In my previous Facebook article, “Athletes Best Friend Glutathione and L-Glutamine”, I stressed the importance of L-glutamine after a workout to assist recovery, and also the importance of both to fight diseases and assist longevity.

Here as an example, I describe the benefit of these two super foods to prevent skin disease. Note: the various varieties of skin disease affect about 50% of all Americans. In the recent past I had separate meetings with my family doctor and my skin specialist, where I asked, “What is the cause or remedy for these increasing red spots on my body, even though I have not been in the sun.” They had no explanation. But after considerable research, many hours, I put together the puzzle and learned: my skin disease is psoriasis, and like any other disease starts with a chemical reaction in the body called Oxidative Stress (OS). (I explained OS in my previous article in some detail, e.g., it occurs when there is an imbalance between the production of free radicals and the body’s ability to fight them off. OS starts when reacting to one of the following: a chronic unhealthy diet such as excess sugar, toxins, pollution, mental or physical stress, smoking, excess drinking etc. And I learned glutathione is the major antioxidant fighting the OS to prevent inflammation turning into one of many diseases.

In my book “100 years Young the Natural Way”, published in 2011, glutathione, some say the number 1 super food, is one of the major chapters. But now I realize its great importance to prevent disease.

Since glutathione declines 1% per year from age 20, seniors would be prudent to assist its replenishment. This can be done by taking 5 grams of L-glutamine after a workout, to help recovery by increasing growth hormone and the immune system, and assist muscle recovery. Glutathione is not increased by glutathione oral supplement, or cooked vegetables (cooking loses about 50% of glutathione), but mainly increased by consumption of fish, chicken and beef, and Vitamin C and E from fruit. (Note: I took a glutathione supplement in pill form decades ago. It was a big mistake, not cheap and proved to only make me feel sluggish.)

In my case of skin disease the OS is triggered by physical stress, in recent years mainly high intensity interval running and frequent competitions. Making matters worse in my case is the fact that as a vegetarian, eating mainly cooked vegetables and few fruit, with minimum protein, my body is not efficient at replacing the yearly lost glutathione. However, I will now be making the following adjustments to increase glutathione production and I recommend the following to all.

1. Eat more fish, chicken and occasionally beef, and even pork. This is particularly important and essential to seniors since they require more protein with age.
2. Take 5 grams of L-glutamine after a workout to increase human growth hormone and the immune system, and repair muscle damage. At the same time this increases glutathione production.
3. Eat amino acids foods glycine, glutamate and cysteine the precursor foods essential for manufacture of glutathione in the body. E,g., Glycine foods: soy milk, pumpkin seeds, lentils, beans, quinoa. Glutamate foods: L-glutamine powder. Cysteine foods: whey powder especially (see 5 below).

4. Other best glutathione foods: fruit for the vitamin E and C.
5. Frequently take whey protein isolate in a shake, particularly after a workout. (Recently, I found a small study of 20 people which confirmed whey protein taken orally for three months improved psoriasis skin disease by increasing glutathione levels. This confirms my own research on this subject.)
6. Glutathione decreases with age, chronic stress, poor diet, toxin exposure and lack of sleep so avoid these where possible.

Following the above advice will help prevent psoriasis and all sorts of diseases and increase longevity. See my recent released website: earlfee.com, which includes other articles on health and training , and information about Earl and his six books. This article will ultimately be included there in the Blog section.

This photo is my 800m at Gateshead Worlds in 70-74 age group taken by friend @ Chuck Sochor. There I was 0.5 sec slower than my world record a month earlier. I learned a lot of walking the day before a race and sitting in the stands beforehand on the day is detrimental.