Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Science of Glutathione



A New Outlook on Life’s Health Challenges
Let’s face it, most of us live a fast-paced lifestyle that is very demanding on our health. The habit of reacting only once the body breaks down is giving way to the realization that prevention can be the best medicine.

Glutathione is emerging as one of the keys to the health puzzle. It was the discovery of glutathione’s importance in optimizing your body’s first line of defense – your immune system – that led to the development of a whey product that raises intracellular glutathione.

Glutathione: The Next Household Word
You may or may not have heard of glutathione, even though over tens of thousands of medical articles have highlighted its importance. Optimizing glutathione levels will shortly join the list of factors known by everyone to have an impact on our health and well-being, along with vitamin supplementation and cholesterol regulation.
Glutathione is a small protein produced naturally in every cell of our body. It is made up of three protein building blocks, called amino acids. These are glutamic acid, cysteine and glycine. The cysteine amino acid contains a sulfur group responsible for the chemical properties of the whole glutathione protein.


Glutathione: An Essential Health AID
There are three major roles of glutathione in the body: Antioxidant, Immune booster, and Detoxifier. Even cells in the healthiest of individuals constantly need to replenish their glutathione supply.


The Master Antioxidant (AID)
Antioxidants participate directly in the destruction of reactive oxygen compounds called free radicals. These by-products of a cell’s normal function can’t be avoided, but exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun or other sources promotes their emergence. Free radicals have been linked to muscle fatigue during exercise and aging.

For this reason, the body is equipped with a variety of antioxidants. Vitamins C and E are natural antioxidants but do not occur naturally in the body. These and other antioxidants actually depend on glutathione to function properly, which is why glutathione is called “the Master Antioxidant”.


Food for the Immune System (AID)
Glutathione helps build your immune system’s resistance and improve your chances of staying healthy.

Lymphocytes are cells of your immune system. Glutathione is essential for lymphocytes to increase in number, produce antibodies, and function efficiently.


A Natural Detoxifier (AID)

Our food and water sources are becoming increasingly contaminated with chemicals, as is the air that we breathe. Supplemental detoxifiers such as glutathione help to counter the effects of the toxins we inhale and ingest.

By physically binding to toxic compounds in cells, glutathione helps make them soluble - and harmless. The body can then eliminate these disarmed toxins in the bile and urine.

Raise Glutathione Levels—But How?
The fact is, you can’t ingest glutathione to feed it to your cells. Glutathione must be manufactured within your cells. What you can do is help this natural process by giving your body the glutathione building blocks it needs. The limiting factor in your daily intake of building blocks is the amino acid cysteine.

Cysteine, traveling alone as an amino acid through our digestive system, is poorly absorbed and very little of it will actually make the trip from our mouths to our cells. Luckily, when cysteine molecules bind to each other to travel in pairs, they can survive this process. They do this by forming a bond between sulfur molecules. These bonded cysteine amino acids are then called ‘cystine’. Although this sulfur bond is resistant to the digestive process, it is easily broken if submitted to heat or mechanical stress.

Immunocal’s Unique Manufacturing Process
Before Dr. Bounous and his colleagues devised the technique used to produce Immunocal, the scientific community was unsuccessful at producing a supplement rich in active bonded cysteine.

Immunocal is a highly purified protein powder isolated from whey (milk serum). Immunocal’s secret lies in its proprietary manufacturing process that guarantees:

• The most natural of products isolated in the most natural of conditions.
• A protein source that remains active, which is accomplished by maintaining the fragile, precious bond between cysteine amino acids.
• An even distribution of active protein throughout the product, for the same efficacy inevery serving.

Raise Glutathione Levels - Safely and Naturally
There are other synthetic ways in which glutathione levels may be raised. However, the high level of side effects limits their long-term use. In contrast, Immunocal is just as effective and has no known side effects when used as directed. It contains natural proteins isolated from milk, but a negligible amount of lactose; therefore, even lactose - intolerant individuals can use it safely.

Immunocal: Feeding Bonded Cysteine to Cells

Numerous clinical studies have been performed, using the highest standard of scientific design, to prove Immunocal’s efficacy and reliability. In one such study, Immunocal was proven to raise glutathione levels by 35.5% in lymphocytes.

What’s more, testimonial evidence from thousands of satisfied customers in a dozen countries confirms what science was able to prove: Immunocal works!

*The Effect of Supplementation with a Cysteine Donor on Muscular Performance
Published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, 87: 1381-1385, 1999
by LC Lands, MD, PhD*Ü, VL Grey, PhD܇, AA Smountas, BSc*
*Division of Respiratory Medicine, ÜDepartment of Pediatrics, ‡Department of
Biochemistry, McGill University Health Centre - Montreal Children’s Hospital,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada


This study was conducted in healthy adults for 3 months using the highest standard of scientific design (peer-reviewed, double-blind, randomized, prospective and placebo-controlled study) to ensure validity of the results. Statistical calculations were performed to analyze the results.

Praise and Recognition From the Past and Present
Immunotec Research Ltd., is a research organization first and foremost and as such, is dedicated to marketing products that have received the highest approval from the scientific community. Immunocal is no exception.

Scientists have shown their support for Immunocal in many ways through the years, from its inception to its introduction to the North American market in 1996:

• Immunocal is patent-protected worldwide
• Immunocal is also listed in the U.S. Physicians’ Desk Reference and the Pharmacist’s Red Book
• Immunocal joins a select group of nutritional products qualifying for reimbursement coverage under Medicare/Medicaid in the United States


For a Video Overview on the Immunocal and Immunotec click here.

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