Glutathione is by far the most powerful anti-oxidant that your own body makes. Glutathione is also essential for a good working immune system.
When people hear about the powerful anti-oxidant and immune response properties of glutathione (also called GSH) they rush to the health food store, only to be disappointed. Regular glutathione is namely absorbed in insignificant quantities, so no pill or capsule glutathione supplement exists. The only way to get significant amounts into your body is with liposomal glutathione supplements, IV (intravenous drip) or injection. The best of these 3 absorption ways is a high quality liposome, because it can be taken orally and it can be taken several times a day. That’s important, because most of the supplemented glutathione is used up by the body within six to eight hours.
Glutathione may be new to you, but it’s not to your doctor. It is used to boost the immune system and to detoxify very sick patients. Glutathione is also very well known by scientists, because they measure glutathione levels in the blood as a scientific marker for the health of a person or animal. They use glutathione levels to proof that substances are toxic or non-toxic, and how an immune system responds to certain pathogens.
Glutathione levels reveal a lot about what’s happening on cellular level, because glutathione is used up in the process of removing these pathogens (toxins, bacteria, damaged cells, viruses, and waste products) from our system. Glutathione is for our body what detergent is for our laundry. Our life depends on glutathione. And our healthy life depends on healthy glutathione levels.
To neutralize the sickening pathogens we need a ready supply of glutathione. However, life will get to us and we will deplete our glutathione levels with aging and with sickness. Long term glutathione deficiency will result in many diseases, including cancer.
It’s not unusual to see temporary fluctuations in glutathione blood levels, because that simply means that our system is fighting a pathogen. Levels will be restored once the immune system has dealt with the problem. However, chronically ill patients will be long term glutathione deficient, and so are older people. Also people that do intense workouts, such as athletes and body builders, will use more glutathione because they produce more oxidative stress in their system.
Unfortunately doctors do not regularly test for glutathione levels. The reason is that there wasn’t, until recently, a practical way to increase glutathione. The availability of high quality liposomal glutathione as a supplement has changed that. These liposomal products are mainly marketed to doctors and other health care practitioners, because reduced-glutathione is not an easy supplement to understand.
Certain websites promote the precursors of glutathione as an option. Unfortunately, there’s little research to support the idea that these precursors (such as un-denatured whey protein) will actually do anything to remedy glutathione deficiency.
