Hey girl hey! Did you know Glutathione is your new BFF if you are about that #Ageless life?
Why? Glutathione is a powerful antioxidant that is in every one of your cells. It’s made of three amino acids: glutamine, glycine and cysteine. All three of these amino acids are considered to be non-essential, which means your body makes them.
Glutathione provides key benefits like preventing damage to cells, assisting with detoxification from heavy metals, decreasing inflammation, and balancing immunity, making you healthier overall and slowing the process of aging. Glutathione is ‘the’ master antioxidant and detoxifier that aids all other antioxidants, such as Vitamin C and Vitamin E, in rounding up those free radicals that cause damage.
Glutathione also provides a critical defense system for the protection of cells from many forms of stress. During mild stress it actually increases as a protective mechanism, but as we age, glutathione levels decline. This is due to excessive stress, exposure to trauma, consuming a poor “junk food” diet, long term depletions and damage from medications, and exposure to radiation or environmental toxins.
Glutathione levels also decline in chronic inflammatory diseases or autoimmune conditions along with over-exercise. When dealing specifically with diabetes, long-term high blood sugar can lead to reduced amounts of glutathione.
So how do we level up what we have? First, get rid of the processed and junk foods in your diet. Start consuming sulfur-containing foods like garlic, ginger, onions, and cruciferous vegetables like Brussels sprouts, cabbage, spinach, cauliflower, kale, arugula, bok choy, watercress and mustard greens. Why? Sulfur is required for the synthesis of glutathione.Second, you can get your glutathione up by increasing your intake of vitamin C! A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that when subjects consumed 500-1,000 mg a day for 13 weeks, this led to an 18% increase in the white blood cells’ ability to produce glutathione and process it back into its active form.
Last but not least you can boost levels of glutathione with regular exercise and getting an adequate amount of sleep. -XO