Your heart is certainly a miraculous design . Even before your birth , the heart muscles are working hard , pumping oxygen enriched blood to each part in your body and returnin oxygen depleted blood back to the lungs. On average, the heart will beat 37,869,120 times each 365 days , year after year. That’s around two and a half billion heartbeats for a lifetime .

Obviously , your heart is your powerhouse and it’s worth protecting. As you already know , nobody can survive without a working heart and statistically with an average of two deaths a minute , forty percent of all the deaths in the U.S.) are from heart disease, the leading cause of which is Coronary Artery Disease (CAD).

Since it’s the hardest working organ in your body, the heart muscles will produce an abundance of energy and it’s the high requirement for energy production which renders your heart susceptable to the attack of free radicals. So , a heart has a high requirement for antioxidants and the most valuable of which is Glutathione.

Your Heart’s Energy Factory

The heart’s amazing ability to make energy is found within each cell in the cellular power plants called Mitochondria. Each cell in every organ possesses these tiny energy producing locations . Most cells have a couple of hundred mitochondria, but the ones in your heart are estimated to include up to 5,000! The power that’s made in your cells, is created as a compound called ATP which stands for adenosine triphosphate. It’s no surprise , producing energy has a price .

The by- products of energy production are damaged molecules – free radicals and with the high concentration of energy producing mitochondria in the cells of the heart , there will also be a proportionately high concentration of oxy-radicals . Without the intervention of antioxidants , free radicals will develop a cascading reaction within the heart cells that can kill them and their components – including the cellular DNA.

Heart Disease and Coronary Artery Disease

Arteriosclerosis – Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) which is usually referred to as a hardening of the arteries or loss of arterial elasticity is a leading cause of Heart disease. It has been connected to a substance called lipid peroxidase. That’s what happens if the lipids in your heart become free radicals. Lipids, actually are a group of molecules which include waxes, sterols, fats and the fat soluble vitamins E, A, D & K. In addition to high levels of Free radicals, patients with CAD have also been found with low levels of antioxidants like Glutathione. Without enough antioxidants to clean out free radicals in the heart, this organ and the arteries in the system will eventually suffer from oxidative stress.

Our systems are designed to clean up the free radicals resulting from normal processes, however too many people are subject to extra stressors that weren’t part of the original plan . These stresses include environmental chemicals (like tobacco smoke!), nutritionally inadequate diets, the unhealthy pace and induced stress of everyday living and weak condition of our bodies from no exercise. This has put our antioxidant levels at a distinct disadvantage.

A next generation health product has been brought to market to aid in the production of glutathione. In case you’re not familiar with Glutathione, it delivers several important benefits to your health including fortifying the immune system, cleansing toxins from your body , helping to deal with inflammation and halting the spread of oxy- radicals.

Free radicals are a critical issue because the damage that free radicals create in your body has been linked to over 74 major disorders and illnesses and the main tool we can call on to help combat the destruction caused by oxidative stress is Antioxidants. Antioxidants are molecules that can prevent the multiplication of free radicals, which left unchecked will create an ongoing chain reaction of damaged molecules that eventually destroy the cells and the systems in your body . With the many antioxidants available to us , one does a superior job of protecting your cells from the damage caused by free radicals and that antioxidant is Glutathione.

Glutathione is naturally manufactured by your body. Unfortunately , as we age, it retards the creation of glutathione and -when you need it most, glutathione is less and less available to you . It would be simple to fix if you could just supplement with glutathione , but that is not the case . Oral glutathione supplements can’t work , mostly because as the oral supplements pass through your stomach , the glutathione is damaged by your gastric juices and is not readily absorbed into the bloodstream.

The strategy that is more effective is to supplement with glutathione precursors. Precursors are the raw materials that your body needs to make glutathione naturally . By providing your body with an increased supply of the raw materials it needs , blood and liver glutathione levels are raised naturally – and significantly . Up until now the most effective precursor supplement that I know of to raise glutathione levels is MAXGXL from Max International. But now it appears that this company has gone one step better and introduced a new Glutathione precursor called MAXONE.

MaxONE has its own compound named RiboCeine, that has been featured prominently in connection with MAX ATP (I’ll write about ATP in another post ). RiboCeine gets the name from D-Ribose – a simple, chemically linear sugar that supports the production of ATP and L-Cysteine, one of the most important materials from which we make glutathione. While MAXGXL uses a blend of L Glutamine and NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine), MAXONE uses RiboCeine, which apparently is better at protecting the Cysteine in its journey through the gastric system and deliver more to the cells, resulting in 300% more glutathione in the liver .

