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The Best Defense | THE DMPS ADVOCATES | Glutathione helps Immune system | Thimerosal and Formaldehyde | Flu Vaccine Not Working | Flu Shots | The Truth Behind the Vaccine Coverup
Glutathione helps Immune system battle Flu Virus
The other day a friend of mine told me she was going to get a flu shot. "You should get one too," she said, "it helps your immune system to fight off the flu." I wondered how many other poor people were laboring under the delusion that the flu vaccine helped their body do anything. In fact there are doctors that say they wouldn't recommend a flu shot for anyone because of the harm they see it cause.1 The flu vaccine puts a dead or weak concentration of the virus into your system and hopes the immune system can do its job. An immune system that is weakened by protein malnutrition will not have properly functioning immune components to do the job. This is of special concern in the elderly population.2
Let me say right off, the ONLY thing that fights off the flu virus is your immune system, not vaccines. Two ways you can help your immune system is to:
- make sure your body has adequate numbers of immune proteins and
- make sure your body is making adequate amounts of the immune supportive protein, glutathione.
We have an innate immune system and an acquired immune system. The complement system is a part of our innate immune system, it is made up of over thirty proteins which perform functions such as targeting viral capsules for destruction and attacking the capsules themselves, bursting them. The acquired immune system includes B-cells, T-cells and IgA cells that also target pathogens and destroy them. We need to have adequate protein making material in our systems in order to be able to make properly functioning viral fighting machinery.
This protein making material is called "amino acids." (AAs) There are twenty two different AAs and our body uses twenty of them for protein synthesis. We are dependent on diet for eleven of these AAs, which we must be able to digest out of the food and absorb into our systems to make immune components. Clinical studies done by Dr. Brice Vickery show that 90% of people do not digest their food well enough to extract all the amino acids and studies show that lack of systemic protein leads to immune breakdown.3 In fact, protein malnutrition is the leading cause of poor immune capabilities in the elderly.4 The medical community counsels the elderly to get flu vaccine, but does not counsel them to build their immune system proteins as their leading defense against viral invasion.
Another important way to help fight flu is to make sure our immune system has a clear playing field. The phrase "fighting off the flu" is another way of saying that there are a lot of chemical reactions going on within the body, some of which involve cleaning the trash out of cells through electron exchanges.* Having a high redox potential is like providing a clear playing field for your immune system. The glutathione protein helps keep that playing field clear.5
It does this in two ways:
- As a master antioxidant:
Antioxidants work by helping to neutralize free radical damage, this is oxidative stress caused by various things like: drugs, poor diet, bacteria, viruses, illness, pollution, and injury, to name a few.
Antioxidant supplements such as vitamins C and E, work by picking up free radical substances in the system and handing them over to glutathione to be neutralized, thus freeing up the antioxident to go pick up more free radicals. For example, if we take vitamin C supplements and our glutathione levels are low, most of the vitamin C will be able to be used only once as a free radical scavenger, quickly turning into free radical material itself.
Keeping the system free of free radicals helps create an environment where the immune system can spend its time fighting the flu virus instead of cleaning up systemic garbage.
- As a potent detoxifier:
Glutathione is effective in detoxifying the body of substances such as tobacco smoke, auto exhaust, heavy metals, radiation, chloroform, certain drugs, molds, food processing chemicals, pesticides, etc. Glutathione works to clear the body of these substances and if glutathione levels are low, the body will begin to break down from the toxic overload.7 Platinum Plus has been used to detoxify the body of many xenobiotics (harmful substances foreign to the body) with great success. The less toxic trash in the system, the better the environment for immune function.
Toxic substances such as those mentioned above, if not flushed out of the system, neutralized or destroyed by our immune system, can also eventually cause serious degenerative autoimmune disease in the body, such as lupus, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and multiple sclerosis.8 Other autoimmune diseases are caused by viral infection, such as herpes, hepatitis, and AIDS. Our immune system helps us to fight all kinds of disease, including the flu. 80% of the lymphocytes in our immune system are T-cells (cells which destroy pathogens.) The availability of glutathione to those cells is essential for their proper functioning. Low intracellular glutathione levels in the lymphocytes severely diminishes those cells ability to fight toxic substances in the body.9
Glutathione is a tripeptide that includes the amino acid, cysteine. One of the factors regulating glutathione synthesis is cysteine availability in the system.10 Cysteine is an essential amino acid that can only be obtained from the diet, your body will not make it for you. According to Dr. Ray Sahelian MD, " Animal and human studies demonstrate that adequate protein nutrition is crucial for the maintenance of glutathione homeostasis."11 Our best defense against the flu is to eat a nutritionally balanced diet that will ensure we are getting enough complete protein to make immune proteins and glutathione. In order to make sure that we are digesting this protein down into its component amino acids we need to take Platinum Plus Essential Amino Acids. Platinum Plus will aid in both our digestion and absorption of these amino acids.
