Your Body Makes Its Own Master Antioxidant — Here's Why It Stops.

Most people are trying to raise glutathione backwards. They're buying expensive IVs, they're taking N-acetylcysteine, they're swallowing glutathione capsules, but the real question isn't how much glutathione you can put into your body, it's whether your cells can make it and recycle it. And in one small trial at Baylor University, older adults had dramatically less glutathione than younger adults and several times more oxidative damage. Then researchers gave them 2 inexpensive amino acids for 16 weeks. The glutathione came back completely. So did their mitochondrial function. So did their walking speed, their insulin sensitivity, and all of the participants felt younger and looked younger. So today, I'm going to walk you through 5 things: what glutathione actually does, the 5 places you're going to feel it the most, how to know if yours is actually low or in optimal ranges, and which supplements and foods actually Rebuild it, along with my 4-step plan for raising it without wasting money. And stay with me because one of the most useful markers is probably already sitting in your latest blood test, and most people never look at it. Welcome to the Dr. Axe Show. I am super excited to announce that Heal Your Cells is now officially live. This isn't a trendy health book, it's a resource you'll come back to for years. And I truly believe the future of healthcare is cellular health, and this book is where you learn how to build and maintain that foundation. If you've watched this show for a while and my content has helped you in any way, I'd really appreciate your support on this book launch. You can grab your copy today at Amazon, Barnes& Noble, or wherever you get your books. You'll also get hundreds of dollars in free bonus material when you enter your email at healyourselves.com. Again, that's healyourselves.com. Thank you so much for your support. I'm so grateful for you. If you're dealing with toxin overload, autoimmune disease, fatigue, hormone imbalance, or aging more quickly, than you want to, then you might be missing the number one supplement that can actually improve your health. It's a lesser-known compound that has incredible benefits for your body. That compound is a tripeptide called glutathione. Now, here's why glutathione is so important. It helps reverse your cellular age. It literally makes you younger. Here's how it works. Think about this. If you take the bite out of an apple and set it onto the counter, What happens within minutes? The flesh starts turning brown. That's oxidation, the same chemistry that rusts metal. And that exact same process is running inside your cells right now. It's called oxidative stress, and it's one of the number one hallmarks of aging. And it's one of the primary reasons why your body ages and why you start to feel joint pain, your metabolic health slows down, and you start to age more quickly. And your number one protection against that is the antioxidant called glutathione. Glutathione is your master antioxidant, and you wanna think of it as the skin of an apple, right? The skin of an apple protects the apple flesh because it is so rich in antioxidants, and it is like a living antioxidant coat covering the apple. Well, think about glutathione the same way. It is an antioxidant coating and protective mechanism that protects every cell in your body from browning and aging. You know, I want to share with you a patient I had a few years ago and how they experienced an incredible breakthrough because we started using a product called GlyNAC, or a form of glutathione. This is a patient that was struggling with really extreme rosacea to where, you know, almost cysts all over her face and really It was to the point where she didn't want to go out in public because the rosacea was so bad all the time. And after years of flare-ups, she literally tried everything— topicals, she tried antibiotics, elimination diets— and nothing helped. Here's what we started doing, though. I started saying, you know what, I think there's a bigger issue going on in your environment. We did blood work, and I found this marker, GGT, was in normal range according to one of her doctors, but it wasn't optimal. And so we started supplementing with glutathione. And here's what's amazing, is it cleared up by about 98% in 8 weeks. And I knew in order for it to heal, we would have to focus on the root cause. So we stopped chasing the skin, started supporting glutathione and the precursors, and also changed up her diet, had her start doing some more glutathione-boosting foods along with taking a GlyNAC supplement. and the rosacea reversed almost completely. She said about 98% improvement. And here's the way you want to think about it. Her skin was like a smoke alarm. And listen to this study. This is, this is pretty impressive. This was taking a supplement called N-acetylcysteine, known as NAC. This is the precursor to glutathione, which we'll get into. But this was a human study done on 12 individuals, and they used an N-acetylcysteine-based compound. And 90% of rosacea patients improved. 