Glutathione – the Natural Jack of All Trades
Glutathione is one of the most talked about dietary supplements today, and is being touted as a kind of superfood. In its reduced form, glutathione is one of the body’s most important intracellular antioxidants. It has numerous important functions for our health – from supporting the body’s own detoxification, to preventing oxidative stress, to maintaining our overall health and protecting the immune system. Accordingly, a deficiency of reduced glutathione can manifest itself in a wide range of physical ailments. But what is glutathione, how does a deficiency occur, and how can we prevent it?
What is Glutathione?
Glutathione is a central molecule in the body. It is vital to us because it is involved in many biochemical processes in our body. Glutathione, also known as γ-L-glutamyl-L-cysteinylglycine, is a tripeptide made up of three amino acids: glutamic acid, cysteine, and glycine. Our body can produce glutathione if all the necessary building blocks are available. For the biosynthesis of glutathione, our body needs other cofactors in addition to the three amino acids mentioned, such as vitamins B2 and B3, zinc, selenium and alpha lipoic acid.
The mechanism of action of glutathione has been known since the early 1920s. Glutathione is a component of almost every cell and all organs, especially the liver, kidneys, pancreas, spleen and eye lenses, which are exposed to intense oxidation from sunlight.
Reduced Glutathione
Glutathione is found in several forms in the body. Its active form is glutathione sulfhydryl (GSH), also known as reduced glutathione. It is in this form that it is usually found in dietary supplements. In its reduced form, glutathione is one of the body’s most important intracellular antioxidants. Because of its sulfur core, reduced glutathione is a thiol, or sulfur-containing molecule.
Functions & Effects of Glutathione
Glutathione is a very powerful antioxidant that performs many important functions in our bodies. Among other things, it is involved in the body’s elimination of harmful substances through biotransformation. These are the metabolic pathways that dissolve and convert fat-bound toxins into their water-soluble, excretable forms. It also acts as a regulator of cell division, helps repair damaged DNA, increases the activity of immune cells, regulates inflammatory responses, and plays a critical role as a scavenger of free radicals in our cellular metabolism.
The health benefits and positive effects on our body and well-being are accordingly great:
Glutathione…
- … slows down the aging processes.
- … strengthens the immune system.
- … supports detoxification in the liver and cells.
- … has an anti-inflammatory effect.
Glutathione is a very powerful antioxidant that performs many important functions in our bodies. Among other things, it is involved in the body’s elimination of harmful substances through biotransformation. These are the metabolic pathways that dissolve and convert fat-bound toxins into their water-soluble, excretable forms. It also acts as a regulator of cell division, helps repair damaged DNA, increases the activity of immune cells, regulates inflammatory responses, and plays a critical role as a scavenger of free radicals in our cellular metabolism.
Can we Absorb Glutathione through Food?
Reduced glutathione is also present in our food. Animal food sources include raw milk, liver and kidneys. Also, many plant foods such as avocados, watermelons, asparagus, potatoes, oranges, tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, spinach, watercress, almonds, cashew nuts, walnuts, and especially leeks such as chives, garlic, and its wild form, wild garlic, can help our bodies increase their ability to synthesize glutathione on their own.
However, due to our modern eating habits and the increasing stress on our diets, we only get a small amount of glutathione from our food each day, which is far from meeting our needs. In addition, the GSH content of food is rapidly depleted by processing, storage and cooking.
“The most effective medicine is the natural healing power,
that lies within each of us.”
Hippokrates
How Does Glutathione Deficiency Occur?
In infants and young children, vitamin D deficiency can lead to rickets, as the bones are not sufficiently mineralized, remaining soft and deformed.
As with all other nutrients, our modern lifestyle of stress, an unbalanced diet and increasing environmental pollution plays a major role in glutathione deficiency – more specifically, a deficiency of GSH in our cells.
This is because GSH is always used up faster than it can be produced by the body or supplied by food when oxidative stress is extreme for a short period of time or increases permanently. Such continuous oxidative stress can lead to premature aging and diseases caused by depletion of the GSH pool. This GSH depletion is associated with e.g:
- Environmental stress (e.g., from toxins, chemtrails, toxins in vaccinations, UV radiation, nanoplastics, heavy metals, electrosmog from EMFs, etc.)
- acute and chronic diseases
- the individual constitution
- lifestyle (e.g. due to bad nutrition, extreme sports, smoking or stress)
age - synthesis inhibition due to the lack of cofactors such as vitamins, sulfur groups, selenium, zinc or vital amino acids (L-cysteine, L-methionine)
Glutathione Deficiency and its Consequences
Since low glutathione levels affect the entire antioxidant system of our body, a deficiency can manifest itself in a variety of health complaints and even diseases:
- Loss of performance, chronic fatigue to chronic fatigue syndrome and burnout.
- Increased susceptibility to infection and inflammation
- Symptoms of impaired brain function (such as seizures or loss of coordination)
- Metabolic acidosis (hyperacidity)
- Anemia
- DNA damage
- Increased risk of diseases promoted by mitochondrial dysfunction, which in turn is associated with glutathione deficiency (e.g., fibromyalgia, Lyme disease)
If you want to know if you have a glutathione deficiency, you can have your glutathione level measured in your whole blood or red blood cells. The best way to do this is to ask your trusted physician or alternative practitioner.
A good and sensible way to increase our GSH levels is to take a high quality supplement with reduced glutathione, as contained in our Glutathione comp.
Glutathione – Synergy for Optimal Effects
Another limiting factor for a healthy GSH level are the cofactors involved in reduction (recycling) and resynthesis. We briefly present the most important ones.
N-acetylcysteine (NAC)
provides additional cysteine as a basic building block for the body’s own glutathione synthesis. Cysteine is often a limiting factor and responsible for inhibition of synthesis.
Alpha lipoic acid
a sulfur-containing fatty acid, is considered an important antioxidant in our body. Because it can cross the blood-brain barrier and is also both fat and water soluble, alpha lipoic acid is a component of every cell. It renders free radicals harmless, protects blood vessels and the cardiovascular system. Together with glutathione, alpha lipoic acid forms the perfect detoxification and antioxidant duo.
Zinc gluconate
as a trace element is an important building block and activator of numerous enzymes such as glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase.
B vitamin complex of vitamins B1, B2 and B3
These B vitamins have important functions for glutathione metabolism. In particular, vitamin B2, which is contained in its bioactive form as riboflavin-5-phosphate, is significant for the function of glutathione reductase, which is responsible for the regeneration and new formation of reduced glutathione in the body.
Selenomethionine
Selenium and methionine also play an important role in the formation and recycling of glutathione, both in new synthesis, resynthesis and regeneration.
Glutathione comp – the Highly Effective Glutathione Complex by dr.reinwald vital
Our specially developed complex preparation Glutathione comp provides you daily not only with high-quality glutathione, but also with the important cofactors N-acetylcysteine, alpha-lipoic acid, zinc, selenium as well as vitamins B1, B2 and B3, so that it can optimally unfold its effect.
With only two capsules a day, you can benefit from the synergistic effects. All nutrients are 100% vegan and of carefully selected premium quality! To really boost your glutathione levels, we recommend taking MyAMINO® with the 8 essential amino acids as well as SulfoCLEAN®, our organic sulfur complex.
Do you have any questions? Our friendly team – consisting of therapists and naturopaths – will be happy to advise you on the subject of glutathione or our new product Glutathione comp. Call now or use our chat.