Glutathione: Benefits of the Master Antioxidant

Glutathione is the most abundant antioxidant in our bodies.

Without adequate levels of glutathione, you are at risk of dangerous medical conditions, including stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease.

But when glutathione levels are healthy, that’s when the magic happens. You can not only prevent health problems, but possibly experience AMAZING energy, glowing skin, a strong heart, and a sharp brain.

Glutathione is a tripeptide, which means a very small protein composed of three amino acids.

What causes glutathione deficiency?

Age is the most natural reducer of glutathione levels. However, there are a number of environmental factors and medical conditions that increase your risk of deficiency. 

Environmental risk factors of glutathione deficiency include:

• Exposure to chemical toxins (including pollution)
• UV radiation exposure
• Cadmium exposure
• Chronic stress
• Excessive alcohol use
• Smoking
• Poor diet
• Certain medications (like Tylenol)

Certain illnesses are known to decrease glutathione levels. Researchers are still determining whether low glutathione causes some of these diseases, or the other way around.

The most common low glutathione-related diseases are:

• AIDS/HIV
• Macular degeneration
• Parkinson’s disease
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Diabetes
• Hepatitis
• Cancer
• COPD
• Liver disease
• Sickle cell anemia
• Cystic fibrosis
• Stroke
• Heart disease
• Infertility

14 Glutathione Health Benefits

The role of glutathione in your bodily function cannot be understated. Healthy levels of glutathione possess some potent health benefits, including anti-aging properties.

1. Glutathione is a Potent Antioxidant

Every time you eat, breathe, or move, your body uses fuel created from the food you eat to produce energy. But just as a car releases harmful byproducts as exhaust, so too does your own body’s energy-producing efforts produce a dangerous byproduct: free radicals.

In fact, some estimates show that your DNA takes 10,000 oxidative hits daily. Antioxidants work to counteract the damage caused by free radicals.

Glutathione offers the all-important antioxidant defense like few others can.

2. Glutathione and Detoxification

The role of glutathione in your body’s detoxification system is vital. But your natural processes sometimes need a boost from increased glutathione from your diet or supplements.

3. Glutathione and Energy

Energy production occurs within all cells (except red blood cells) via the mitochondria. Glutathione protects mitochondriafrom free radicals and the oxidative damage they cause. In this way, glutathione is paramount to energy production.

If mitochondria are damaged, they slow down and start to make less energy. The affected  “diseased” mitochondria leads to decreased bodily function and efficiency.

To make things worse, damaged mitochondria output more free radicals. In turn, these free radicals cause further mitochondrial damage and create a vicious cycle of less energy and more damage.

GSH binds these free radicals and relieves oxidative stress — not just on the mitochondria, but on the rest of the cell.

4. Glutathione for Skin

Whether concerned with acne, wrinkles, dryness, eczema, or puffy eyes, many are seeking flawless, youthful skin. Science says that glutathione is an effective answer.

Fortunately, you don’t have to empty your wallet to restore the youth and health of your skin. You can solve the problem from the inside out. Cells can heal and regenerate themselves, thanks to glutathione.

Glutathione not only decreases the melanin (pigmentation) in your skin, but has also been found to decrease wrinkles and increase skin elasticity.

Glutathione works on the skin pigment production by inhibiting tyrosinase, an enzyme involved in making melanin.

5. Glutathione and Brain Health

How do low levels of glutathione affect brain and mental health? There is a clear link between low glutathione levels and decreased brain health.

As we age, it’s not uncommon to experience a bit of forgetfulness or difficulty concentrating. These are just two examples of neurodegeneration, a process by which the neurons in our brains become damaged and may even die.

This leaves us with “shrinking” brains that don’t function to their full capacity. While this process is unavoidable as we age, it can be slowed, or even reversed, and glutathione (GSH) plays an important role.

6. Glutathione and Heart Health

The number one health related cause of death in the United States is still a heart attack.  A lesser known fact is that glutathione may prevent heart attack and other heart disease, thanks to its ability to neutralize the “lipid oxidation” (fat oxidation) process.

