Phototherapy Glutathione (body’s master antioxidant) for Anti-Aging, boosting immunity & heavy metal detoxification

Knockout

by Suzanne Somers 

Chapter 13

(Book released October 2009)
David Schmidt

The first time I met David Schmidt of LifeWave, LLC, he was trying to convince me that his nanotechnology energy patches were something from which I could benefit. I didn’t really believe him at first, so he set out to prove it to me. He asked, “Where are you the weakest?” I told him that when I used free weights I would fatigue after five or six reps doing flies. He said, “Okay, do your six flies>” After six reps or so it became difficult. Then he said, “Wait two minutes and then put on the LifeWave patches.” I did, and after thirty reps (effortlessly, I might add) I stopped because I had to work the next morning, and was afraid I would be sore. (I wasn’t, by the way.)

I wear the LifeWave nanotechnology patch of glutathione every single day, to detoxify my body from the chemical assault that bombards all of us on a daily basis. I use the energy patches regularly, and the pain patches for an occasional headache or lower back pain from a yoga session that might have been too exuberant. I love these patches. They are nondrug and do the job perfectly. I couldn’t be without them, and David Schmidt is a genius for creating them.

But it is his knowledge of why they work and how the human body heals, plus his understanding of our inner workings down to a cellular level, that is most impressive. He is one of those rare people in the universe graced with extraordinary intellect as well as the ability to create a product for mankind that is nontoxic and remarkable in its ability to turn our health around.

David was formally educated in management information systems and biology at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York. He went on to specialize in energy production technologies for both military and commercial applications. He developed new methods for producing hydrogen and oxygen and constructed metal combustion engines. He also designed emergency oxygen systems for General Dynamics and the U.S. Navy, and was invited to participate in the navy’s next-generation minisub program.

His background in biology helps him to explain how individual human cells operate and why we need to care for each and every cell in our bodies as a means of preventing cancer and other disease. If the human body is made up of cells reproducing, then taking care of each and every cell is crucial to sustaining life.

SS: Hello, David. So nice to speak with you again. Let’s talk about glutathione and the role glutathione plays in preventing cancer.

DS: Great. Glutathione is the body’s master antioxidant. What I’ve found in my travels is that glutathione is really not well known or understood in the United States amongst the public; however, outside the United States, especially in Asia, the role of glutathione in improving health and improving immune function is more readily understood and accepted. Because of marketing efforts in the United States, people are familiar with vitamins A, C, and E and their important role as anti oxidants, but as it turns out, our bodies manufacture the most important antioxidant, and that antioxidant is glutathione.

SS: Is it true that around age forty, forty-five, our production of glutathione decreases? And does it also decline through toxicity and stress?

DS: Yes on both. With age, glutathione does decrease. But with respect to cancer, it is also generally well known that certain types of cancer will increase in incidence as we age. So one of the suspicions amongst researchers is the question, Is there a correlation between the decrease of glutathione levels and the increase in the incidence of cancer?

Many researchers have come to the conclusion that there is a relationship between the two. One of the things we know about glutathione is its role as an antioxidant, and that it helps to support the immune system. Our immune system protects us from disease, and one of the ways disease attacks our bodies is through the production of free radicals. This is why supplementation with antioxidants is so important, because it will help to neutralize these free radicals and protect our cells from damage.

SS: What diseases can result from a lack of glutathione?

DS: It’s very well known that in certain types of medical disorders we see a depletion of glutathione, and this would include Parkinson’s and also arthritis.

SS: And is toxicity a factor in declining levels?

DS: Yes. We know that there are pathways in the liver for detoxification of tissue or detoxification of carcinogenic materials. We also find correspondingly high levels of glutathione in the liver and in every cell of the body—that’s how important glutathione is to health. But there is certainly a link to the removal of toxins and the body’s glutathione levels. Let’s use mercury as an example. Mercury by itself is not considered a carcinogenic material. However, there are organic compounds that are derivatives of mercury, such as mercury chloride, which are carcinogenic. It is very well known that glutathione is a chelating agent, which is responsible for moving toxic materials like mercury out of our bodies. When it comes to cancer there is also quite a bit of documentation that glutathione will in fact remove cancer-causing material from the body. One example is aflatoxins, which are produced from fungus, and then there are amines, which are produced from overcooking food. The list is quite long on what is know about what glutathione will remove from the body in terms of materials that are known to cause cancer. We have a clinical and scientific database establishing materials that are known to cause cancer, and that these same materials can be eliminated from the body through glutathione. As I just said, glutathione will actually bind to the cancer-causing materials in a process called chelation, but there are a number of biochemicals that are involved. Glutathione will attach itself to this cancer-causing material and help push it out of the body.