So, remember, a flu shot does not build up your immune system at all, proper nutrition does, and the cornerstone of nutritional support is adequate protein. Platinum Plus gives you the ability to build properly functioning immune proteins and a healthy redox potential in which they can work.
1. Flu and Flu Shots, James Bowen, 2003
2. "Protein-energy malnutrition and immunological responses." Chandra RK J Nutr. 1992 Mar;122(3 Suppl):597-600.
"Protein undernutrition as the major cause of decreased immune function in the elderly: clinical and functional implications." Nutr Rev. 1995 Apr;53:S86-91; discussion S92-4.
"Protein and Older Adults." Ronni Chernoff, PhD, RD, FADA. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 23, No. 90006, 627S-630S (2004).
3. Cell-mediated immunity in malnourished guinea pigs after Mycobacterium bovis BCG vaccination.D N McMurray and E A Yetley. Infect Immun. 1982 March;
35(3): 909914.
4. "Protein undernutrition as the major cause of decreased immune function in the elderly: clinical and functional implications." Nutr Rev. 1995 Apr;53:S86-91; discussion S92-4.
5. "Oxidation of the Glutathione/Glutathione Disulfide Redox State Is Induced by Cysteine Deficiency in Human Colon Carcinoma HT29 Cells"
Lauren T. Miller, Walter H. Watson, Ward G. Kirlin, Thomas R. Ziegler and Dean P. Jones. The American Society for Nutritional Sciences J. Nutr.
132:2303-2306, 2002
7. "Effect of glutathione depletion on the cytotoxicity of xenobiotics and induction of single-strand DNA breaks by ionizing radiation in isolated hamster round spermatids". PJ Den Boer, AA van Loon, P Mackenbach, GP van der Schans, and JA Grootegoed Journal of Reproduction and Fertility (1990)
88 259-269,1990
"Symposium overview: the role of glutathione in neuroprotection and neurotoxicity." TJ Monks, JF Ghersi-Egea, M Philbert, AJ Cooper and EA Lock.
Toxilogical Sciences Vol. 51, No. 2. Pp 161-177.
8. "Lupus-prone mice as models to study xenobiotic-induced acceleration of systemic autoimmunity." Pollard KM, Pearson DL, Hultman P, Hildebrandt B, Kono DH.Environ Health Perspect. 1999 Oct;107 Suppl 5:729-35.
"Polymorphisms of the CYP2D6 gene increase susceptibility to ankylosing spondylitis" Matthew A. Brown+, Sarah Edwards, Emma Hoyle, Sarah Campbell, Steven Laval, Ann K. Daly1, Kevin D. Pile2, Andrei Calin3, Alan Ebringer4, Daniel E. Weeks5 and B. Paul Wordsworth. Human Molecular Genetics vol 9 No.
11, April. 2002, pp 1563-1566.
³Defective Antigen Processing Correlates with a Low Level of Intracellular Glutathione² Short, S., Eur. J. Immunol. 1996, Dec;26(12):3015-3020.
9.³Lymphocyte Proliferation in Glutathione-depleted Lymphocytes: Direct Relationship Between Glutathione Availability and the Proliferative Response²Hamilos, D., Immunopharmacology, 1989, 18;223-235.
"Regulation by glutathione of interleukin-4 activity on cytotoxic T cells."
Liang, SM, et al. Immunology. 1992 Mar;75(3):435-40.
10. Glutathione: A Practical Guide, by Ray Sahelian, M.D.
11. Glutathione: A Practical Guide, by Ray Sahelian, M.D.
The Best Defense | THE DMPS ADVOCATES | Glutathione helps Immune system | Thimerosal and Formaldehyde | Flu Vaccine Not Working | Flu Shots | The Truth Behind the Vaccine Coverup
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