70% had less redness, and inflammatory lesions fell by about 43% in just 4 weeks. This is 4 weeks only. 90% of them saw results. And that's because oftentimes glutathione with certain conditions can reduce inflammation because it's the number one thing that reduces oxidative stress. And one of the biggest things that causes inflammation is this oxidative stress on the body. So when you can protect your cells with glutathione, like that apple peel, imagine that protecting all of your cells and body, that can put out the inflammation or quench the fire. And here's what glutathione is and surprises a lot of people. It is a peptide, right? Peptides are all the rage today. People are talking about peptides. There's a lot of peptides out there that we've been using for years that are incredibly effective. Of course, you're familiar with collagen peptides. Or what about insulin? Or what about creatine? These are all forms of peptides. Well, glutathione is known as a tripeptide. It's made up of 3 amino acids: glutamate, cysteine, and glycine. And the latter 2, your body typically needs in larger amounts in order to create glutathione. So cysteine is typically the most important one, followed by glycine. Now, again, most of us have plenty of glutamate. You don't need to worry about that. But cysteine, Basically, it was what allows your body to get through that bottleneck, and it carries the sulfur that does the actual work of putting glutathione together. And then glycine, which almost nobody talks about, turns out to matter way more than we thought the more we're digging into the clinical science and understanding glutathione. And what makes glutathione so unique and powerful is that most antioxidants you get in your body are single-use, right? So there's some sort of oxidative stress. your body eats up that antioxidant and it's gone, or it oxidizes and then it passes out of the body. Glutathione, what's so unique about it is it can be used multiple times. It basically gets used up and then recycled over and over again, and it neutralizes the damage, and then it gets converted to a spent form, and then there's an enzyme in the body that can just flip it back on and it can be used again, which is why you can't supplement you're way past a factory problem. The healthiest cell isn't the one with the most glutathione. It's the one making and recycling the most glutathione. And you can see here with me, again, basically there's GSH, right, glutathione, which then turns into GSSG, which is the spent glutathione. And then in order to recycle it, by the way, there are certain things your body needs. And this is why when I work with patients, I don't typically ever just say, take this single supplement. In fact, I've never done that in my entire career. What I do is I put together a full protocol for fixing the machinery. So, for instance, when I had the patient come in and she was experiencing chronic rosacea and she was able to completely turn that around after seeing doctors for 10 years and really almost ruining her life, it was so severe for her, she shared this with me. I said, okay, I'm seeing from your blood work you need more glutathione, but I'm not just going to give you— it's sort of this old— you remember Maimonides? He has this lesson, you know, give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. That same thing, right? I want to teach your body and help your body create glutathione on its own and put together a full glutathione-boosting protocol so you can Fully and completely heal. Now, part of that was taking a type of N-acetylcysteine plus glycine, a supplement. But in addition, I had her take other types of food. I also looked at blood work and there were other nutrients she was deficient in, like vitamin B2 and selenium and magnesium, which are all required for glutathione recycling. And so it's not just about glutathione by itself, it's about making sure your body has all the things it needs. Yeah. For running its glutathione factory. And by one of the reasons why this is important, and you might notice as you age, certain conditions you just can't seem to beat, right? It could be the joint pain, it could be histamine reactions, autoimmune disease, some other health problem where you just feel like you're aging, like your skin, you're noticing it changing more quickly. The problem is there are certain things your body becomes less adequate at producing as you age, right? And I remember I used to talk about this a lot, and I still talk about it sometimes with collagen, right? It's a peptide as well. Over time, your body creates less peptides on its own. Collagen