What Is Glutathione/GSH?

It is a vital component of every one of the 10-100 trillion cells (depending on the source you read) that we have in our body, and it has approximately 30-40 functions. It’s manufactured in the cells of your body, and its purpose is to protect you at the cellular level -- in other words, it protects all the cells of your body.

How Does Glutathione/GSH Protect Us at the Cellular Level?

Think A-I-D. Here are the three MAJOR ways -- Antioxidant, Immune System Strengthener, Detoxifier

A - Glutathione/GSH is the master antioxidant, your body’s most powerful antioxidant. It works with other antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C and E. It recyles them, keeps them in an active state longer and helps prevent oxidative stress and inflammation. (Read Inflammation, Free Radicals, Oxidative Stress and Antioxidants)

I - Glutathione/GSH strengthens your immune system by boosting production of T cells that fight viral and bacterial infections and anything your cells recognize as being invasive.

D - Glutathione/GSH is your body’s main detoxifier. It cleanses the cells of your body and flushes waste and toxins out of your system, including pesticides and heavy metals that are linked to Parkinson’s and other serious diseases. This cleansing is vital for organs of detoxification, especially your liver and kidneys.

Glutathione/GSH also plays a crucial role in the regulation of many other body functions that are required to sustain life, including the repair of DNA, synthesis of proteins and activation and regulation of enzymes.

How Is Glutathione/GSH Produced?

This vital cellular component is manufactured in your cells, by your cells. You cannot take glutathione as a supplement. Your body needs three specific amino acids in order to manufacture glutathione/GSH. If one is missing or in short supply, your cells can’t produce enough to carry out their essential functions. (You’ll read more about this later.)

What Happens When Your Cells Don’t Produce Enough Glutathione/GSH?

Your body is unable to effectively fight free radical damage and prevent oxidative stress and inflammation even if you take large quantities of antioxidants. That’s because antioxidants need glutathione/GSH to do their work. Free radical damage, which leads to cellular oxidation and inflammation, is recognized as a major cause of or contributing factor to degenerative diseases – cancer, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, heart problems, stroke, diabetes, fibromyalgia, MS, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, macular degeneration (to name a few) -- and the physical and mental changes we call “aging.”

Your immune system is weak because glutathione is needed to produce T cells that fight disease. With a healthy immune system, we can prevent and heal from chronic degenerative conditions such as those above, auto-immune diseases and infectious viral and bacterial illnesses.

Our bodies contain billions of microbes (we call them germs), and people with weak immune systems are frequently sick. While people with strong immune systems resist viral diseases and microbial infections -- including AIDS, Herpes, Epstein Barr, Mad Cow disease, ear infections, e-coli infections and other food-harbored microbes and various strains of the flu (not to mention the very annoying common cold and sore throat) -- those with weak immune systems are susceptible. Even Louis Pasteur, on his deathbed, recognized that it is not “germs” that cause disease; rather it is “the host” -- the individual’s body and level of resistance.

You can’t efficiently eliminate toxins that you inhale, ingest and absorb every day from the air, food, water and environment. Good detoxification at the cellular level is especially important for your liver, and is as essential to your health as good nutrition. Detoxification is vital for people who have taken re-called drugs or had exposure to dangerous chemicals such as asbestos and pesticides, or anyone who lived, worked or volunteered in the vicinity of Ground Zero in NYC during and after 9/11, or other toxic areas. (Fortunately, detoxification can be successfully accomplished even years after exposure.)

Could Lack of Glutathione/GSH Be a Major Reason for the Rise in Degenerative, Life-Threatening Diseases?

Sounds like a simple explanation, doesn’t it? Too simple, you say? Well, it took a lot of years and a lot of deaths before it was discovered that the cause of scurvy, a once deadly disease, was lack of vitamin C, and before doctors agreed to wash their hands before delivering babies, thus wiping out deadly childbirth fever.

What Causes Glutathione/GSH Deficiency?

In a word – LIFE! As we age, glutathione production declines. Glutathione is also depleted by everything that produces free radicals and causes oxidative stress: chemicals, drugs (medical and recreational), tobacco (smoking and 2nd hand smoke), radiation, sunlight, exercise, metabolic processes, physical stresses and strains, electronic pollution from extra low frequencies (ELFs) from computers, TV, power lines and microwaves, and known and unsuspected toxins and pollution in our air, food and water. In addition, a major source of free radical damage is mental and emotional stress. In some people mental and emotional stress produces more free radical damage than all other causes combined!

What Are Free Radicals?

In simple and unscientific terms, free radicals are unstable molecules that are missing an electron. (Molecules are made up of atoms, and atoms are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons.) As a result of chemical processes that take place in the body when it is exposed to various conditions, such as those stated in the previous paragraph, molecules lose an electron (electrons come in pairs), and they “steal” electrons from other molecules.

These molecules now “steal” electrons from other molecules – thus starting a dangerous chain reaction of free radical damage, causing oxidative stress and abnormal cellular changes. Glutathione/GSH is essential to stop this spiraling process. Free radical damage causes oxidative stress and leads to inflammation, the “hidden” cause of so many diseases. (Read Inflammation, Free Radicals, Oxidative Stress and Antioxidants

What Does the Body Need In Order to Produce Glutathione/GSH?

Your body uses three amino acids -- glutamine, glutamic acid and cysteine. The first two are plentiful in food, but cysteine is not. Cysteine is found in milk and eggs and leafy green vegetables. But once the foods are heated, the cysteine activity is destroyed. Since we do not drink raw milk or eat raw eggs (and can’t consume enough even if we do) and don’t eat bushels of raw leafy green vegetables daily, our bodies are deficient in cysteine. Cysteine deficiency equals glutathione deficiency, for without enough cysteine, it doesn’t matter how much glutamine and glutatmic acid is present in your cells -- your body can’t produce glutathione.

