BY TRACY McCUBBIN, MD, ABOIM, ABEM
Welcome to class! Since this compound comprises one of the top 3 searches on our website month after month, I thought you, too, might be interested in learning a little more about glutathione.
What is Glutathione Anyway?
Glutathione (GSH) is your body’s primary antioxidant. Antioxidants protect your cells from oxidative stress and DNA damage. Free radicals are unstable molecules that form in response to factors like your diet and the environment. When more free radicals exist than antioxidants, oxidative cell damage occurs. This can lead to inflammation and a variety of health issues ranging from high blood pressure and diabetes to Alzheimer’s disease and more. Antioxidants like GSH can help prevent diseases that result from inflammation caused by oxidative stress.
Glutathione is a tripeptide made of 3 amino acids: glycine, glutamic acid and cysteine. GSH is found in high concentrations in nearly every cell in your body. The concentrations are similar to glucose and potassium! It is a difficult molecule for your body to manufacture, requiring multiple steps. However, your body has the ability to recycle glutathione. This process requires alpha lipoic acid, vitamin C and vitamin B2 (riboflavin). It takes 6 -12 months to build your glutathione stores once they are depleted.
How Does Glutathione Work?
Why is GSH so important? Well it is also your chief detoxification agent. Found in every cell in your body, GSH is heavily concentrated in the liver where it plays a key role in Phase II liver detoxification. It is the biochemical that keeps environmental chemicals from triggering an immune response or causing DNA damage. Xenobiotics may be grouped as carcinogens, pharmaceutical or recreational drugs, environmental pollutants, food additives, hydrocarbons and pesticides. GSH attaches to these xenobiotics and facilitates removal from the body through poop, pee and sweat.
Did you know that we produce toxins internally too? We utilize oxygen for fuel in our mitochondria. In the process, we produce some toxic byproducts that need to be neutralized by antioxidants, mainly GSH. These reactive oxygen species such as free radicals, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and lipid peroxides can damage our mitochondria and limit ATP production (our main energy molecule). GSH protects our mitochondria from harm.
The stress response also produces H2O2 as a byproduct. GSH converts this toxic intermediary to simple water to be excreted from the body. It helps calm the body’s inflammatory response to many biochemical processes.
Other things that cause an inflammatory response: A high fat, high sugar diet. Eating too much, anytime and anywhere. This produces a chemical called methylglyoxal. GSH binds with this chemical and converts it to lactic acid to be excreted safely from the body.
Glutathione and Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12 is important for the production of red blood cells and preventing damage to our nerves. It is also a cofactor in many metabolic processes in our body. It needs carrier proteins to get inside the cell to do its job. GSH is the “glue” that attaches it to the carrier protein for transport into cell.
Glutathione and Your Heart
To keep your heart and blood vessels healthy and pliable, your body needs nitric oxide. You need GSH to make nitric oxide.
Glutathione and Your Immune System
Our immune system relies on GSH to fight infections properly. Low levels of GSH are associated with autoimmune disease. Like the cardiovascular system, the immune system utilizes nitric oxide.
Glutathione and Your Weight
Our mitochondria burn the calories we ingest as fuel. This requires GSH. If GSH levels are low, that unburned fuel goes right to your waistline. Having adequate stores of GSH helps maintain a healthy body weight through anabolic metabolism.
How Much Glutathione Do I Need?
Well that depends. A factor influencing GSH status is the degree of variability in an individual’s capacity to produce GSH. This is mainly due to genetic variability in enzymes involved in its production and/or regeneration (Glutathione-S transferase and Gamma-glutamyl transferase). When there is too much oxidative stress, malnutrition or increased toxic burden due to environmental exposures, there may be a greater need for GSH.
How Might I Raise My Levels?
There are several effective strategies to raise intracellular GSH. The first is to decrease the need for GSH which means decreasing your toxic load. You may begin with limiting alcohol consumption or decreasing your exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPS). Another strategy is to provide other antioxidants to decrease oxidative stress. For example, alpha lipoic acid supplementation will increase mitochondrial glutathione levels.
Then you can directly administer GSH. This can be done orally, topically, IV or intranasally in some cases.
Contact Us!
Sometimes you need to replace your GSH. Sometimes you need to replace the building blocks to make GSH or the nutrients needed to recycle this important chemical. This is true preventative medicine! If you are interested in checking your glutathione level, contact us at Radiance Functional Medicine! We can help you be your healthiest self in 2022! Cheers to Healthy Aging!