breaks down more every single year. The very same thing happens with this peptide glutathione. It drops every single year. Now, there was a study done at Baylor College of Medicine, and it ran a direct comparison, adults in their 70s against adults in their 20s and 30s. And here's what they found. Not just less glutathione, But far more damage was happening to the body because they had less glutathione. So it wasn't about, oh, you just have less glutathione now, because on average they had about 70% less glutathione in their blood. These people that were 70 years old, they also saw some of the most important blood markers. By the way, one of my favorites, it's called F2-isoprostanes, and this is looking at oxidative stress done to your fat cells. So think about all your cells have a lipid bilayer as well. So this is This is fat and cellular membrane oxidative stress. Well, in these people, there was over 300% more oxidative stress in 70-year-olds, showing that their glutathione needs to be so much higher as you age. And I see a lot of women today online talking about wearing certain types of skincare and doing certain things as you age. And by the way, I think you should be doing that. I think that's wonderful. We should all be trying to slow down the aging process and honor God with our body, right? It's a temple of the Holy Spirit. We're called to do everything we can in order to age more slowly. And I do think having the right skincare ingredients is helpful. However, one thing I don't see a lot of people talking about in the anti-aging community is glutathione. And it honestly might be the single most impactful antioxidant or supplement you could take at slowing down the aging process, especially for any of you that are dealing with autoimmune disease or toxicity damage. Because glutathione, again, it's known as your body's master antioxidant, and it's used by the liver for detoxification. So if you're deficient in glutathione, your body is typically aging more quickly. Again, think about the skin of the apple. If you, if you remove the skin of the apple, That apple immediately starts aging, likely 10 times to even 100 times faster than without the apple skin. Well, think about your body in the same way. If you are depleted in glutathione, you are aging more quickly. And if you ever noticed, you know what, I feel like the past 2 years I started looking older, I started feeling older, it could be a glutathione issue. Now, I want to bring you some clinical evidence and a study that proves these benefits. There is a 16-week study where patients supplemented with the main 2 amino acids that help create glutathione. And when they use these 2 amino acids, total glutathione increased in the body by 225% and active glutathione by 259%. And in the placebo group, it didn't change. Here are the benefits people saw in the study. They saw better mitochondrial function in lab work. They had lower levels of inflammation, improved insulin resistance, and they were even faster at walking. They actually saw improved athletic performance. And that's because glutathione is also critical for recovery. So, so a few benefits. Let's dive deeper into. Okay. Number 1, it keeps your mitochondria from cooking themselves. Your mitochondria burn fuel with oxygen. Okay. However, when your mitochondria are burning up this oxygen, It puts— it creates something called reactive oxygen species or reactive oxygen, and it kind of sprays out of your cells like an exhaust. Now, what takes care of that exhaust? It's glutathione. If your cells are running low on glutathione, the exhaust from making cellular energy never gets cleaned up, and it's going to damage every organ and tissue in your body. And it's going to cause you to age prematurely because glutathione, again, is your body's master antioxidant. Oxidative stress, that's what it does. Benefit number 2, it helps your liver finish the job. Detox isn't a juice cleanse, okay? It's a 2-stage chemical process in your liver. Stage 1 takes a toxin and makes it reactive, often more dangerous than it started. Stage 2 sticks that toxin to glutathione, making it water-soluble so your body can get rid of it. If stage 1 is running hot, we call this phase 1 of liver detoxification, where your body is eliminating or transforming some of these toxins that are in your body. But if your body is not prepared in stage 2, you end up with a backlog. And that's the real mechanism behind chemical sensitivity and even things like rough hangovers in the body. If you've ever experienced that, is that phase 1 of your body might have been working fine, and then it gets backed up, typically because you don't have enough glutathione. Benefit number 3, glutathione, your immune cells. Here's the thing, they can't live without it. When a threat appears, your T cells and natural killer cells must divide fast. Okay? That