Your heart is truly a wonderous organ . Even before your birth , the muscles in the heart are already at work , circulating oxygen rich blood to every point in you and returnin oxygen depleted blood back into the lungs. On average, the heart will beat 37,869,120 times every 365 days , year after year. That’s around two and a half billion heartbeats for your lifetime .
Clearly , your heart is a powerhouse and it’s worth protecting. We realize , no one can survive without a beating heart and with an average of 2 deaths every 68 seconds , 40% of all the deaths in the U.S.) are from heart disease, usually from CAD- Coronary Artery Disease
As the hardest working organ in your body, the heart muscles also need to produce an abundance of energy and it’s the massive requirement for energy creation which makes your heart susceptable to the problem of free radicals. Hence , the heart is an organ with a large requirement for antioxidants, the most important one is Glutathione.
Your Heart’s Energy Producers
The heart’s astounding ability to produce energy is based within each cell in the cellular power plants known as Mitochondria. Each cell in your body has these tiny energy making locations . On average, most cells will have a couple of hundred mitochondria, but the cells in your heart are estimated to include up to 5,000! The energy that’s produced in the cells, comes in the form of a compound called ATP or adenosine triphosphate. It’s no surprise , making energy has a price .
The by- products of creating energy are damaged molecules – free radicals and with so many mitochondria in your heart , there will also be an equally high production of oxy-radicals . Without the intervention of antioxidant foods , free radicals can develop a chain response in the cells that can hurt them and their components including the cellular DNA.
CAD and Heart Disease
Arteriosclerosis Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) commonly referred to as a hardening of the arteries or loss of arterial elasticity is one of the leading causes of Heart disease. It’s been linked to something known as lipid peroxidase. That’s what happens if the lipids in your heart are converted into free radicals. Lipids, by the way are a large group of molecules that include waxes, sterols, fats and the fat soluble vitamins E, A, D & K. As well as having elevated levels of Free radicals, patients with CAD also have reduced levels of antioxidants like Glutathione. Missing an adequate supply of antioxidants to get rid of free radicals in your heart, this organ and the arteries in the system will be subjected to a condition known as oxidative stress.
Our systems are designed to manage free radicals resulting from normal processes, however many of us are subject to extra stressors that weren’t part of the original plan . They include environmental toxins (and especially tobacco smoke!), lousy diets, the hectic pace and induced stress of everyday living and weak condition of our bodies from not enough exercise. This has put our antioxidant resources at a terrible disadvantage.
The Benefits of Boosting our More Glutathione and Antioxidant Reserves
As we grow older , our systems naturally begin to slow down. The mitochondria in our heart muscles inevitably produce less energy and we also naturally begin to produce less glutathione which is vital for a healthy heart. Increasing our glutathione supply will not make us live forever, but when you think about how important your heart is , it only makes sense to eat better , choose a healthier lifestyle and make a choice to increase our natural production of glutathione.
Oral Glutathione supplements are not effective, but you can increase your glutathione with a glutathione precursor like MaxONE .