Glutathione GSH

Glutathione is the body’s most essential and powerful antioxidant. However, glutathione performs countless other essential functions for your body. For example, glutathione enables other antioxidants, like vitamins A and C, to continuously perform their antioxidant activities effectively. As antioxidants neutralize free radicals, they themselves are neutralized as well. This occurs because in order to neutralize free radicals, antioxidants must give up an electron to free radicals. Glutathione’s presence in the body allows antioxidants to be restored to their standard electron configuration and become active antioxidants once again. When glutathione levels are high, this process takes place almost immediately after an antioxidant donates an electron. As a result, glutathione allows the body to maintain the levels of other functional antioxidants. However, glutathione itself is depleted as it performs its various functions. Therefore, it is necessary to replenish the body’s levels of glutathione to achieve optimal health and antioxidant protection.

In order to function effectively, your body needs glutathione to keep its organs running optimally. In order to deal with standard environmental stresses, your body needs to be flexible and capable of adapting and continuing to function normally. Free radicals are the detrimental effect of the human species’ reliance on oxygen for survival. Oxygen is a highly reactive element, so when it is circulated throughout the body, it is inevitably going to react with other elements in your body, causing damage. In order to counter this oxygen-related cellular damage, each cell in your body produces glutathione, the body’s principal antioxidant. Glutathione blocks oxygen-induced and other free radicals from doing damage to cells. When fewer cells are damaged by free radicals, the risk of cancerous growths becomes smaller and smaller. In summary, glutathione is the body’s most powerful antioxidant defense against free radicals caused by the body’s intake of oxygen. Glutathione needs to be replaced continuously because it is depleted in the body when it performs its antioxidant functions.

Glutathione also plays part in a synergistic relationship with other antioxidants in your body. Glutathione is the keystone to the performance of other antioxidants in the body. While antioxidants alone are powerful beneficial substances in the body, they break up as they are used, and, without glutathione, your body cannot restore them to their effective forms. The synergistic relationship between glutathione and the other antioxidants in your body is called antioxidant cycling. Antioxidant cycling is the process of the antioxidants in your body extending other antioxidants’ lives and making them more effective. The usual process goes as follows: Vitamin E gives up an electron, neutralizing a free radical. Vitamin E now becomes a weak free radical. Vitamin C, along with the enzyme Q10, come to its aid, converting Vitamin E back into its standard antioxidant form. By converting Vitamin E back into an antioxidant, Vitamin C becomes a free radical. Alpha-lipoic acid and glutathione recycle Vitamin C, returning it to its antioxidant form. Glutathione is deactivated by this process. It is easy to see that, without glutathione, your body would not be able to utilize the other antioxidants like vitamins E and C.

When glutathione converts other antioxidants to their functional forms, it loses an electron, and becomes ineffective. To convert ineffective glutathione back to effective glutathione, your body needs to synthesize its own glutathione. However, the production of glutathione is hindered by the limiting reactant in the synthesis process, cysteine. To restore your glutathione levels, you need to provide your body with enough cysteine to produce the requisite amount of glutathione necessary to convert the deactivated glutathione in your body back to reduced, functional glutathione. As you age, your body produces less and less of its own glutathione. Therefore, it is becomes more and more important to increase your body’s glutathione production as you get age and mature. In addition, those individuals with an already existing ailment are producing suboptimal amounts of glutathione, and will benefit from increasing their glutathione levels by supplementing with cysteine.

In conclusion, glutathione is the body’s only antioxidant that is manufactured internally. Glutathione is necessary for cell survival, and plays numerous protective functions for the body in general. Among glutathione’s benefits is that it enables the body to garner the positive effects of other antioxidants that are ingested, like vitamins C and E. This process is called antioxidant cycling. Glutathione is depleted in the body as it performs its duties, and needs to be replaced in order for the body to run optimally. Glutathione is synthesized within the body, however, synthesis ends when the body runs out of cysteine. Cysteine, then, should be supplemented in order to allow your body to produce the necessary amounts of glutathione. Because of glutathione’s important functions in the body, it is correct to say that it is the key to maximum antioxidant activity in the body.

Sources: http://hwmaint.ep.physoc.org/cgi/content/abstract/82/2/291 (antioxidant cycling)
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.arplant.49.1.249 (antioxidant functions in the body)

Glutathione levels can be increased safely and efficiently through the administration of several different supplements. First, N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) is a pharmaceutical available both as a prescription medication and as an over the counter supplement, and has been scientifically proven to increase levels of glutathione at the cellular level. N-Acetylcysteine is a variant of the amino acid cysteine, which is one of the three amino acids necessary for the production of glutathione. Taking N-Acetylcysteine is an effective method of increasing glutathione levels because cysteine is the only amino acid necessary for the production of glutathione that the body can run out of. If an unlimited amount of cysteine is available for reaction, the body would be capable of producing an unlimited amount of glutathione.

At this point, I should mention that it is virtually impossible to overdose on glutathione. You physically cannot cause your body to produce more glutathione than it is capable of handling. The glutathione present in your body is actually a self-regulating substance. The enzyme gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase, which is necessary for the synthesis of glutathione in the first place, prevents the production of a toxic level of glutathione. That said, it is possible for people to have allergic reactions to certain glutathione precursors such as NAC and undenatured whey protein. Please check with a health professional prior to commencing any new supplements or dietary changes.

Another supplement that has been scientifically proven to increase cellular glutathione levels is undenatured whey protein. Like N-Acetylcysteine, undenatured whey protein contains high levels of digestible cysteine. In other, homogenized whey proteins, the heat involved in the homogenizing process destroys cysteine contained by the whey protein, rendering it useless for the purpose of raising glutathione levels. After homogenization, whey protein is no longer bioactive. Unlike standard whey protein supplements, undenatured whey protein does not undergo the homogenization process. As a result, the cysteine in the protein remains bioactive, is readily absorbed through the digestive system, and is consequently passed on to the cells of the body. Once the cysteine reaches the cells of the body, the cells once again begin the production of glutathione.

Finally, glutathione can be administered intravenously by a medical professional. In preparation for injection, the glutathione is first dissolved in a solution. Next, it is injected through an IV, directly into a vein on the forearm. Injecting glutathione into the blood stream immediately increases glutathione levels inside of cells, increasing the cells’ protection from free radicals, boosting the immune system, and starting the detoxification of the body. The dissolved glutathione solution is available for purchase without a prescription, but you will have to ask your doctor for a recommendation as to who can give you the IV. Intravenous injection of glutathione yields the fastest results out of the methods described here, but the treatment is more expensive and time-intensive. Getting the standard glutathione treatment of three IV injections per week can be frustrating, but the results will be quickly evident.

In conclusion, N-Acetylcysteine and undenatured whey protein are the two most carefully investigated and proven supplements for increasing cellular levels of glutathione. They are proven to be simple, effective methods of increasing glutathione levels in the body. Intravenous injection of glutathione has also been proven to be a safe and effective method, and is the only way to immediately bolster glutathione levels in the body. It is virtually impossible to overdose on glutathione because glutathione has a self-regulating enzyme called gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase. Gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase is required for the synthesis of glutathione, but also limits the production of new glutathione before the glutathione levels become toxic. Increasing your glutathione levels can be a safe, effective procedure to increase your overall wellbeing.

Sources: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20006194?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=3 (n-acetylcysteine)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15463873?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=1 (whey protein)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2362.1991.tb01366.x (High-dose intravenous glutathione in man.)