replication generates huge oxidative stress. Cells that can't handle that stress Don't divide well. Glutathione is what lets them do it. It's why one person catches everything and their spouse, same house, same food, doesn't. So if you're wondering, why am I getting sick all the time? Sometimes it's not vitamin C. Sometimes it's not zinc. Sometimes it's not vitamin D. Sometimes you're deficient in the single most important antioxidant in your body. Again, we talk about vitamin C. Listen, that's critically important. Glutathione, just as important or more important in certain cases when it comes to supporting your immune cells. There is a study done on patients who took a liposomal glutathione supplement for 2 weeks. Here's what they found: natural killer cell activity increased by 400%, lymphocyte proliferation by 60%, and oxidative stress damage went down by Now, the number 4 benefit of glutathione has to do with your brain and neurological health. Your brain is about 2% of your body's weight, and it burns about 20% of your oxygen. It's packed with fats that oxidize easily, and it has limited capacity to repair. It is structurally the worst designed organ for oxidative stress in your entire body, and it needs the most protection. So brain glutathione isn't a nice to have. It's essential and potentially important for even preventing things like Alzheimer's long term. There's a study done on those who supplemented with sulforaphane, which is found in broccoli sprouts and certain types of cruciferous vegetables, that when people consume more of those types of vegetables, their brain glutathione raised by roughly 30% on an MRI. The number 5 benefit of glutathione is anti-aging. Two of the best predictors of how long somebody will live has to do with their grip strength and their walking speed. In a Baylor study, people that used a supplement— this is for supporting glutathione, it's called GlyNAC, it's glycine plus N-acetylcysteine— they actually improved their walking speed and their grip strength with no dietary change, simply by only taking GlyNAC. And so the top 5 benefits of using glutathione are number 1, Mitochondrial energy, okay? More power, less damage happening from that. Number 2, liver detoxification. It is essential for you to detox and heal from everything from infections like parasites to overcome long COVID, and of course, getting rid of things like glyphosate in your body. Number 3, immune function, whether it be autoimmune disease or just strengthening your own immune system to fight the common cold and flu. Number 4, brain protection. And number 5, anti-aging. Here are the 4 words people say to us most often. This finally makes sense. Years of scattered symptoms, random supplements, diets that have worked for a little while but ultimately fell to the wayside. For many, it's the first time somebody has actually shown them the cellular pattern behind their symptoms. And that's what a cellular bloodwork analysis is for. It's an at-home kit followed by a full hour with one of our senior health advisors who will explain exactly what's going on in your cells and if one of our cellular healing protocols is right for you. And we have hundreds of 5 stars on Trustpilot that say the same. If you're ready for it to finally make sense, go to mybloodwork.com and order your kit today. That's mybloodwork.com. And so you might wonder, well, how do I know where my glutathione levels are at? Well, one thing you can look at is your symptoms, right? If you're dealing with fatigue and especially poor recovery, you just feel like your body doesn't recover very quickly, that's a big warning sign. Number 2, brain fog. Okay, if you are dealing with just feeling like your, your head is cloudy, sometimes losing words or just short-term memory, that's an indicator. Number 3, chemical sensitivity. to perfume, to fuel, to alcohol, just sensitivities to things. But typically, if glutathione were there to protect your body in the first place, that wouldn't be happening. Number 4, again, frequent illness, catching everything going around. Number 5, high oxidative stress on your labs. If you're seeing those in lab markers, that's a big indicator that your glutathione is low. The number 1 lab marker, by the way, you've probably been tested for, I mean, it is a standard lab test, looking at what we call GGT. That's gamma-glutamyltransferase. And here's the problem, though. Listen to this. This is a big deal. It's on nearly every liver panel out there today when you get your blood work done. Again, look for it, GGT. However, here's the big problem. Your doctor is looking at it in the range for severe liver disease, right? So they're looking to see, oh, is— are the numbers so bad you're about to die? they're not looking at that marker for optimal health or longevity. So if you're dealing with autoimmune disease, or rosacea, or, you