Well, you know he answer
7. Only GSH has the power to neutralize ALL types of freeradicals. If our immune system is charged in protecting our body from germs, bacterias and viruses, it is GSH that protecs the immune cells in the immune system. While it is true that GSH is present in every cell of the body, it has the highest concentration in the liver. Our liver uses glutatione to detoxify our body from harmful toxins and heavy metals. In simple comparison, if a washing machine is the liver, glutathione is the detergent.
8. No wonder why it is called the
Guardian of the Cell. There's no other supplement that can function as better as Glutathione.
***Take note, none of these functions mentioned about whitening effect. We're talking about the natural Glutathione produced inside the cells, not those synthetic ones used in the cosmetics industry.
9. We can live for days without food and water and few minutes without oxygen but without GSH, we die in seconds.
10. It's a good thing that we have this natural protection in the body. Unfortunately, it runs out of supply as we are continuously exposed to freeradicals. It goes down faster than the body can produce.
11. Even if we live in a perfect bubble without too much exposure to freeradicals, still our instracellular GSH goes down with age. What's worse, as it goes down, oxidative stress goes up. And when our body is overwhelmed with too much oxidative stress, diseases start to appear.
12.
Glutathione has been widely studied with over 100,000 published peer-reviewed scientific papers (from
PubMed) on this topic. In one review, almost 80% of people with chronic ailments were found to be deficient in glutathione. In fact, low levels of glutathione are involved in all disease states. The following symptoms, diseases and illnesses (shown above) have been linked to low glutathione levels. (To find the scientific papers that have been published on each of these topics in relation to glutathione, visit
PubMed, the US National Library of Medicine and type in “glutathione” and the symptom/disease/illness/syndrome of interest). Now that you know that low levels of glutathione is linked to several diseases, you might ask if it is logical to take glutathione supplements. Let's see..
13. This is why
ready-made glutathione are useless for they can't get inside the cell. GSH
ONLY works when inside the cell, not outside. What these supplements do instead is, since it can't get into the cell, it stays in the bloodstream and interacts with the production of melanin in the skin, resulting to a lighter complexion. Check this
Advisory from FDA about intravenous glutathione.
14. So what will happen if we are able to overcome these challenges to support glutathione production? And so you ask,
How should Glutathione (GSH) be supplemented?
First, let's understand GSH's composition first. GSH is a tripeptide (3-amino acid protein-like structure) composed of glutamic acid, cysteine and glycine. Of the three components, cysteine is the most important.
Cysteine limits the production of glutathione (rate limiting). Since GSH is naturally produced in each cell of the body, if there's not enough cysteine, the cells cannot produce enough of it. While glutamic acid and glycine are readily available from our diet, cysteine is more of a challenge. It easily dissolves in the gut and the chance of getting into the cells for gsh production is very slim.
so again,
how should GSH be supplemented?
The solution is to take the precursors or raw materials needed by the body to support glutathione production. That is, taking
Cysteine into the body and make sure it survives the acid in the stomach, passes the gut and gets absorbed into the cells. Two supplements that do this and does it best:
N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) - NAC supplements are made synthetically from the amino acid l-cysteine. The small molecule slips seamlessly into the blood where it combines with glutamic acid and glycine to restock the liver’s supply of glutathione. A potent liver detoxifier, NAC is approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a tool to limit liver damage caused by acetaminophen overdose.
- The rate limiting substrate for the body to synthesize glutathione is the amino acid, Cysteine, of which NAC is a derivative. By itself, NAC has been used in medicine for decades in the treatment of acetaminophen overdose, as well as the long-term management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD). It is also thought to have a role in protecting the kidneys from the toxic effects of contrast dye.
and...
RiboCeine - (scientific name D-Ribose L-Cysteine, or "RibCys").
RiboCeine is a patented compound that combines Ribose (sugar compound) and Cysteine, to effectively deliver the fragile cysteine molecule directly to the cells, where it is converted into glutathione, the body's master antioxidant, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cell's natural fuel and source of energy. RiboCeine has significantly outperformed all other means of glutathione enhancement against which it has been tested. Unlike any other nutritional compound in the world, RiboCeine has been the subject of twenty published, peer-reviewed scientific studies that were funded by the
National Institutes of Health,
NASA and other scientific institutions.
These two supplements protects Cysteine and ensure that it gets delivered and absorbed into the cells.
Other key supplements that can be used to aide and recycle GSH:
Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) - A key antioxidant, alpha-lipoic acid (not to be confused with alpha-linolenic acid) is both water- and fat-soluble, meaning it can vanquish free radicals throughout the body, including in the brain. That’s no small matter, since oxidative damage is tied to many brain diseases, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The best dietary sources of ALA are organ meats (such as liver) and brewer’s yeast. Lipoic acid plays the role of increasing the de novo synthesis of reduced cellular glutathione by improving the utilization of cysteine.
Selenium - A mineral found in Brazil nuts, meat and seafood, selenium boosts the body’s ability to recycle glutathione. “Eating just one to two Brazil nuts daily supplies enough selenium for most people,” says Lise Alschuler, ND, FABNO, coauthor of The Definitive Guide to Cancer: An Integrative Approach to Prevention, Treatment, and Healing, Third Edition (Celestial Arts, 2010).
Vitamin C - One of the most well-known antioxidants, vitamin C is glutathione’s crime-fighting cohort. In studies, people with high levels of vitamin C typically have high glutathione levels, as well. The two antioxidants work in tandem to rid the body of water-soluble toxins.
L-Glutamine - The amino acid, L-Glutamine, supports the health and function of the GI tract by nourishing the tissue. It has also been shown to have beneficial effects on the liver and the immune system. Its role is to preserve intracellular NADPH, which is required for glutathione recycling.
These two technologies for glutathione delivery are available in
MaxGXL (NAC),
MaxOne (Riboceine) and
Cellgevity (Riboceine).
The "Real Science of Glutathione". Know the Facts, Correct the Misconceptions.
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