Can’t shift weight like you used to? Increase your dietary intake of amino acids found in protein-rich foods.
Problem: you can’t shift the kilos like you used to
Solution: resolving a deficiency in glutathione, the body’s principal antioxidant, could re-ignite your fat-burning capacity.
The sounds-too-good-to-be-true finding comes from a study in which researchers showed that glutathione regulates the oxidation of fat. As we age, the body’s production of glutathione – abundant in young people – slows.
“In fasted younger people, their body was able to burn fat well for energy needs. However, glutathione-deficient older people were not able to burn fat very well under the same conditions,” said study author, Baylor College of Medicine’s Dr Rajagopal V Sekhar.
How to fix this
Increase dietary intake of glutathione precursors cysteine and glycine – amino acids found in protein-rich foods and as standalone supplements.
“When we give these older people cysteine and glycine in their diets and corrected glutathione deficiency, amazingly their fat oxidation also normalised,” Dr Sekhar said. “The older people go back to burning fat as well as younger people within 14 days.”
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