know, you're aging more quickly, they're not going to tell you that because they're not reading your blood work in that way. And so most labs consider GGT, this again glutathione marker, they consider it to be normal around 60. But for longevity and lower oxidative stress, the optimal range is closer to 10 to 20, ideally Under 20 for men and under 15 for women. And GGT doesn't directly measure glutathione, but rising levels that signal greater oxidative stress, knowing that you have greater glutathione demand. And in a study done on nearly 300,000 participants, a GGT around 14.5 represented the lowest risk reference point for people. And they discovered in this study, when men got up closer to that 60 marker, They had a 31% higher risk of dying, a 43% higher risk of dying of cardiovascular disease. Now, why cardiovascular disease? Well, your cells in your heart, there's a lot of mitochondria there, right? And the other one is, listen to this, a 225% higher liver-related mortality rate if somebody had high GGT markers. So the reality is, listen, your doctor, you might be at 50, okay? And your doctor says, listen, your blood work's good, you're good to go, but you should be at 14.5 for optimal function. This is why there is such a chasm today between conventional blood work and the way that I read blood work and the panels and markers I do and what most conventional doctors do. They're not looking to get you healthy. They're just trying to keep you barely alive. And so knowing your glutathione is really important. Now, let me go through a few glutathione markers. The biggest is this GGT, right? You're going to find it on any liver panel. It's a really, really important marker, and it's an inexpensive marker. It's not expensive to get this done. Another one that I really like is called F2-isoprostanes. This is the gold standard test for fat oxidation. So think about all your cells are made of fat. Your brain is fat. It's important for certain organs. So all that being said, if your fat is oxidizing, your risk of heart disease and just generally aging more quickly— Yeah. goes up dramatically. So this F2-isoprostanes is a really, really great marker to look at for— again, it's known as the gold standard test for oxidative stress. And those are 2 of the biggest. A few others, though, that can be helpful: GSH to GSSG ratio. It's looking at a ratio that's showing how well your body is recycling glutathione. Another marker, selenium and magnesium. Knowing what your selenium is, because Selenium actually helps create glutathione. Magnesium does as well. And there's another, this is a urine test, it's called 8-OH-DG. And this is actually looking to the damage to the DNA itself, but this is something that glutathione helps protect against. And those are the 5 markers that are probably the most helpful in discovering what your glutathione levels actually are. Hey, and by the way, if you want an entire guide, by the way, on exactly how to detoxify, and support your glutathione levels, I actually have an entire guide for you in my show notes. I also have another guide you can check out. It is my Top 25 Blood Markers Guide. You can download there as well if you want to know, well, I've had blood tests done before. I want to see if I'm in the functional medicine range. These are guides I put together. It's over $100 in value, and you can get it for free if you just go to the show notes. You can download these PDFs for no charge at all, just my gift to you because I want to help you reach your ultimate level of health. Awesome. Because I want to bring the truth, because you know these are things that I think about my mom growing up. Like my mom, I know from looking at her labs over the years she was deficient in glutathione, and no doctor ever told her that. I think about could we have prevented her getting cancer or helped her heal more readily if we were actually looking at the right markers? So the reality is getting the right markers and also just knowing how to raise your glutathione levels is critically important. So I encourage you go to the show notes. And get the free guide I put together for you right there. Now, I wanna talk about glutathione supplements, 'cause there's a lot of different types out there, and I wanna talk about which ones are most effective and what I most recommend. Okay, so the first thing here is, is looking at standard glutathione versus liposomal, right? I saw a post once saying supplementing with glutathione was pointless because your gut breaks it apart. Then there was a 6-month placebo trial that actually proved that it actually worked modestly And measurably, though, taking a liposomal form is going to be more effective. Okay, what liposomal means is that glutathione is wrapped in fat to survive your digestive tract, and so it survives your stomach acid. It can actually get to the area it needs to in