Recently Max has added a newer product, which might just be the best one yet. Cellgevity is riboceine based but also includes a variety of other ingredients – many of which are found in GXL to support not only the original production of glutathione, but also its recycling

Atherosclerosis, the health-related name for heart disease is the # 1 killer among North Americans. But what is heart disease? Well, sclerosis indicates “hardening” and athero describes the type of substance that clogs and hardens arteries. In time, our risk factors gradually rise but certain risk factors are important in identifying if we’re possible prospects and they include our Age group, blood pressure, total cholesterol levels and good (HDL) cholesterol amounts.

Warning Indicators:

High total cholesterol
Increased amounts of cholesterol in the blood can contribute to atherosclerosis, which is the slow accumulation of fat, cholesterol and other particles along the sides of your arteries. It’s named plaque and it can accumulate enough to constrict and stiffen the artery. If the plaque is bad enough, it can restrict blood flow past the blockage. Parts can also break off and cause a heart attack or stroke. An acceptable cholesterol level is 170 mg/dL or lower.

Low HDL “good” cholesterol
High density lipoproteins (HDL) absorb cholesterol and recycle it back to the liver for disposal. A normal, healthy HDL level is over 60 mg/dL. HDL cholesterol increases with workouts. We require daily exercise to enhance our HDL and minimize our risk of heart disease.

High blood Pressure
Blood pressure is read as two numbers. The higher number, called the systolic pressure, is the pressure in the arteries when your heart beats . The other number, called the diastolic pressure, stands for the pressure when the heart is at rest.

A healthy systolic number is 115. If your arteries are stiff, inflexible, inflamed or too narrow, your heart will have to work harder and this will create a higher systolic measure.

A normal diastolic measure is 75 or lower. When the diastolic number is increased it can mean that your lungs, kidneys and liver are not properly detoxifying your body.

High blood pressure, along with high cholesterol numbers and low HDL levels should be viewed as warning signals from our body. Heightened homocysteine sounds a louder alarm and excessive C-Reactive protein levels should never be ignored .

In addition to exercise, products like MAXONE which help the heart by supporting our glutathione production, ProArgi 9 Plus which acts as a Nitric Oxide Precursor and Herbal supplements like R-Gardens Heart Blend will all help you support your good health.

If you want to be amazed with a wonderous design, look no further than the human heart. Even before you were born, it’s muscles are hard at work, circulating oxygen rich blood to every corner of your body and returning oxygen depleted blood to the lungs to be renewed. The average heart beats 37,869,120 times each year, year after year. That’s over two and a half billion heartbeats in a lifetime.

If you’ve ever wondered just how much bood your heart will pump in
your life, consider that you’d have to turn your kitchen tap on full blast and leave it running for 45 years. It would fill 200 railroad tanker cars. How hard does your heart work to pump blood? Pick up a tennis ball and give it a tight squeeze, that is how hard your heart needs to work with every beat. I don’t think that the most brilliant human engineer has ever designed anything that comes close to the marvel that is your heart.

Unquestionably, your heart is a powerhouse and it’s worth protecting because you can’t live without a beating heart. Did you know that with an average of one person dying every 34 seconds, 40% of all the deaths in the United States are the result of heart disease? The leading cause of heart disease is Coronary Artery Disease (CAD).

Because it’s the hardest working muscle in the body, the heart also needs to produce a lot of energy. It’s this high level of energy production that makes your heart vulnerable to the attack of free radicals. Being vlunerable to free radical damage, the heart therefore has a high demand for antioxidants, the most important of which is Glutathione – Your Body’s Master Antioxidant.

Your Heart’s Energy Engines
Your heart’s incredible energy output is produced within each cell in cellular power plants called Mitochondria. Every cell in your body has these designated energy producing sites. The average cell in an average organ has a few hundred mitochondria, but the cells that make up the endlessly toiling muscles of your heart are estimated to have up to 5,000! Cellular energy comes in the form of a substance called ATP which stands for adenosine triphosphate.

The complicated chemical processes within your cells that support the mitochondria to produce energy from nutrients have some unfortunate by- products. I guess its not all that different from any form of production that creates something from raw materials- there is always a waste product. But in the case of cellular energy production the by-products have a damaging effect.

The by- products are free radicals – damaged oxygen molecules that were not completely and cleanly metabolized in energy production process. With the high concentration of energy producing mitochondria in the heart, there is an equally high concentration of free radicals. Without the intervention of antioxidant activity, free radicals create a chain reaction within the cells that can damage them and their components – including the cellular DNA. Accumulated damage can lead to a host of what are usually thought of as the chronic diseases of aging.

