Glutathione (GSH)

Glutathione is literally the life force of your body and one of the primary keys to lifelong health and healing.

Most people have never heard of glutathione. However, the word rolls easily off the tongue of many health care professionals, especially those working in nutrition and preventative care. Today researchers and scientists continue to uncover the role of this substance in health and disease and today there are over 160,000 medical journal articles written about this substance. This represents more research than vitamin C and vitamin E put together! With this new wealth of information, the term “glutathione” will be considered as fundamental to our understanding of health and illness and as familiar as ‘omega-3” or ‘probiotics.’

Shockingly, an estimated 86% of Americans suffer unknowingly from a glutathione deficiency. How can this be when glutathione is something your body produces on its own? When you’re young, your body produces high amounts of glutathione. Yet over time your glutathione levels become depleted due to many factors—including aging, poor diet, stress, medications, smoking, drinking, and being overweight.

In fact, once you hit your forties, your body’s levels of glutathione start to decline rapidly. By the time you’re 60, they’ve dropped by nearly HALF! And the older you get, the worse your glutathione levels get.

Without enough glutathione, your entire body starts to slow down. You lose your ability to fight off illness and ward off cellular damage. Your immune system struggles to fend off health-damaging oxidation and toxins. And your recovery time from illness or simply overdoing it lengthens.

Sounds like what we all think of as “old age”, right? In fact, the most obvious signs of declining amounts of glutathione in your body are all ones we assume come with aging. Put simply, you begin to go downhill fast…

Glutathione’s importance to your health cannot be overstated. Your life depends on glutathione—literally. Without it, your liver would shrivel up and die from the overwhelming accumulation of toxins, your cells would disintegrate from unrestrained oxidative stress and, as if you needed more problems, your body would have little resistance to bacteria, viruses or cancers. Protective systems of the body including the immune system rely heavily upon this exceptional molecule. So does the optimal functioning of antioxidants, detoxification pathways and cellular energy production.

The major roles of glutathione can be summarized with the acronym “Glutathione – What a great “IDEA”.  Immune booster, Detoxifier, Energizer and Antioxidant.