order for you to receive the benefit. So I do think liposomal glutathione has lots of benefits. You want to do about 1,000 milligrams a day. You know, you can store up to about 30 to 35% of glutathione in your body over 6 months. So that's the good news, is your body can store some of this as well. Now, the number 2 supplement, which is my second favorite, is NAC. That's known as N-acetylcysteine. And NAC doesn't give you glutathione, it gives your cells cysteine that helps your cells build glutathione on their own. And N-acetylcysteine is the standard hospital antidote For acetaminophen overdose, and has been used for about 50 years. So think about that. This isn't alternative medicine. This is used in the hospital today. If you take too much Tylenol, they give you glutathione, they give you N-acetylcysteine. That is the cure. That is the cure for toxin overload. You know, a Tylenol overdose kills the liver by burning through its glutathione. That's how it kills the liver. Refills the tank fast enough to save the organ. That's how this central pathway actually works. You know, the typical range of N-acetylcysteine is anywhere from typically 600 milligrams daily to around 3,000 milligrams daily. Of course, hospital protocols run much higher than that. But of course, for daily use, it's about that 600 milligrams to, I would say, around 2,400 milligrams for most people. And then my favorite glutathione supplement is GlyNAC. It's glycine, which remember, there's, there's 3 amino acids that are important: glutamate, which your body has plenty of, and then it's cysteine and glycine. So with GlyNAC, you're getting glycine plus N-acetylcysteine. You're getting both of those key amino acids that your body needs to make glutathione. And what they found is most people are deficient in cysteine. Okay, it's part of the bottleneck. But as adults age, many adults are running short on glycine as well. And when you get both, your cellular assembly line can now produce glutathione at the optimal levels. Now, I do want to mention there was an optimal dose in people that were looking to heal from chronic illness. And these are very— these are higher doses. It was 7 grams of glycine a day and 7 grams of N-acetylcysteine every day. And here's the reality. Most capsules and supplements today hold about a 10th of that. So if you're dealing with an extreme condition and you want to see results really fast, you can do higher doses for multiple months to see those results faster. Now, here's what I found in patients. You can do a lower dose, and your body will eventually get to the point where it has enough stored up where you don't need to do a higher dose, and you can then lower the dose. But if you're dealing with a chronic issue, like, again, severe rosacea or autoimmune disease or one of the things we've talked about, you can do higher doses like 7 grams and 7 grams to see the fastest results possible. And you can see how effective GlyNAC is when you compare it to even liposomal glutathione or oral glutathione. Liposomal glutathione was slightly more effective than oral glutathione. GlyNAC outperformed them greatly, but part of it had to do with the dose was so much higher. So these are different studies. This is not a direct comparison. But again, if you want to get your glutathione levels up the fastest, to the optimal levels, you're going to do higher doses of GlyNAC for about 16 weeks. Now, I do want to mention another way of getting glutathione into your body, and if you're severely deficient, it's maybe the fastest way to get your glutathione up, and it's with glutathione IVs. IV glutathione absolutely works at raising your blood levels of glutathione. In one human study, it increased plasma glutathione by nearly 47 times. And while that spike was short-lived, it does have a significant impact. Now, in another study, this was done— this is a double-blind trial on patients receiving chemotherapy that were dealing with moderate to severe neuropathy. This occurred in 11 patients on the placebo versus only 2 patients who received IV glutathione. After 8 cycles, that's about 82% less neuropathy for those that took glutathione. And so what happens is when you go through chemotherapy, your body becomes so depleted in antioxidants. Think about it, chemotherapy is a toxin, and we are flooding the body with a toxin to the point of almost killing the person, bringing them to the brink of death. And that will in many cases kill the cancer cells. But now your body is absolutely wiped out and depleted. In fact, I just actually read another medical study that found that one of the biggest mistakes the cancer industry is making today is they're having patients do chemotherapy and radiation and surgery, and then afterwards on blood work, their markers are all completely floored out, right? Right, because your body's trying to protect itself. Your