Dr Gustavo Bounous M.D.

Dr. Mazlen
We have a one hour show today. We'll be here with live guests. We have authors here today discussing a new book called "Breakthrough in Cell Defense" and the authors are Dr. Allen C. Somersall and Dr. Gustavo Bounous. As well, we have John Molson, a Vice President of Immunotec Research. We're going to have a great show. We're going to start off by introducing the authors of this new book, this exciting book which deals with the glutathione revolution. So let's start off first with Dr. Gustavo Bounous who actually is the person who discovered the clinical applications of the glutathione type of modulator which is called Immunocal. Dr. Bounous, welcome to our show.

Dr. Bounous
Thank you.

Dr. Mazlen
Tell us a little bit about how this happened.

Dr. Bounous
" Well, it happened a long time ago, close to 20 years ago as most of this thing happened by pure serendipity or I would say by accident. I was then working at McGill University on the effect of nutrition on the immune system and when you work on that particular aspect, you use mice as an animal of preference. And I was observing certain interesting findings until I received a package from Europe, namely from Switzerland. At the time as you probably know the cheese was manufactured and the whey, which is the resulting supernatant of cheese production was thrown away. It was a waste product which caused a great pollution for the river and a tremendous fee for the cheese industry. So they decided to concentrate and remove the water by ultra filtration and they were now having this powder which was very rich in nitrogen and protein. They didn't know what to do with it and they sent to me. So I fed my mice this powder in a 20% formula diet and I noticed that it was nutritionally very adequate, actually very good, but the mice were growing at the same rate as their normal counterparts, but if they were challenged with antigens or bacteria, they were responding more vigorously, and we're talking about a 5 load difference in antibody production. That sounded interesting and I compared this which was actually a protein mixture which was called whey protein concentrate with several other purified proteins and it was indeed this one that was the best in terms of enhancing the immune response.

Now, the answer of the mechanism, why this happened, came when this product stopped working, which, unfortunately, for me happened in 1988. Nutritionally, this product was still good, but when I was challenging my mice, they were responding just like normal controls. And you can imagine my state of mind. I couldn't throw away 8 years of research. Something had to be done so I had to become smart and see what this mixture was made of and if I tell you how the real story happened, to be honest with you, I was watching a television program from Switzerland in which two chefs were complaining about the changing texture of the cheese, and were ascribing that to the fact that the pasteurization temperature of milk was raised from say 73 to 78 centigrade to make sure that all the salmonella were killed. That was in response to an epidemic of salmonella in France. And that happened worldwide and this is why all the whey protein concentrates we were trying analyze from where ever they were produced, whether Australia, Denmark or the United States was ineffective in this particular property. So, then I consulted with a protein milk chemist and I found that in that range of temperature in the liquid phase, not in the dried phase, this protein can be unfolded, partially or totally and this thing that happened, where you unfold this type of protein, you split the disulfate bond. Now I have to open a little scientific parentheses if I may. The two molecules which are essential for the formation of glutathione are cystine and glutamic acid. Now, cystine is found in the whey protein. It's found particularly in the human milk, in the egg white and more effectively can be concentrated. But you have to be careful not to heat it because otherwise you split that bond. If you do split that bond, the cystine becomes 2 cysteine which is very good, which is actually what the cells need to fabricate it's own glutathione, but it doesn't travel in the blood. It is destroyed because paradoxically, it is toxic. So you have to have to have this thing in what is called the "undenatured" form, in other words to preserve the two molecules linked together. Fortunately, for us this bond is not split by tripsin during digestion, so what happens is, it goes through the stomach, through the intestine and is absorbed moistly in the form of cystine, that's two molecules linked together. Dr. Droge has done extensive work on this. Now when they reach the target cell they are split into the 2 cysteine and then they can go ahead and make glutathione. So, I had to backtrack what had happened and make my own cheese in a university laboratory in Canada and with low temperatures, 73 centigrade and then use a micro filtration, I was able to resume to find this property again. Now, glutathione you probably heard about but it's something certainly we'll hear a lot about certainly in the future...."

 T he result of the subsequent 20 years of research was the development of a brand new functional food called Immunocal in the USA and HMS 90 in Canada.(The Canadian authories wouldn't let them call it "Immunocal" , the same name as the USA,  because it sounded like a health claim) HMS90 translated means Human Milk Serum 90%(protein). it all created a unique, science based small business opportunity in North America.