The most powerful antioxidant in the body
As the most powerful antioxidant in the body, glutathione works around the clock to fend off nefarious characters. And yet, few people recognise its importance.
There is much debate as to whether Glutathione can be used to help whiten skin and improve complexion. One study found positive results after only 4 weeks in a small group of participants, leaving people optimistic that over extended periods of use, Glutathione can help whiten their skin.
Glutathione pills help to whiten the skin in a couple of different ways. Melanin is the pigment that gives our skin its colour, produced by the activation of the enzyme Tyrosinase. GSH binds to Tyrosinase and helps prevent the enzymatic pathways from producing melanin. The second is a much more important role. GSH helps to prevent the activation of Tyrosinase by reducing free radicals in the body that can activate it and cause an increase in melanin production.
Glutathione is a triple threat to toxins. It neutralizes free radicals, enhances the immune system and detoxifies the liver. The trappings of modern life everything from refined foods to over the counter painkillers to stress rob the body of this vital antioxidant. And, even if you’re doing everything right, aging takes a bite. Around age 45, our glutathione levels start to slip. Ultimately, those levels can dip as much as 50 percent below optimal as we age.
Some scientists are now wondering if low glutathione levels aren’t partly to blame for the free-radical-induced illnesses so common in middle age and later, such as Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease. Indeed, research published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that, among people with heart disease, those with the least amount of glutathione in their blood were 30 percent more likely to have a heart attack than those with the most glutathione.
Hyman didn’t understand the full ramifications of a glutathione deficiency until his own health was in peril. In the mid-1990s, he was besieged by muscle pain, brain fog and “bone-numbing” exhaustion. “I went from feeling really healthy one day to really sick the next,” he says.
After months of medical sleuthing, he discovered he had mercury poisoning — probably due to eating contaminated fish and breathing tainted air while working in China. He suspects that the burden of detoxifying the mercury depleted his glutathione levels, leading his body to break down under the strain. “As you detoxify, your body uses up more and more of your glutathione stores until it’s gone,” he says. “That’s when you end up with toxic overload.”
In exploring what went wrong, Hyman discovered he lacked a gene, called GSTM1, crucial to making and recycling glutathione. He estimates that roughly half of Americans are missing one or more of the genes necessary to produce enough of the antioxidant. The percentage climbs even higher among his critically ill patients, the vast majority of whom have rock-bottom glutathione levels. “At first I thought it was just a coincidence,” he says, “but I’ve come to realize that making and keeping a high level of glutathione is critical to preventing disease.”
Nano Blanc Glutathione plays an important role in elevating and maintaining glutathione levels in a healthy person.