glutathione is absolutely on the floor, your zinc, your vitamin C, the body is completely depleted. And most oncologists and doctors never tell their patients how to rebuild those nutrients and heal their body afterwards. Now, what I do in my clinic in Nashville, Tennessee, in Franklin, is once patients go through as part of our integrative support, we have them follow a personalized diet that we put together for them to raise all of these nutrients that they need. We also have them do certain types of IVs like glutathione and vitamin C. To get their numbers back up. We also have them do things like hyperbaric oxygen therapy, because when you flood the body with oxygen, now it can heal so much faster. So if you know anyone with cancer or anybody that's gone through treatment, really encourage them, encourage them to watch this episode and really understand this part of the show, that they really need to make sure they do everything they can to fill their nutritional tank and do some of the right types of therapies in order to fully heal from the treatment itself. Now, here are some of those foods that would be the most healing for people, and these are ones I was very conscious when my mom was battling cancer that we had her eat constantly. One were sprouts, specifically broccoli sprouts. Broccoli sprouts are high in sulforaphane. This is a compound that supports your body creating glutathione, of course. And then cruciferous vegetables are the next most powerful after broccoli sprouts: kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower. And then number 3 would be garlic and onions. These are part of the sulfur family as well, again, high in cysteine. Eggs and clean protein like salmon, also great there. And Brazil nuts, high in selenium, also great for supporting glutathione. And then some of the most important cofactors for your body recycling or making more glutathione. So it's not just about glutathione, it's making sure that the machine works that creates glutathione. So again, you want something like GlyNAC or N-acetylcysteine. In addition, selenium, vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin, magnesium, and vitamin C. These are the things that your body needs that work collectively to create more glutathione. And then here's some other things that help build glutathione: exercise, moderate exercise helps, deep sleep, sauna or infrared heat, and in many cases, fasting. Now, what drains your body of glutathione the most? Here are the biggest things. Alcohol. Alcohol is the single biggest thing that drains your body of glutathione. Number 2, acetaminophen and many other medications. If there's somebody you know, and every day or on occasion they're taking Tylenol, but also things like ibuprofen, these NSAIDs, it's slowly draining glutathione over time. And I actually think this is one of the single reasons why so many people are depleted in glutathione. And in addition, a very important thing to note, if you remember this, there was a— Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came out with some news about a year ago about acetaminophen or Tylenol should not be used by pregnant mothers. Well, why is that? Why did he say that? Well, he said he saw a correlation between acetaminophen use and autism. Now, how could acetaminophen increase the risk of autism? Here's how. It used up all the mother's glutathione. This is protective for the mother. Based on these studies, it's obviously protective for the child. And if glutathione isn't there to protect you, what does it affect? The brain. So again, if you have a history or know anybody who's used a lot of acetaminophen or Tylenol, know the reason why it's such an issue is it's depleting the body of glutathione. So taking things to support glutathione is a must. Number 3 is sleep debt. This suppresses synthesis of glutathione. Number 4 is smoking and vaping. Number 5, overtraining. So you want to exercise, but not overtrain without recovery. And then chronic oxidative load. Heavy metals, chronic infections, right, from mold or parasites, long COVID, those sort of things cause issues. A lot of inflammatory foods, fast foods, those are going to cause issues. If you're only taking one type of collagen, you might be missing some of the benefits. I had somebody recently ask me, Dr. Axe, are you still taking collagen? Of course. You know, most collagen supplements use a single source. Multi Collagen Protein, the one I've been using now for nearly 10 years, supports your hair, your skin, your nails, your joints, your digestion. And by the way, it's not just collagen alone that builds collagen. Multi Collagen Protein contains vitamin C, which your body actually needs to synthesize collagen, plus 2 billion probiotics that support your body in doing that as well. With 20 grams of hydrolyzed collagen peptides per serving, it's easy to absorb, great