What About Taking Glutathione or Cysteine Supplements?

As I said earlier, you can’t take glutathione supplements. The molecule is too large. And cysteine supplements don’t provide cysteine in a form your body can use to manufacture glutathione/GSH. Glutathione and cysteine supplements are a waste of money. And because you think you’re being protected when you’re not, they can be dangerous to your health.

How Can We Insure That Our Body Produces Enough Glutathione/GSH?

Read what these doctors say. First, here’s a quote from the article “Glutathione the undiscovered “natural drug” by Patricia A.L. Kongshavn, Ph.D (She is the former Professor of Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Canada): “One study demonstrated that, by feeding a cysteine enriched food product, namely Immunocal®, glutathione values increased by 35.5% in the lymphocytes of normal young adults.

Here are excerpts from “Glutathione Part 2,” by Dr. David L. Phillips. “Much of the research into whey proteins and their stellar glutathione enhancing ability came from McGill University in Canada resulting from an accidental discovery while studying protein supplementation in the 1980’s. Over the last 20 years, much research has been done to prove its value to human glutathione enhancement. An interesting product has resulted from all this research and is known commercially as Immunocal® (or in Canada as HMS90). This product has unquestionably proven to be highly bioavailable and effective in raising GSH levels both in the blood and intracellular.”

This article also says the following: “Whey proteins seem to be the best method of obtaining the building blocks of glutathione. The heat of pasteurization and the extreme agitation of homogenization easily denature these proteins. This denaturing process renders their GSH enhancing abilities next to useless. To maintain bioactivity of glutathione precursors, whey proteins must be extracted from milk under exacting, almost laboratory conditions, and then concentrated. Most whey products vary from 20-90% in their protein content.” (Dr. Phillips’ article lets us know that Immunocal® is processed under these exacting conditions.)

Now read the startling statement of nutrition expert, James F. Balch, MD. Dr. Balch and his wife Phyllis, a Certified Nutrition Consultant, are the authors of “Prescriptions for Nutritional Healing” -- the most popular nutritional book ever written, with over 8½ million copies sold. On a radio interview in 2006, Dr. Balch discussed why glutathione/GSH is essential, what it does in the body and why EVERYONE needs it. Then he went on to state that if you take any supplements and do not also take Immunocal® to raise the glutathione levels in your body, you are wasting your money! While this may be an exaggeration, it is notable that the ONLY nutritional supplement Dr. Balch has ever endorsed BY NAME is Immunocal®.

What Is Immunocal®?

It’s a patented natural food supplement made from a whey protein isolate that provides the cysteine, glutamic acid and glutamine in the form your body needs in order to produce glutathione/GSH in your cells. The doctors I quote above all agree that Immunocal® is the ONE product proven by clinical research to effectively raise glutathione/GSH levels in your body. What they don’t mention is that Immunocal® has 10 national and international patents, including for the prevention and treatment of cancer. (Read Glutathione/GSH and “The Reverse Modulation Effect” in Cancer.)

Should Healthy People Raise Their Glutathione/GSH Levels?

YES. What glutathione/GSH can heal, it can also prevent. If you want to avoid the debilitating degenerating, often life-threatening diseases of “modern” life, you need plenty of glutathione/GSH. Healthy elderly people have high levels of glutathione in their body. In fact, research suggests that longevity can be increased by 30% when you have enough glutathione/GSH in your body.

Want Research Data?

Even the FDA – who never says anything good about a nutritional supplement -- confirms the health benefits of glutathione and also confirms that Immunocal® raises glutathione levels. The FDA says you can cut your hospital stay IN HALF, from 35 to 18 days, AND reduce your hospital bill from $140,000 to $80,000 by taking Immunocal®. You can see this for yourself by going to http://www.fda.gov and typing “Immunocal” in the search box.

If you “google” glutathione and inflammation and glutathione and oxidative stress as I did, tons of research papers show up. Here’s a quote from a USA Today article on 10/22/03: “A second study by researchers at Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, showed for the first time that low levels of the enzyme glutathione also suggest a coming heart attack.” (NOTE: Beware of “copy cat” products that cite Immunocal® research and claim to do what Immunocal® does. They DON’T.)

Do You Want More Information?

I’ve written over 60 documents on this subject -- that’s how important I consider it. I managed to condense them into a 10 page Immunocal® Report. If you’d like a copy, click here and send an email with “Immunocal Report” in the subject line. I also wrote a two page summary. If you want that, write “Immunocal Summary.” If you only want a link to clinical research, type “research link” in subject line, and I’ll send you the link and instructions to access some of the research.

To read about Immunocal® on the company’s website (the company is Immunotec Research) go to http://www.immunotec.com/unlimited/page.asp. You will NOT find the information I tell you on that website. Keep in mind, there are NO health claims made for Immunocal®. All health claims are made for glutathione/GSH. The ONLY claim made for Immunocal® is that it raises glutathione/GSH levels in your body. It is the ONLY supplement proven by clinical research to accomplish this.

Here’s How You Can Get Immunocal®

Immunocal® is sold with a no-risk Money-Back Guarantee. To order, contact me. I suggest that you DON’T order from the website, because there is more I want to tell you, including how you can buy Immunocal® at the wholesale price.

You can contact me at info@beverlynadler.com or 203-373-1943

Back to Top of Page

To Nutrition Page and Articles

To subscribe to Beverly's free e-newsletter, send a BLANK email to:liveyourvisionnewsletter-subscribe@topica.com