CAD and Heart Disease
Arteriosclerosis – Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) which is generally referred to as a hardening of the arteries or loss of arterial elasticity and is one of the leading causes of Heart disease, has been linked to a substance called lipid peroxidase. This is what happens when the lipids in your heart become free radicals. Lipids, by the way are a large group of molecules which include waxes, sterols, fats and the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E & K. As well as having high levels of free radicals, patients with CAD have also been found with reduced levels of antioxidants like Glutathione.

Without an adequate supply of antioxidants to scavenge free radicals in the heart, this organ and the arteries in the system will be subjected to a condition known as oxidative stress.

While our bodies have originally been designed to clean up the free radicals created by normal processes, most of us are now dealing with extra stresses that were not part of the original plan. These stresses include environmental poisons (and especially cigarette smoke!), nutritionally inadequate diets, the pressures and emotional stress of everyday living and poor conditioning of the muscles from a lack of exercise. These added pressures of living place our antioxidant reserves at a distinct disadvantage.

The Benefits of Boosting our Glutathione and Antioxidant Reserves
As we get older our systems naturally begin to slow down. The mitochondria in our heart muscles are gradually producing less energy and our glutathione production is falling. It drops off by about 10% for every decade past our twenties.

Glutathione is vital for a healthy heart. Boosting glutathione levels will not make you live forever, but given how hard your heart is working for you, it only makes sense to improve your diet, live a healthier lifestyle and take concrete steps to increase the natural production of glutathione.

The free radical theory of aging explains many of the ways our various organ systems are degraded over time by oxidative stress and demonstrates very clearly that boosting antioxidant levels can help to increase our absolute life span and certainly improve the quality of our life and health as senior citizens.

From your first breath to your last and for each microsecond in between , there are battles raging in each cell in you . There are literally millions of these battles going on simultaneously and they involve oxyradicals on one hand and antioxidants on the other . They affect how long you live , your vulnerability to many different medical conditions and without question the quality of your vitality as a senior citizen .

Your brain is highly vulnerable to damage from free radicals because although it only represents 2% of your body mass , about 20% of your oxygen is metabolized in your brain. Free or Oxy-radicals – electron challenged oxygen molecules are created by by a variety of things , but one source is a natural and unavoidable by-product of oxygen metabolization . Since twenty percent of your oxygen intake is used by your brain, it stands to reason that the cells in your brain will be subjected to many free radicals.

Within your brain is a large concentration of naturally occurring molecules called Lipids. Lipids include sterols, waxes, fats and a seletion of fat soluble vitamins like E, A, D and K. Lipids store energy, they are signaling molecules and thy’re structural components of your cell membranes. Lipid peroxidation is the name for free radical damage to Lipids and a reason for the importance of antioxidant supplements .

Your defense against Lipid peroxidation within your brain is from antioxidants and at best from a group referred to as the antioxidant network or network antioxidants , made up of Vitamins C, E, CoEnzymeQ10, Glutathione and Lipolic acid . Network Antioxidants help each other to clear out free radicals from you brain and are also uniquely capable of repairing each other . Among the Network Antioxidants, the most important is Glutathione laso known as The Master Antioxidant. It is naturally manufactured in your body and are present in each and every cell.

Sadly , your brain maintains lower levels of Glutathione than do other organs and with aging , the average supply is further depleted since our ability to make Glutathione declines by around ten percent for each decade past our twenties . But the brain needs Glutathione to stay healthy. Look at the part that Antioxidants play in connection with Alzheimer’s Disease – or senile dementia.

There is a strong link between aluminum and Alzheimer’s disease . In an August 2009 study conducted on rats , two equal groups were deliberately given aluminum toxins, but one of those groups was also supplemented with antioxidant oxyradicals scavengers. The first group had a significant increase in lipid peroxidation and a condition known as oxidative stress – that’s the result of unchecked free radical damage. Reduced Glutathione and other network antioxidants were also noted . For the rats that were provided with the toxins along with the free radical scavengers, none of these changes were measured .

With it’s vulnerability to the formation of free radicals an abundant supply of antioxidants ( especially Network Antioxidants and most importantly , Glutathione) is key to sustaining a healthy and functioning brain. While oral glutathione supplements are not considered to be effective, you can take a glutathione precursor like Max One .

I am not a licensed health practitioner and so please don’t think that you will get expert diagnostic or treatment information from this post. You will not. But what you will get is a considered point of view about a course of action you can try if you are suffering from chronic pain.

