If Glutathione Is So Important, How Come I Haven’t Heard About It?

Ross Pelton, RPh, PhD, CCN
Jul 02, 2009

Glutathione is made in every cell throughout your body and it has some very important functions. However, until recently, glutathione was not effective when taken orally because it would get broken down during digestion before it could be absorbed. Thus, glutathione was not found on the vitamin shelf in health food and vitamin stores.

I use the acronym IDEAL to describe glutathione because boosting glutathione is the IDEAL way to promote better health.

‘I’ stands for immunity. A well-functioning immune system is highly dependent on optimal levels of glutathione. For example, white blood cells are sentries, always on the lookout for bacteria, viruses and other foreign invaders. When an infection occurs, the immune system must produce an enormous amount of white blood cells to fight and overwhelm the invading bacteria or virus. Your immune response is directly related to the number of white blood cells your body can produce. This process is accomplished by a process called cloning, which requires glutathione. Thus, your body’s requirement for glutathione increases substantially when your immune system is challenged. If glutathione levels are not optimal, your immune system will be severely compromised.

‘DE’ stands for detoxification. Glutathione regulates multiple detoxification functions. For example, glutathione is required to detoxify toxic metals like mercury and lead, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, nitrates, cigarette smoke, plastics, and many different kinds of drugs. Since the liver is the primary organ of detoxification, glutathione levels are highest in liver tissue and glutathione depletion rapidly leads to liver damage.

‘A’ stands for antioxidant. Glutathione is the most prevalent and most important antioxidant in the body. Its primary job as an antioxidant is to protect all the components inside every cell of your body against free radical damage. In fact, glutathione probably protects more of your body than all the other antioxidants combined. This explains why glutathione is called the Master Antioxidant. Boosting glutathione levels also contributes to a recycling and reactivation of other oxidized (used up) antioxidants such as oxidized vitamin C, vitamin E, lipoic acid and coenzyme Q10.

‘L’ stands for Lactobacillus fermentum ME-3 (often referred to as ME-3), which is a strain of probiotic bacteria that has been found to synthesize glutathione. In human clinical trials, individuals ingesting ME-3 recorded reductions in free radical damage, 26% increase in total antioxidant activity and a remarkable 49% increase in the ratio of reduced/active glutathione to oxidized or inactive glutathione. Some supplements can help increase glutathione levels and newer oral glutathione products in liposomal delivery systems have improved glutathione absorption. However, nothing matches Lactobacillus fermentum ME-3.

Subsequent research revealed that ME-3 can boost glutathione levels by three mechanisms; synthesis, extraction and the recycling of oxidized glutathione back to reduced/active glutathione. Consequently, scientists are calling ME-3 A Complete Glutathione System and they emphasize that nothing previously has been found to possess or deliver this triple approach to boosting glutathione levels.

There are studies linking every single chronic degenerative disease with low levels of glutathione. Now glutathione has been recognized as a reliable biomarker of aging. In every species of animal that has been tested, increasing glutathione levels has resulted in better health and increased longevity. Yes, boosting glutathione levels improves health and results in life extension. Boosting glutathione levels results in an increase in both the length of life and the quality of life, which means, healthy life extension.

There are several nutritional supplements that are precursors for glutathione including selenium, lipoic acid, N-acetyl cysteine and the herb milk thistle. Also, in the last few years, liposomal delivery glutathione products have started to appear in the marketplace. Liposomal delivery systems are an effective way of enhancing the absorption of compounds that are traditionally difficult to absorb. While glutathione in liposomal delivery systems are an improvement, there is a new method of boosting glutathione that appears to be superior to all others.

Lactobacillus fermentum ME-3 (often referred to simply as ME-3) is strain of probiotic bacteria that was discovered in 1995 when scientists were researching strains Lactobacillus bacteria to determine if any possessed antioxidant activity. Most strains failed, but when ME-3 was tested, its antioxidant activity was “off the charts”. Subsequent testing revealed that ME-3 synthesizes glutathione. ME-3 provides some additional benefits which include lowering inflammation, reducing levels of oxidized LDL-cholesterol, the ability to detoxify agricultural pesticides and activity against numerous strains of pathological bacteria.

Glutathione is critically important for the body’s antioxidant, immune and detoxification systems. Hence, the ability to effectively increase glutathione represents a true breakthrough in health and medicine. A daily dose of ME-3 contains about 6 billion viable bacteria. This is the equivalent of ingesting 6 billion little glutathione manufacturing plants, which will be producing glutathione 24/7 every day. ME-3 is available in Reg’Activ® products from Essential Formulas®.

One of the most proactive steps people can take to improve their health and longevity is to boost glutathione levels. For more information about Reg’Activ® products and Lactobacillus fermentum ME-3, go to EssentialFormulas.com.

Taking one of the Reg’Activ® products with Lactobacillus fermentum ME-3 is truly the IDEAL way to improve your health and longevity.