Max Co-CEO Dave Bagley conducted an interview with Divine Health Wellness Center’s Director Dr. Don Colbert. Dr. Colbert specializes in integrative and anti-aging medicines. Read the transcript of the said interview below:

DB: Hi, I’m David Bagley, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Max International. As part of our special May 7th, launch program for Singapore, I conducted a recorded interview with Dr. Don Colbert, so that our Singapore associates could hear, from a leading medical professional, about the exciting nature of Max’s products and its core technology.

Dr. Don Colbert is the founder and medical director of Divine Health Wellness Center in Longwood, Florida. He is board certified in Family Medicine and specializes in anti-aging medicine, preventative medicine and integrative medicine.
Dr. Colbert is an expert on health and nutrition and is a highly regarded speaker who has appeared on Fox news, ABC World News, The BBC, Reader’s Digest, Newsweek and Prevention Magazine just to name a few. He is known internationally as a New York Times Best Selling author with over 40 book titles on health, nutrition and disease prevention that collectively have sold an excess of 8 million copies worldwide.

In 2011, Dr. Colbert earned a distinction of Double Diamond Level associate with Max International and has become one of the most outspoken proponents for Max’s products. Dr. Colbert, thank you for joining us today to welcome our Singapore associates as Max International expands in to Asia.

DC: Thank you Dave, it’s great being here.

DB: What lead you to medicine as your career choice, and tell us about the type of patients
that you see and perhaps your distinctive approach to patient care?

DC: Absolutely. First of all, I’ve been interested in health, all my life, since I was a kid. I used to read health books, muscle magazines, Jane Brody Collins, Jane Brody books, and so I’ve always been interested in health and diet, and I actually saw my uncle die of diabetes and had both his legs amputated and I said, my goodness if he wasn’t so fat, he could have kept his legs, he could have survived past his early 60′s and so it led me into medicine wanting to help people.

But then I found out in medicine that mainly what they do is just prescribe drugs and medications that simply treat the symptoms and not the disease and that’s when I switched more to integrative medicine where I used lifestyle, exercise, diet, nutrition, hormone replacement therapy, as well as we have a chiropractor in the office that addresses the structure component, we address the emotional component of the disease and I find that we can many times get to the root of the disease and clear the disease rather than treat the symptoms with medications.

DB: That’s fantastic. First of all, I applaud you for the fact that you do as all of the other people I’ve seen successful in integrating nutrition in their lives, they found a personal why and a reason to be able to do that which I think is absolutely critical. Let me ask you another question, why do you believe it’s important to support the body’s glutathione production and how do you think that that impacts health and wellness and anti-aging?

DC: Well, I discovered glutathione back about 20 years ago and the importance of glutathione, tried many different methods to raise it and nothing really worked well until I started using IV glutathione back about 5 to 10 years ago and I saw there were dramatic improvements in patients health, especially in Parkinson’s patients and made such a huge impact on me and I said, if we can only find a supplement that could boost glutathione levels, similar to the IV glutathione and give it to them on a daily basis to maintain those levels we’d find probably the best thing in order to help prevent and treat many of these diseases. So, I’ve understood the importance of glutathione, unlike most doctors who know nothing about glutathione but its the master antioxidant in the body, the most important antioxidant in the body for our cells and tissues to be healthy, we need glutathione levels and I actually measure glutathione levels in a lot of my patients and find when I can boost those levels up to a normal or high normal level, it helps so many different disease processes.

DB: When you’re taking a look at glutathione, I want to tap a little bit more about your history here because you have a unique background and understanding to this is that, perhaps you can shed some light of how, outside of IV glutathione and you start taking a look at potentially some supplements that could impact glutathione, prior to Max’s products being introduced to you what would you say would be the available ways of raising glutathione and what do you believe to had been their limitations from a supplemental angle?

DC: Well, interesting you know about over 10 years ago I went to Canada and I did some talks up there and I ran into a product that was called Immuno-cal which is a good product it is a undenatured whey protein with fragile proteins but it’s able to raise glutathione 35% and I thought that was phenomenal back then over 10 years ago and I started recommending that, but I had a lot of patients complain, first of all you couldn’t blend it, blending it will break down the fragile protein, you have to shake it, it was clumpy, it didn’t taste good, and I had a hard time getting patients to take it and I pretty much stopped that.

