Indian J Med Sci. 2000 Feb;54(2):52-4.
Glutathione levels in health and sickness.
Source
Departments of Biochemistry and Medicine, Pandit BD, Sharma PGIMS, Rohtak.Abstract
We speculate that the glutathione (GSH) status of human subjects could be an indicator of health and functional age. In this regard, in a study in which, 80 young and 40 elderly healthy individuals were selected as control. We also studied 145 patients with chronic illnesses namely, ischaemic heart disease, diabetes, preeclampsia, cataract, chronic renal failure and leukaemia (age 52 +/- 8.6 years). We observed that all the subjects had high malonadildehyde and low glutathione levels as compared to control. These early observations support the hypothesis that oxidative stress may have an important aetiological rule and antioxidants a potential therapeutic role.It is very difficult to absorb glutathion via supplements (except IV) but you can raise its level with 8% just by consuming 2 brazil nuts a day. They are very high in natural selenium and this is necessary for the production of glutathion.
"As the integrity of the cellular and subcellular membranes depends heavily on glutathione peroxidase, the antioxidative protective system of glutathione peroxidase itself depends heavily on the presence of selenium."
Brazil nuts look like this:
