Why Your Heart Needs AntiOxidant Protection

The human heart is certainly a wonderous organ .  Even before your first breath , the muscles that make up the heart are working hard , circulating oxygen rich blood to every part in you and drawing oxygen depleted blood back to your lungs.  On average, your heart will beat 37,869,120 times each year , year after year.  That’s around two and a half billion heartbeats in your lifetime .

Clearly , the heart is your powerhouse and deserves protection. You know , nobody can survive without a working heart and   with an average of 2 deaths every 68 seconds ,  forty percent of all the deaths in the United States are the result of heart disease, the leading cause of which is CAD- Coronary Artery Disease

Because it’s the hardest working organ in your body, the heart muscles will produce a continuous supply    of energy and it’s this massive level of energy creation which renders your heart vulnerable to the threat of free radicals. Hence , the heart is one organ with a high demand for antioxidants  and the most important of which is Glutathione.

Producing Energy for the Heart

The heart’s astounding ability to make energy is rooted within each cell’s power plants known as Mitochondria.  Every cell in every organ has these tiny energy producing sites .  On average, most cells will have a few hundred mitochondria, but the cells found in the muscles of your heart have about 5,000! The power that’s made in your cells, is created in the form of a compound called ATP or adenosine triphosphate.  Unfortunately , producing energy has a price .

The by- products of creating energy are free radicals and with so many mitochondria in the cells of the heart , there will also be a matching population of by-products . Without the intervention of antioxidants , free radicals can create a cascading response within the heart cells that can kill them and their components – like cellular DNA.

CAD and Heart Disease

Arteriosclerosis – Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) which is generally called hardening of the arteries or loss of arterial elasticity is a leading cause of Heart disease. It’s been linked to a substance called lipid peroxidase. That’s what you get when the lipids in your heart are converted into free radicals.  Lipids, are a large group of molecules which include waxes, sterols, fats and the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E & K.  In addition to   raised levels of Free radicals, patients with CAD have also been found with depressed levels of antioxidants including Glutathione.  Missing a sufficient supply of antioxidants to scavenge free radicals in your heart, this organ and your arterial system will eventually suffer from oxidative stress.

Our systems are designed to manage free radicals created by normal processes, but most of us are subject to extra stresses that were not part of the original plan . They include environmental chemicals ( like cigarette smoke!), lousy diets, the unhealthy pace and emotional stress of our busy lives and poor conditioning of our muscles from not enough exercise.  We have placed our antioxidant reserves at a terrible disadvantage.

Why You Need More  Glutathione and Other Antioxidants

As we age , our chemistry starts to slow down. The mitochondria in our cells inevitably produce less energy and we also naturally begin to produce less glutathione – which is vital for a healthy heart.  Boosting glutathione supply can’t make us live forever, but given how important your heart is , it only makes sense to  eat better ,  live a healthier lifestyle and take concrete steps to boost our natural production of glutathione.

Oral Glutathione supplements are not effective, but you can increase your glutathione with a glutathione precursor like MaxONE.