And then I started to using an alpha-lipolic acid and sure it helped some, it would raise glutathione anywhere from 30 to 70% but then we ran into limitations with that, it would lower blood sugar, people would get spacey, it’s great for diabetics, but for patients with normal blood sugar, many would react to it, it just didn’t helped them to the degree I thought it would but it did raise glutathione levels moderately.

I started using N-acetylcysteine , which we used in the ER when I practiced in the ER years ago, when I was in residency, I work in the ER and patients would come in Tylenol poisoning, we give them high doses of N-acetylcysteine like 10,000 mg, every 3 hours or so in order to reverse the effects of Tylenol poisoning and save their liver. And so we would give and expound on research that 8000 mg of N-acetylcysteine can raise the glutathione levels as much as 85%, but that’s taking 16 x 500mg capsules a day and its a nasty smelling supplement that patients just won’t do.

And so finally they came out with Max and Max is able to raise glutathione 300% and actually you can measure this and a double-blinded placebo controlled studies confirmed this, which is the goal standard here in the US for testing done. And I actually went out and measured glutathione levels on my patients and at a baseline, I see the boosting of glutathione that this product is able to boost it significantly in especially after the 60 days and I have to tell patients, you’ve got to take this 60 days because you will see the benefit.

Unfortunately some of my patients are so toxic, I have to warn them of detox reaction, because sometimes they may develop headaches, fatigue and things like that, which are detox reactions we have to cut back on the dosage so that they can overcome these detox reactions and I also have them drink more water, and what we find is a lot of our patients were called off because they can’t get in to see me for months and I’ll have one of the receptionists talk to them, let’s at least start you on the detox program, let’s start you on one of the Max products slowly, if you have these detox symptoms just cut back on it so in fact by doing that a lot of patients say, “hey after 60 days, I don’t have to see Dr. Colbert, I can cancel my appointment, I feel so great”.

DB: You mentioned something that was interesting, obviously you’re ability to be able to measure glutathione, to be able to monitor their improvement, track their progress, for those masses of people that don’t have access, either to a physician like yourself that can assist them in that or maybe they don’t have the wherewithall of it to be able to have the glutathione levels tested, what would you say would be a summary of what somebody could expect or at least understand what glutathione is doing for them without having access to testing?

DC: Well first of all, the double-blinded placebo controlled study shows that glutathione decreases inflammation. Inflammation is at the root of most diseases and they found that by boosting glutathione they can decrease the inflammatory marker Tumor necrosis factor-alpha by 41% and after 30 days which is great, but then 61% after 2 months or 60 days.

So glutathione decreases inflammation, it helps increase energy by protecting the mitochondria. The mitochondria are the little energy-producing factories in all our cells, every cell in the body has mitochondria, from fat cells, it might only have 2 mitochondria to heart muscle that may have 2,500 mitochondria, so what would we find is this actually protects the mitochondria from the oxidative stress because when the body produces ATP, which is our energy currency, its similar to producing smoke, its like when you’re burning fire in a fireplace, it produces smoke, but the body produces free radicals that would produce energy. And what the glutathione does it quenches these free radicals so it helps to protect the mitochondria enabling it to produce energy.

So, producing energy is a major thing most of my patients need, because so many people come and say I’m tired, I’m exhausted. Also what glutathione does it detoxes heavy metals and everyone on this planet has these toxic heavy metals in them. I find the sicker the patient, generally the more toxic metal and glutathione actually gently detoxes the body of this heavy metals including mercury, cadmium and lead which are three of the most common heavy metals we have as well as other toxic metals.
Glutathione also helps to improve our immune system. It helps to literally boost our WBC’s or white blood cells as well as natural killer cells and natural killer cells are important in killing viruses, bacteria and even killing cancer cells.
It’s interesting too that glutathione also helps increase longevity, they’ve done centenarian studies on patients who live to be over a hundred and they found a lot of these centenarians actually have the glutathione levels of a 30 to 50 year old. So they are linking high glutathione levels to longevity.

So again, these are just a few things and the biggest thing though is what it does throughout the body. Everyday we form these free radicals and these free radicals form in or brain, in our heart, in our kidneys, in our liver, in our lungs and they damage these tissues and eventually degenerate these tissues, but by keeping the glutathione levels high, you’re protecting the five most important organs in the body.

