Glutathione is an active tripeptide formed by the condensation of glutamic acid, cysteine and glycine by peptide bond.
GSH is widely found in animal liver, blood, yeast and wheat germ, and a small amount is also distributed in plant tissues such as vegetables.
Glutathione has unique physiological functions and is known as longevity factor and anti-aging factor.
It has many important physiological functions, such as the synthesis of protein and ribonucleic acid, the transport of oxygen and nutrients, the activity of endogenous enzymes, metabolism and cell protection, participation in the tricarboxylic acid cycle and sugar metabolism in the body, with antioxidant, anti-fatigue, removal of excessive free radicals in the body, detoxification and liver protection, prevention of diabetes and cancer and other effects, so it has become a representative of the body’s defense function peptide.
Glutathione can be used clinically to treat corneal diseases and relieve the poisoning symptoms of allyl ester, fluoride, heavy metal, carbon monoxide, organic solvent, etc.
Glutathione has several functions:
It is the primary endogenous antioxidant produced by cells and is directly involved in neutralizing free radicals and reactive oxygen compounds, while keeping exogenous antioxidants such as vitamins C and E present in their reduced (active) state.
Control the NO cycle. The NO cycle is vital to life, and if it’s not controlled, there’s a problem.
It is used in metabolic and biochemical reactions such as DNA synthesis and repair, protein synthesis, prostaglandin synthesis, amino acid transport, and enzyme activation.
Any system in the body can affected by the state of the glutathione system, especially the immune system, nervous system, gastrointestinal system, and lungs.
Clinical application of glutathione
Glutathione has a wide range of clinical effects, has a protective effect on cells, can prevent the hemolysis of red blood cells, thereby reducing the loss of methemoglobin;
Inhibit the formation of fatty liver, improve the symptoms of toxic hepatitis and infectious hepatitis;
It can detoxify acrylonitrile, fluoride, carbon monoxide, organic solvent and heavy metal poisoning.
It can relieve symptoms such as discomfort, nausea, vomiting, pruritus and other symptoms caused by liver disease.
Maintain the balance of acetylcholine and cholinesterase, and play an anti-allergic role;
It has a protective effect on leukopenia caused by radiation therapy, radiopharmaceutical and tumor drugs, and inflammation of bone marrow tissue caused by radiation therapy or drugs.
Can inhibit progressive cataract and control the development of corneal and retinal diseases;
Can prevent skin pigmentation, improve skin luster;
Glutathione has recently been found to have anti-HIV effects.
Application of glutathione in food industry
Glutathione has widely used in various fields of food processing, in flavored foods, GSH and L-glutamate sodium, nucleic acid and other fishy substances or their mixtures coexist, has a strong meat flavor;
The application of GSH in meat, fish and seafood can inhibit the decomposition of nucleic acid, strengthen the flavor of food, and prolong the shelf life.
Glutathione added to dairy products can enhance flavor, improve cheese quality and prevent casein Browning.
Adding GSH to yogurt and baby food is equivalent to vitamin C as a stabilizing effect;
Since glutathione has oxidation-reducing property, adding GSH to flour products can not only reduce but also strengthen amino acids.
Glutathione can prevent pigmentation. Adding GSH to canned fruit can prevent Browning of fruit.
It made into different types of functional foods, such as adding it to beverages, hobbies (candy), dairy products, pasta products and fermented foods as a health and nutrition booster, can also used for pregnant women, nursing children, patients oral health care products, in Japan, GSH considered to one of the most promising health food in the 21st century.
The application of glutathione in the feed industry is still rare, with only a few reports:
GSH used to improve the viability and pregnancy rate of frozen bovine semen.
The addition of methionine to maintain plasma GSH level can enhance the anti-coccidian infection ability of chicks and relieve the toxicity of aflatoxin B1 to chicks. Detoxification of aquatic animals caused by some toxins.
GSH has various biological functions such as scavenging free radicals and detoxification, promoting amino acid transport, protecting gastrointestinal mucosa, improving immunity, participating in protein synthesis and degradation, regulating gene replication and transcription, and regulating cell growth.
GSH will have a good application prospect in animal production.
Glutathione (GSH) is an amazing antioxidant
Glutathione is a thiol-containing antioxidant that can remove free radicals that affect human health, and modern medicine believes that free radicals are one of the main causes of aging and disease.
The most abundant and most important antioxidant system of human cells is glutathione, glutathione the main force of scavenging free radicals, and praised by scientists as a “master antioxidant” and “glutathione defense system”.
Glutathione not only directly involved in scavenging free radicals, but also plays a regulatory role in foreign antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, maintaining their active (reducing) state.
Free radicals a class of highly chemically active intermediate substances produced in the metabolic process of human cells, which can attack proteins, DNA and lipid macromolecules in cell membranes, destroy the physiological functions of these biological macromolecules, make cell membranes become hard and brittle, lose their functions, and shorten the life of cells.
