Yes, you can get it as a supplement, but there are more effective ways to build this rock-star antioxidant. It’s called glutathione (pronounced “gloota-thigh-own”): the mother of all antioxidants, the master detoxifier, and maestro of your immune system. Normally your body can also recycle glutathione, except when your toxic load becomes too great3. That really becomes a problem because glutathione recycles other antioxidants. Free radicals get passed around from vitamin C to vitamin E to lipoic acid, and then finally to glutathione, which cools off those free radicals. After this happens, the body can “reduce” or regenerate another protective glutathione molecule and we are back in business. Lower glutathione levels4, on the other hand, ramp up oxidative stress, free radicals, infections, and cancer. Low levels also overload and damage your liver, making it unable to detoxify. As a functional medicine doctor, I’ve found glutathione deficiencies in nearly all very ill patients, including those with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), heart disease, cancer, chronic infections, autoimmune disease, diabetes, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, asthma, kidney problems, and liver disease. Your body’s ability to produce and maintain high glutathione levels becomes critical to recovery from nearly every chronic illness, preventing disease, and maintaining optimal health and performance. To get these and other benefits, you want to optimize this master antioxidant. While glutathione supplements can help, I’ve found these three strategies help your body naturally build glutathione.