to use daily. You can add it to coffee, blend it in a smoothie, or use it in any way in your routine. This is such a simple habit that improves everything from skin elasticity to reduced joint stiffness. Right now, customers can save $10 using my code DRAX10. Make sure to take advantage to take your health to the next level with Multi Collagen Protein here from Ancient Nutrition. So here's the game plan. Do these 4 things. Number 1, close one drain. Pick the biggest thing that you know is draining your glutathione. Is it alcohol? Is it sleep debt? Is it overtraining? Be aware of that. Number 2, add sulfur to meals, right? Cruciferous vegetables, garlic, onions, eggs, sauerkraut, sprouts. Those are fantastic, as we talked about, the number 1 food probably for boosting glutathione. Next, get the right blood work done or ask for GGT at your next blood draw. and make sure you're in that optimal range. And by the way, if you want to get the right blood work done so you know where your glutathione levels are, you can go to cellrx.com. That's spelled cell, C-E-L-L-R-X.com. And they've got a great blood work panel on there you can do that will test not only GGT, but look at numerous other markers as well that are the markers that matter that you need to know about. So again, that's cellrx, C-E-L-L-R-X.com. if you want to get the markers that matter. And then decide on one supplement. Again, I would encourage you, I think GlyNAC is probably the right supplement for you that's going to make the biggest difference. And then when choosing a supplement, look for one that has glycine plus N-acetylcysteine, probably the most effective in terms of the clinical studies. That's the most effective. And something else to consider, here are 3 mistakes I see people missing when it comes to glutathione. Number 1, buying expensive glutathione, Before also fixing the drains or not doing both simultaneously, right? If you start taking glutathione and then you are taking Tylenol every day, drinking a lot of alcohol, and not sleeping well, yes, it's going to help some, but overall you want to fix both of those simultaneously. Number 2 is taking too low a dose of GlyNect. Typically taking doses of at least 1,000 milligrams each is going to get you the best results. And number 3, supplementing without checking whether you're deficient or not. And that's why actually getting the right blood work and knowing your numbers is so important. And if you want to do that, you can go to cellrx.com. That's C-E-L-L-R-X dot com. All right. Now, I do want to put a disclaimer here. N-acetylcysteine, okay, glutathione supplements can interact with if you're taking blood thinners or nitroglycerin. Okay. Those are typically the medications you have to be conscious of. Or as always, with almost every supplement, if you're pregnant, you need to be cautious and just check with your physician. And then typically, if you're on chemotherapy, most doctors will ask you to do that between your treatments, not within 48 hours, or after you are done with the full care. And also managing kidney disease or liver disease, often the same applies because some of the treatments, you actually want to create oxidative stress on the body, or at least that's what doctors are trying to do. And the reason for that is, is some therapies, specifically cancer therapies, work by generating oxidative stress. They oxidative stress the body so much, they age it and damage cells to the point to where it actually kills cancer cells. And that is going to blunt that sort of treatment. So you'd want to check with your oncologist before taking a supplement like N-acetylcysteine. If you remember only one thing from today, remember this: don't just chase antioxidants, build the system that makes them. Give your body the raw materials, close the drain, And also, check your gauge. Know where your glutathione numbers are. Know that your body is repairing, recycling, and rebuilding every second of the day. And our job is to be good stewards and to remove what interferes with that design and give your body what it needs, which in part is glutathione, to help us reach our highest health potential that God created us for. And then again, I have that free gift for you. If you go to the show notes, I created for you My guide for detoxification, which includes how to support glutathione levels, and my top 25 blood markers guide that you can find there as well. So you actually know what markers matter and what should the numbers be and what are some— also some natural foods and supplements that can raise those numbers for me. And finally, do me a big favor, subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. And think about one person who needs to hear this episode. and share it with them. Remember, build the factory, close the drain, check the gauge. I'll see you next time here on the Dr. Axe Show.