And again, heart disease is the number one killer here in the US, but realize that cancer is the number 2 killer. And by keeping these tissues and cells healthy, by keeping the immune system strong, by decreasing inflammation, by preventing the build up of these toxic heavy metals, and excreting these toxic heavy metals, we are protecting our bodies from the worst diseases where most people die such as the heart disease and the cancer, as well as other degenerative diseases.

DB: You touched on a couple of things there that I find absolutely intriguing and it reminds me the time I had conversation with Dr. Nagasawa and we were discussing how important it was as well as with his son Dr. Scott Nagasawa, about, we take a look at the concentrations of glutathione levels in the body and you are taking a look that they are in its highest concentrations in these essential organs that you’re talking about, the heart, the lungs, the kidney, the liver, the brain, even in the eyes, the ears, these areas of our body, specially the skin, these are the areas of our body that are most prone to the highest levels of stress or toxins, that’s where glutathione is working overtime in our best interest and you have those little a-ha moments by saying, if it’s important enough to my body to have those housed, in the most critical organs and areas in my body, it’s probably something I should pay attention to.

DC: Absolutely. And what’s so important too, Dave, is that I realized that the majority of these chronic diseases, have at their root inflammation. Realize that most heart disease is inflammatory in its root. Cancer is usually inflammatory, Alzeihmer’s disease is inflammatory, arthritis is inflammatory, auto-immune diseases is including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and thyroiditis and MS, they all have at their root, inflammation.

So again, when you boost glutathione levels, you are decreasing inflammation, you are quenching free radicals and as a result of doing that we usually see dramatic improvements in patients.

DB: Yes, it’s not surprising, you know we take a look at the number of people out there who, obviously, we live in a society today where the amount of stressors that are taking a toll on our body are more now that what they ever have been which raises the question, what more do I need to do to help counteract this increased amount of environmental or dietary or even emotional stressors that are out there or as you take a look at it, it’s amazing to see the design of the body and there is such a thing as important and as powerful and as broad spectrum as glutathione and it’s obviously one of those things that we need to be paying attention to and it’s fun to be a part of that quest.

In fact when you’re talking with people that are new into your office or somebody that you come across at a dinner table or whatever, how was it that you would briefly, or elementarily explain what glutathione is.

DC: What I just tell them, is that glutathione is first of all a master antioxidant and I don’t try and get into a lot of the science, but I am just trying to explain tot hem that pretty much every tissue and organ in the body needs adequate amounts of glutathione in order to function properly and the powerful results of it, it decreases inflammation, I’d explain that again, inflammation is the root of the most chronic diseases and many of the patients I see have a chronic disease and I show them and I say, for this amount of money, we can test your glutathione levels and see it also increases energy in almost every patient wants to have more energy because they’re tired.

And the other thing it does, it helps with stress by enabling people to enter into that deeper sleep and say it will actually help improve sleep architecture and many of my patients when they boost the glutathione levels and it helps with the adrenals and this is what a lot of people don’t understand that so many of my patients have what we call adrenal fatigue, where their adrenaline glands are just chronically in the state of fatigue and as a result these people suffer from tiredness and fatigue and what the glutathione does, just what it does in the brain and the heart and the kidneys and the lungs and the liver, it helps with the, put the inflammation out of the adrenals, which enables the adrenals to function better and many these patients with adrenal fatigue see an improvement in their ability they cope with stress and in their ability to sleep. So in other words, we have patients with adrenal fatigue improve dramatically when glutathione levels are boosted.

DB: When you’re talking about that, obviously somebody’s going to be intrigued, I think that they should be more than intrigued, they should figure it out that hey, that seems to be important to me, what’s the solution, when you talk about MaxOne, how is that you explain what it is to them?

DC: Well, what I explain is that, first of all, it’s a simple molecule that’s made of L-Cysteine and D-Ribose and L-Cysteine is a fragile molecule that enters the digestive tract coz again if it’s not bound with D-Ribose and it’s not absorbed well, it’s destroyed but similar to N- acetylcysteine so again, with this new molecule, it’s easily absorbed, it’s easily assimilated and used as a raw material to produce glutathione and again, the glutathione is the most important molecule.

You can’t take glutathione and expect to raise your glutathione because the majority of that is destroyed in the digestive tract and the body has to literally rebuild the molecule, yet the majority destroyed.
So with this new molecule, we actually have, we found that we can increase the glutathione significantly and that’s the exciting part of it and it’s just one capsule twice a day, which very easy dosing because so many people are non compliant. If they’re going to take 10 or 20 capsules twice a day, they’re not going to do it but just one capsule twice a day is real easy for the majority of my patients.