SS: Specifically, what are these materials?

DS: Aflatoxins, which as I said are produced by fungi. Overcooking, as in charred food; the technical name for that is heterocyclic amines. People don’t take this seriously, but there is scientific research which has shown that charred food can cause the production of tumors in the liver, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, skin, and oral cavities. So this is something we should be concerned about.

SS: Do we continue to pump out a little glutathione forever, or do we get to a point where we are not making it at all anymore.

DS: I speak around the world at conferences and I try to take very complex subjects and simplify them. So in simplistic terms, everything starts and stops in the body with energy production and communication. It’s just not possible for our bodies to do what they need to do without energy; it’s also not possible for the cells to do what they do without communicating. So understand: as we age, the amount of energy our cells manufacture decreases. Also, the communications system of our bodies declines in integrity as we age, so when we look at most every abnormal, diseased state—viral infection, bacterial infection, cancer—it is associated with abnormal energy production and cell communication.

Cancer cells have a very, very high energy metabolism, much higher than that os a normal healthy cell. Cancer cells do not communicate with their environment as does healthy tissue. A disease state is a state in which the energy metabolism of the cell is different than a normal healthy cell, and the communication system is also different than a normal healthy cell.

SS: So how does glutathione fit into this scenario?

DS: If we first understand that the general energy production of the cell decreases as we age, then one of the things that is going to decline is glutathione production, and everything else the cell does, which could be tissue repair or hormone production. As a result of aging, we have decreased energy production and an associated decline in glutathione. What this means is that the cell simply doesn’t have as much energy to do as many things.

SS: And this is why older people are often “out of gas”?

DS: Right.

SS: Why is there cancer?

DS: My personal belief is it’s because of all the toxins in the environment. I read a study recently that when taking a sampling of two hundred people, all two hundred had toxins in their bodies.

SS: No matter what, even eating organic food and living a healthy lifestyle?

DS: Unfortunately yes, because we are breathing in toxins. So unless we are breathing through some sort of filter mask, which isn’t practical, the water, artificial ingredients, preservatives, dyes, and cancer-causing materials in food which leach in from their packaging. The alarming news is that the number of toxins in the human body is about 100.

SS: Like what? Pesticides, insecticides, radioactive substances?

DS: Yes, they accumulate in our fatty tissue.

SS: This is devastating because we know we are under the greatest environmental assault in the history of mankind. So if we are declining in glutathione, which is a defense against toxicity, it seems to me that your glutathione patches are coming in at the right moment in time. Could they be an answer?

DS: How about if we flip that around and look at it another way? You are asking a great question, but what if the reason our glutathione levels are declining is because of the toxins? So what does glutathione do in our bodies, anyway? We’ve already talked about how glutathione is the master antioxidant, we’ve talked about how glutathione will leach mercury from the body, but there is also a connection with how glutathione supports energy production in the body.

It can protect the eyes from macular degeneration, the lungs, and the brain. Glutathione will support the immune system, and it’s found in very high concentrations in the liver, so it is liver protective. Glutathione also has a role in diabetic therapy, and in Europe glutathione is administered in conjunction with controlling and stabilizing blood sugar levels. So we see the enormous scope of benefits from the role that glutathione plays in our bodies. If glutathione levels are declining with age, or if we find disease states that are associated with low glutathione levels, maybe what is happening, as many doctors suspect, is that the toxins in the environment are causing the depleted levels of glutathione, and therefore weakening our immune systems and making us more susceptible to cancer.

SS: I was thinking the other day, what is the tipping point for cancer? When we live with chemicals in our food, chemicals in our household cleaners, chemicals in the air, chemicals in the water, and the overuse of pharmaceutical drugs, and then add in diet soda, bug killers, and all the rest of the seemingly benign poisons we consume or live with on a daily basis, what is that last drop or pill that makes the cup runneth over, when the liver says: “I give up—I can’t protect you anymore”? Because I think that is what is happening. This is the point of no return where the epidemic has been launched.

Is your glutathione patch, “the little engine that could,” is it enough? Or is this the best you can come up with, but along with it we also have to clean up our lives?

DS: The more someone can do to protect their health, the better. Our message is always the importance of hydration. Most people do not drink enough water each day, and it is vital in terms of our energy production and also in keeping the lymphatic system clean. For me, glutathione is the most powerful antioxidant that I supplement with, and it turns out that our glutathione patch is the most effective way of elevating glutathione levels.

SS: Tell me, exactly how does a carcinogenic substance, a toxin, create cancer in the body?