Virtually all heart disease starts with the accumulation of arterial plaque inside the artery walls. Bad cholesterol (LDL) is lipid oxidized and damages the lining of the blood vessels, forming a plaque (atherosclerosis).

When these plaques eventually rupture and break off, they can clog your blood vessels and block blood flow that causes heart attacks or strokes.

With the help of an enzyme called glutathione peroxidase, glutathione stops the superoxides, free radicals, hydrogen peroxides, lipid peroxides, and peroxynitrites that cause this lipid oxidation and wreak havoc on your health.

7. Glutathione Fights Inflammation

Does glutathione pills help with inflammation? As a matter of fact, glutathione is great at fighting chronic inflammation!

Inflammation has been a hot topic in the natural health world for the past decade; however, many people still don’t fully understand exactly why inflammation lies at the root of most of the health concerns plaguing Americans today.

High levels of inflammation are present in virtually every chronic illness, like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. However, inflammation is also healthy and necessary (in short bursts) to fight infectious invaders.

Injury can also incite an inflammatory response. Whether you are talking about trauma, infection, toxins, or allergies, your immune system answers the same.

First, the blood vessels in the injured area begin to expand and open wide to allow your body’s natural healing compounds to get the injured site as quickly as possible. Because of the increased blood flow, fluid and immune cells flood the area often in overwhelming amounts.

This increase in permeability of the blood and lymph vessels is what causes the physical manifestations of  acute inflammation, namely redness, pain, stiffness, and swelling.  After the infection or injury is repaired the acute inflammatory response normally subsides and goes away. 

The inflammatory response comes to your rescue when it’s needed and cools itself off once the healing is complete. But we don’t live in an ideal world.

In the real world, environmental toxins, your diet, stress, and other lifestyle issues have disabled the checks and balances of this system and inflammation doesn’t subside and go away as it is meant to. As a result, many people suffer from chronic, systemic inflammation.

When this happens, you’re in trouble. You need a lot of extra protection. That’s where glutathione can help.

Glutathione (GSH) controls when inflammation increases or decreases as needed, by instructing and influencing our immune white cells. This is a completely separate mechanism from its antioxidant properties.

Rebalancing glutathione levels reduces chronic inflammation and restores immune function.

8. Glutathione and the Immune System

Glutathione helps your immune system stay strong and ready to fight infections. While vitamin C seems to get all the accolades when it comes to immunity, glutathione is the under-recognized supporting actor who deserves the starring role.

Research shows that active glutathione (GSH) primes white cells such as natural killer (NK) and T cells, your body’s front-line infection fighters. Your T cells are the ones that fight infections. We thought this is so cool!

9. Glutathione and Athletic Performance

Glutathione pills can boost athletic performance when used before workouts. Best of all, you don’t have to be an ultramarathoner or a bodybuilder. Anyone from the average runner to the weekend warrior can benefit from this exercise enhancer.

In a study of eight men receiving 1,000 milligrams of glutathione before exercise, the glutathione group performed better, felt less fatigued, and had lower blood lactic acid levels than the placebo controlled group.

10. Glutathione and Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD)

Glutathione supplementation has been linked with reduced symptoms of peripheral vascular disease (PVD). Since PVD affects 10% of Americans, glutathione offers a much needed solution to this circulatory system disease.

PVD occurs when narrowed blood vessels do not supply enough blood supply to muscles when needed — most often muscles in the legs. Fatigue and pain with walking are hallmark symptoms of PVD.

In a double blind study, 40 PVD patients were given IV infusions of either GSH glutathione or placebo, twice a day. The patients receiving GSH were able to walk pain-free much further than the patients receiving placebo injections.

IV clinics which offer glutathione injections, are gaining in popularity. However, these aren’t quite mainstream yet. The extra work of finding such a clinic may be a worthwhile pursuit for those afflicted by PVD.