DB: Who do you think needs to be aware of what glutathione plays a role in doing for the body everyday as well as being aware of MaxOne. I mean is it just people that would find themselves in your office or people that are out and about everyday, who would you recommend needs to know about these products.

DC: Well, realize that after age 21, out glutathione levels diminish by one percent per year and so anyone I’d say over 21 and especially I would say professional collegiate athletes because what this is also when you boost glutathione levels, is increasing stamina, is increasing muscle recovery and anyone who wants to protect these organs and wants to live a long healthy life and prevent many diseases that are associated with low glutathione levels.
So I tell pretty much anyone over there over 21, should seriously consider it and any athlete under 21 that are real competitive, should be on this also.

DB: Dr. Colbert, I know that a lot of nutritional companies because of your background, your level of influence and the level of respect that you carry, have tried to do everything to get you to represent their product, so what was different about Max to where you wanted to be a part of this program?

DC: Well, first of all, there are so many nutritional companies, that are knock-offs of other companies and they don’t have the double-blind placebo controlled studies I recognize the most important nutrient in the body is glutathione. And finally we have a product that’s able to show conclusively that it boost glutathione levels as much as 300% and so, again, I recognize the most degenerative disease are inflammatory based and this product decreases inflammation as well as it’s a powerful antioxidant and most diseases that we see are associated with low glutathione levels even ADHD in children, generally they have low glutathione and so glutathione is probably the basis of protection against many diseases and unfortunately, the very people who should be recommending it, who are doctors, know nothing about it.

And I’ve been studying nutrition for so many years I understand the importance of this and so I recognize it immediately. Hey, this is something huge and the public needs to be made aware of this because this I believe is the most incredible nutraceutical discovery in my lifetime and unfortunately most doctors know nothing about it or they’re just not aware because they are being trained by the pharmaceutical industry.

DB: You touched on something that I remind myself every single day and how unique it is for us to be a group that has the opportunity to represent a breakthrough discovery like what Dr. Nagasawa has done with The National Institutes of Health, The Veteran’s Administration in nearly 30 years in discovery and perfection of a way to be able to protect that fragile cysteine molecule and do it in a way that’s received naturally by the body. It’s absolutely amazing to be able to be a part of that and you mentioned about the number of people that are unaware of what glutathione is. I mean, do you see that changing anytime in the near future? People’s awareness of and what is glutathione?

DC: Well, again, we are seeing such incredible testimonies in my practice and the best way is the ground root’s effort.
When patient’s are literally feeling so much better and have huge improvement in their health, again we are going to finally see doctor’s take notice and they’re going to say, hey wait, that weren’t my medicine that did that? What are you doing?
And so Again, I think that it’s going to take people going to their doctors and say hey, you need to look at this, you need to see what this is about and then eventually news crews come out, maybe Fox News, other news stations come out and get testimonies and show how simply the power of glutathione is helping to change the health of so many patients.

That’s what I think will eventually happen, but people are still unaware of the power of glutathione and again, this message has got to get out about the power of glutathione.

DB: Yeah, you’ve mentioned something here and perhaps his is an appropriate place to have our final question here Dr. Colbert and that is as a double diamond leader with Max, what would you say to the new associates who have the opportunity to partner with Max and bringing these products to the world.

DC: Well, what’s so amazing is the world is totally unaware of the power of glutathione and this is so ground floor.
I’m so excited that this is such a young company with such a powerful supplement that will literally revolutionize; I believe the health of the world, in people who use this consistently.

And so, I’m excited for anyone who catches this opportunity because this is truly a product that’s unlike any other product I have ever seen in my entire life and so pretty much everyone of my patients goes on one of the Max products and it’s just an opportunity for anyone who catches this vision and understands the power of glutathione.

It’s interesting to see there’s almost 95,000 articles published on PubMed about the power of glutathione and so again if people would just tap into some of that research and catch a glimpse of the power of this and what we have the opportunity that you have, then I think it’s going to be a great motivational tool for anyone.

DB: Well, you said it appropriately, I obviously agree with everything that you mentioned there and we are honored to have somebody like yourself as a part of our Max family and being able to help spread the good word about a compound that we believe that the body is looking for and we appreciate everything that you’re doing in helping us move forward that cause and that purpose and Dr. Colbert, I want to thank you for your time today.