Chronic pain – by definition – is long lasting and/or recurrent. It can persist for months or- as is often the case – for years. Chronic pain is not the immediate result of a traceable injury. The simple truth is that if you severely twist an ankle when you’re out running, it is supposed to hurt the next day. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is physically wrong. For many injuries and strains, the pain you fell the next day is a result of the inflammation caused in the cells.

In that sense, the immediate pain and one of the recurring themes is chronic pain is the same and that theme is inflammation. Inflammation is itself a frequent chronic condition that many of us suffer from even if we aren’t aware of it. But when the symptom of the inflammation is pain, it gets our attention.

Inflammation is often caused by the unchecked action of free radical damage within our cells. One reason that the damage can continue is that there are not enough antioxidants available to clear out the free radicals. There are many types of free radicals and many types of antioxidants that will defend against them, but not all antioxidants are created equal and on the most important is an antioxidant called glutathione.

Glutathione is often referred to as the body’s Master Antioxidant for the simple reason that it’s present in every cell of the body. Because it is meant to always be at the scene of the crime, glutathione is uniquely suited to support the removal of free radicals. Unfortunately, as we age we produce less glutathione.

So getting to the point, one tactic you can try – and something that has worked for people who have suffered from chronic pain is to increase the level of antioxidants in your body in order to clear the free radicals and treat the inflammation. You can increase your intake of Vitamins C and E. Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and to boost glutathione you can try MaxGXL or MaxONE.

If you’re already familiar with the many benefits offered by MAXGXL the renowned Glutathione Precursor from Max International, you’ll be doubly impressed with their newest product MAXONE.

MaxONE uses a brand new technology based on RiboCeine to better protect and deliver the critical Glutathione building block Cysteine to your cells for superior On Demand support for to your body’s own production of glutathione.

Here’s more information about new MaxONE

Inflammation is what happens when the body’s immune systems protect us from infection and foreign substances like toxins, bacteria and viruses. But, in auto immune diseases, the defense system inappropriately sets off an inflammatory response when there are no foreign substances to fight off and causes damage to itself.
Your immune system assaults normal tissues as if they are infected or contaminated. When inflammation happens, chemicals from your white blood cells are released into the blood and/or affected tissues for the purpose of ridding the body of alien toxins. This release of chemicals adds to the flow of blood to the close-by area and may result in heat, swelling and redness. Also, the inflammatory process may stimulate nerves and result in significant pain.

Arthritis is a general term that describes inflammation in joints. Some, but not all types of arthritis are the fallout from misdirected inflammation. Some types of inflammatory arthritis include:rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, tendinitis and Gout .

While not all need to be present , the basic symptoms of inflammation are redness, a swollen joint that is warm to the touch, pain and stiffness in the joint and a loss of joint function. Also, inflammation might as well be associated with general “flu-like” symptoms like – feeling chilled or feverishness tiredsness and a loss of energy, headaches, stiff muscles and a loss of appetite.

While the original pain caused by inflammation can seem bad enough, the added cells and it can get much worse – in the long term wearing down of cartilage (cushions at the end of bones) and joint lining. Inflammation can also be a problem for organs. The type of symptoms depends on which organs are inflamed .

* An inflamed heart (myocarditis) may result in shortness of breath or leg swelling
* Inflammation of the narrow tubes that bring air to the lungs may set off an asthma episode
* Inflamed Kidneys (nephritis) may lead to high blood pressure or kidney failure
* Inflammation of the large intestine (colitis) might lead to cramps and diarrhea.

Pain may not be a primary symptom of the inflammatory disease, since many organs do not have a lot of pain-sensitive nerves.

There are several treatment alternatives for inflammatory diseases, but as a rule, the medical community will rely on prescription anti-inflammatories, pain medication, rest, exercise and surgery to correct joint damage.

The goals of treatment are to:

* Avoid or modify activities that aggravate pain
* Relieve pain with analgesics (pain-relieving medications ) and anti-inflammatory medications
* Maintain joint movement and muscle strength through physical therapy
* Decrease stress on the joints by using braces, splints or canes as necessary

What’s absent are any preventative steps or treatment courses designed to basically help your body by increasing your antioxidant levels , making dietary improvements , reducing stress in your life and neutralizing everyday toxins – because they truly are everywhere. Antioxidants will help your body to fight toxins and inflammation. Importantly, when you increase your glutathione – the master antioxidant (which your body actually makes itself), you will fight inflammation from free radical damage in every organ of your body.