11. Glutathione for COPD

Low serum glutathione seems to lead to abnormalities in the lungs. Preliminary research suggests a clear link between low glutathione and occurence of COPD.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death in the United States. As damage from smoking or even pollution accumulates to the respiratory tract and the lungs, oxygen and carbon dioxide (CO2) exchange suffers, making it difficult to breathe.

Low glutathione levels have been linked to abnormalities in the lining of the lungs, which can lead to COPD. Having normal glutathione levels protects lung tissue from free radical damage, such as inflammation.

Additionally, animal studies found that intravenous glutathione supplementation maintained normal lung function, when exposed to otherwise toxic levels of oxygen. It also increased lung compliance, decreased swelling, and increased lung tissue.

Researchers concluded that glutathione supplementation promotes normal airflow and lung tissue, as well as lowering the risk of “oxygen-induced lung injury.”

12. Glutathione and Vitamin D

What happens to vitamin D with glutathione deficiency? In fact, low vitamin D3 levels have been correlated with simultaneous glutathione deficiency.

Observing animals deficient in vitamin D3, researchers found that supplementing vitamin D3 and cysteine (a GSH precursor) restored glutathione levels, increased the bioavailability of vitamin D3, and lowered inflammation.

Researchers noted that the vitamin D supplements widely consumed by the public “are unlikely to be successful unless the GSH status is also corrected.”

In other words, simply taking vitamin D isn’t enough. You need to be sure you have adequate glutathione levels to make sure that your vitamin D3 is working as it should. 

Glutathione Supplementation

Glutathione can be taken orally in its plain powder form. However, powdered glutathione metabolism cleaves glutathione into the three amino acids it is made up of (glycine, glutamine, and cysteine).

This digestive cleaving process is so effective that nearly all of the plain glutathione you would take by mouth would never make it into circulation.

A better option for oral supplementation is to take liposomal glutathione on an empty stomach.

Liposomes are microscopic spheres with an active ingredient like glutathione contained in the center of the sphere. Randomized trials show that liposomal formulations increase GSH levels and absorption.

To use liposomal glutathione, start with 500 milligrams and increase to between 1,000 and 2,000 milligrams per day. Be sure to wait 45 minutes before eating or drinking or taking other supplements to allow for absorption of liposomal glutathione.

Glutathione can also be taken in an inhaled form called a nebulizer. A physician would need to write you a prescription for this form.

Additionally, you can use targeted nutrients to increase your body’s natural production of glutathione indirectly. These include selenium, vitamin E, alpha lipoic acid, NAC, and SAMe.

Glutathione Supplements: A Brief Summary

• Oral glutathione powder is the most commonly found form, though it can have a poor absorption rate.
• Liposomal glutathione formulation is the most powerful and absorbable form, for which you need no prescription.
• Inhaled GSH with special nebulizer requires a prescription, but it’s effective in some people. If you have asthma, avoid using inhaled GSH.
• Transdermals and lotions have various levels of absorption, sometimes unreliable.
• IV is the most direct method of glutathione supplementation, but also the most invasive. Levels spike and diminish quickly.
• Some targeted nutrients can boost your body’s natural glutathione production — such as N-Acetylcysteine (NAC), selenium, vitamin E, and alpha lipoic acid.

Lifestyle Changes for Ideal Glutathione Levels

If you’re worried about your glutathione levels, there are some common sense lifestyle changes we can all apply to our daily lives. Keeping the body healthy means glutathione is less likely to fall out of balance.

Not only can you add cruciferous veggies and selenium-rich foods to your diet, but you should cut out processed foods and processed sugars. Processed foods (such as cheese, cereal, and potato chips) can lead to heart disease, among other things.

It’s also wise to drink eight cups of water every day. That’s half a gallon.

Reducing stress makes it easier for your body to function properly, including your mitochondria.

The US government recommends half an hour of exercise five days a week — and for good reason. The exercise keeps your body healthy and your glutathione levels normalized.

Get your 7-8 hours of sleep every night. As a side note, you shouldn’t exercise within an hour of when you go to sleep.

Of course it is tough for all of us to maintain this lifestyle- try adding glutathione to a drip of yours!