It can cause the cell membrane to form a gap, so that pathogenic bacteria, viruses and other invading cells, further damage the nuclear membrane, so that genetic material exposure, resulting in genetic material damage, causing mutation and destruction;
Increase the damage of immune cells, so that the damaged body, low immunity, many diseases more likely to occur.
In 1956, Professor Harman first proposed the free radical theory, he found that the fisherman who worked in strong sunlight for a long time had a shorter life span, and further research proved that ultraviolet light would stimulate the production of free radicals in the body, and free radicals would promote the aging of the physiological cycle, so that death would come in advance.
Under normal conditions, glutathione in human cells can combined with free radicals generated in the metabolic process of the human body in time, converted into low-activity substances, eliminating the damage of free radicals to the human body.
With the increase of age, the human body’s ability to produce glutathione becomes weaker, and the amount of glutathione produced is not enough to remove the free radicals in the human body in time.
The excess free radicals begin to destroy the biological macromolecules in the cell, and the cell function affected, and the human body begins to age and diseases begin to increase.
Some external factors: such as ultraviolet radiation, drinking, smoking, environmental pollution, some drugs, etc., can also cause the body to produce too much free radicals, will increase the demand for glutathione in the human body, once the glutathione supply is insufficient, excess free radicals will damage people’s health, affect people’s life.
Glutathione is an irreplaceable antidote:
The liver is the organ with the richest content of glutathione in the human body, so it is also the most important detoxification organ of xenobiological compounds.
Glutathione binds and removes heavy metals from the body;
Especially combined with carcinogens, so that its toxicity inhibited;
Glutathione broken down outside the cell after binding to toxins, entering bile or excreted from the urine.
The liver is a large warehouse of glutathione.
In alcoholic hepatitis and viral hepatitis (hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C), glutathione storage reduced.
Increasing glutathione level can restore liver function, and increasing glutathione level can better protect the liver.
The kidney is also the organ with the richest content of glutathione in the human body.
Through its selective filtration, the kidney excretes the waste produced in the human metabolism through the urine and enters the human blood with exogenous toxic substances, such as heavy metals, certain drugs, bacterial toxins, etc., which can combined with glutathione and filtered into the urine and excluded from the body.
The kidneys play an important role in water and dielectric balance, as well as blood pressure regulation. If the kidneys are not working properly, waste and toxins accumulate in the body, affecting other systems, especially the nervous and circulatory systems. Kidney disease can affect a person’s life span.
In the human lung mucus also contains more glutathione, research has found that this is also closely related to the detoxification of glutathione, it can first and from the air into the lungs of the toxic substances combined to reduce the damage to human health due to air pollution.
Glutathione is a vital immune enhancer
Neutrophils, phagocytes and lymphocytes in the human body constitute the immune system in the human body. The human body has the ability of spontaneous immunity, that is, it can resist the invasion of foreign pathogenic substances, such as bacteria, viruses and parasites.
It can also solve the abnormal physiological changes in the body, such as the proliferation of cancer cells, so as to maintain the normal survival order and protect our health.
However, to maintain the normal operation of the immune system, immune cells must fully activated and differentiated, and glutathione (GSH) playing a role in the full activation and differentiation of immune cells.
The human immune system is the body’s most amazing design for fighting viruses, and glutathione (GSH) is responsible for:
① Activated lymphocytes;
② Differentiation and proliferation of T cells and B cells, and make T cells with toxicity, in order to kill viruses or cancer cells.
Increasing glutathione levels inside cells is the most powerful weapon in boosting the immune system.
Glutathione is an excellent anti-aging and cosmetic whitening agent
The most direct manifestation of human aging is from the appearance, its external performance is the skin slack, no luster, the appearance of color spots, and its internal changes are the acceleration of cell aging and the weakening of regeneration ability, caused by the deposition of pigment.
Glutathione can effectively delay cell aging and accelerate cell regeneration. At the same time, glutathione can also prevent skin stains by affecting the tyrosinase activity of skin cells and inhibiting melanin production.
Aging of the human body: aging is an inevitable law in the process of the development of human life, under normal circumstances, people begin to aging after the age of 30.
① Glutathione can increase or promote the secretion of interhormone (human growth hormone).
Interleukin can regulate and slow down the shortening of telomeres, prolong the lifespan of cells, and thus extend the lifespan of people.
② Glutathione is a strong antioxidant, which can resist the damage of free radicals to DNA mitochondria and repair damaged DNA mitochondria;
Thus, the cell division cycle prolonged and the cell life prolonged.
③ Increase the level of glutathione, neutralize and remove free radicals, enhance the process of glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation of sugar, but also inhibit the glycosylation of protein and fat, gluconeogenesis alleviated, and the protein is invariable.