DS: This is called chemical carcinogenesis, meaning there is a foreign substance, a chemical, and it will cause or induce a state of cancer in the body. Our bodies are composed of different functions with electrons. We get electrons from the sun, from our food—as a matter of fact, the whole process of energy production from food really boils down to our bodies’ chemical system pulling electrons out of the food and then circulating these electrons throughout our bodies. That’s the source of energy.

What happens with chemicals that cause cancer is they attack the body and try to steal electrons. Another name for this is radical, so when we have toxins in our bodies, some are natural, some are unnatural, and they are called free radicals; in the case of cancer-causing chemicals they try to attack certain portions of the body’s cells.

Since the 1960’s it has been documented in scientific literature that glutathione is one of the antioxidants that will bind to sites on the cell and protect the cell from damage by cancer-causing materials. We now have significant evidence over the past fifty years that shows and proves that glutathione will help prevent people from getting cancer; there is a link between depleted levels of glutathione and someone’s susceptibility to cancer.

There is another part of this that is very exciting: if we can keep our glutathione levels elevated, we can keep our antioxidant supply elevated and hopefully keep our bodies away from harmful chemicals an harmful toxins.

SS: David, do you think this will ever become mainstream? I mean, I wear a glutathione patch every day and my feeling is “Why not?” If it detoxes me and protects me from the daily bombardment of pollution and chemicals which can lead to cancer, why wouldn’t I do it? It doesn’t cost much; it’s painless and takes about a nanosecond to put on.

DS: I believe eventually this will become mainstream. What I have seen is that while most people are interested in being healthy, they are not very proactive about doing things like going on regular detox programs, because perhaps they don’t see the benefit to it. So it’s about educating people, and your books do that, Suzanne.

SS: I hope so. I think all of your patches play a role in cancer prevention—sleep patches, energy patches, glutathione patches, carnosine patches, pain patches. Can you explain?

DS: What our patches do is create a state of harmony or balance in the body. It is very well known that diseased states have abnormal energy production, abnormal cell communication. Our patches balance the electrical system of the body, so we are able to improve the health and integrity of the cells in the body. We can help ward off and prevent disease because disease occurs when the body is not in balance.

SS: So you love what you do?

DS: I do, Suzanne, because every day I get to see people who have life-changing experiences with our products, and I can’t think of anything more rewarding than that.

SS: And it’s all without drugs.

DS: All without drugs. It is part of an overall approach. Fr. Steve Haltiwanger and I are very passionate about helping educate people to drink more water, eat right, supplement with antioxidants, and exercise regularly, and our patches are part of an overall health and wellness program. As a result, we see some very, very dramatic changes in people’s health once they start using them.

Right now there is a very interesting scientific debate about how glutathione can help treat cancer. The debate has one side saying that supplementing with glutathione is a means to remove the cause of cancer, and then you will see the body heal itself and the person recover from cancer. The other side of the debate comes from the pharmaceutical companies claiming they will administer a drug which will deplete the body’s levels of glutathione. The reason for this is, when they administer a chemotherapeutic drug, they want the drug to be able to destroy the cancer cells, and some forms of cancer use glutathione (ironically) to protect themselves from damage. The thinking is that they want to administer a drug that will lower the body’s glutathione levels and that will actually make the drug more effective at killing the cancer cell. Then there’s a third side of the debate that says we’ll administer glutathione first, and then we’ll introduce the drug, and the drug will kill the cancer, and because the person has an elevated level of glutathione, it will pull the toxic by-products from the chemotherapy out of the body, and it will also help protect the healthy cells from damage.

SS: So where do you stand on all of this very confusing information?

DS: I like that there is quite a bit happening in the conventional allopathic medical community on ways to use glutathione to protect healthy cells from damage during chemotherapy, and as a method of leaching toxic by-products from the body during chemotherapy to make chemotherapy safer.

SS: It would be nice if alternative and conventional could come over, like a figure eight. There’s a place for both, and for those who do choose chemotherapy, to have a way of detoxing the body afterward through glutathione makes perfect sense to me.

DS: What I would say is what I said when we started this discussion: the human body is in a perfect state when it is in balance. And glutathione is the body’s master antioxidant, which is found in every cell in the body for a very important reason, and that is to protect the body from damage. So the more we can understand about the role that glutathione plays in keeping our antioxidant system charged, the better. A real simple way to think about this is that this is our first line of defense in protecting ourselves from damage and helping to prevent states of disease like cancer.

SS: Thank you, David. I appreciate your time and insights very much, as always.

Knock It Out