Learn why glutathione is your cellular Essential Health Aid and
why a deficiency of this molecule can often mean the difference
between life and death...
Imagine you're a cell.
Inside your body runs the machinery that creates life itself.
But as that machinery keeps running, day after day, you begin
to get worn out - the friction and the processes that cause damage
(here the "free-radicals" - highly destructive little
entities generated by biochemical processes, as well as pollutants,
UV radiation and other sources) start to create havoc and you
begin to lose the battle to disease, old age and ultimately death.
In fact your battle would be over much sooner were it not for
the numerous mechanisms that you and other mammalian cells evolved
over millions of years, as protection from the injury that can
result from your normal functional processes. The foremost among
these internal protective systems is the "Glutathione antioxidant
system."
Glutathione, a small molecule composed of three amino acids -
glycine, glutamate and cysteine - acts as your cellular Super-Mop,
soaking up "free-radicals" (with the help of the sulfur-containing
portion of the cysteine molecule), protecting your cellular membranes
and internal organs from the cascading destruction they can cause.
Besides being the major antioxidant that you produce as protection
from "free-radicals," glutathione is also a very important
detoxifying agent, enabling you to get rid of undesirable toxins
and pollutants. If you were a liver, kidney or lung cell, you
would contain high levels of glutathione, as you'd be exposed
to the greatest levels of toxins.
Glutathione also helps you dispose of many cancer- producing
chemicals, heavy metals, drug metabolites etc. that invade the
pristine recesses of your cellular world. And Mother Nature (the
first recycler) also designed you to use glutathione to recycle
other well-known antioxidants such as vitamin C and vitamin E,
keeping them in their active state.
If you were a cell delegated to the immune system department,
you would require glutathione for many of the intricate steps
needed to carry out your essential immune response functions -
such as multiplying to make many clones of yourself, to mount
a full-bodied immune response, or "neutralizing" undesirable
elements of the cellular community, like cancerous or virally
infected cells.
But your finicky cell membrane does not allow whole glutathione
molecules to cross over directly into your cellular spaces. And
every time a molecule of glutathione neutralizes a destructive
free-radical or toxin, it fatally binds with the undesirable element
and is washed out with them in the bile or the urine.
