3. About Dr. Gustavo -
Twenty Years of Discovery

Gustavo Bounous, MD Photo courtesy Immunotec Research, Ltd.

Dr. Gustavo Bounous, who discovered the remarkable qualities of the milk serum isolate in GlutaSyn, is a respected authority on the problems of nutrient absorption in disease and trauma. Dr. Bounous emigrated from Italy to the U.S. in the 1950's to do research at Indiana University Medical Center, where he soon made important contributions in the emerging science of hemodynamics.

Continuing his research at McGill University in Montreal, Dr. Bounous made a breakthrough in the treatment of hemorrhagic shock.¹ This work earned him the 1965 Medal of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. It also led him to develop the science of enteral nutrition and the invention of the "elemental diet", now used in hospitals throughout the world.

In 1978, Dr. Bounous began his first experiments feeding a special whey protein concentrate to mice. Whey is dried milk serum, the protein-rich liquid that is left over from the manufacture of cheese. Dr. Bounous was surprised to find that when this concentrate was added to the diet, the animals showed a much stronger immune response when challenged with an injection of foreign blood cells.² This led him to conduct a number of trials comparing his milk serum isolate to other proteins across the spectrum of plant and animal sources. None of the other proteins, including a variety of whey concentrates, had a positive effect on immunity. Only the serum isolate demonstrated significantly improved immune response.^3,4,5

Dr. Bounous and his colleagues pressed on. In one study, mice that were fed the isolate and then challenged with sheep red blood cells produced almost 5 times more splenic Plaque Forming Cells than controls.⁶ It was found that when the B-cells of milk serum-fed animals responded to antigens with typical bursts of oxidative cloning, they had much better levels of the antioxidant GSH (glutathione), and many more viable cells were produced.⁷ There was also better non-specific response of splenic cells to mitogens,⁸ and dramatically improved resistance to strains of Salmonella,⁹ Streptococcus pneumoniae, and E. coli bacteria.¹⁰ This led to several studies of the isolate’s anti-tumor benefits in animals and humans.^{11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16}

Scientists often noticed that laboratory animals fed the milk isolate seemed to survive longer than their counterparts fed other whey proteins or standard diets. Trials showed that feeding milk serum isolate, from weaning, produced lifespans up to 50% longer than lifespans of animals fed standard diets.^{17, 18}

Further research shed light on how the milk serum isolate works. The common thread linking the variety of benefits turned out to be one rather small molecule: glutathione, or GSH. The cells of animals fed the isolate were making more GSH than those of animals fed other diets.¹⁹ The milk serum contains a rare GSH precursor (gamma-glutamyl-cysteine (GGC)) and high levels of GSH amino acids (cysteine and glutamic acid). GSH is now believed to be the most important antioxidant in the body, as well as a vital detoxifier in many branches of cellular and hepatic (liver) metabolism. Science continues to explore the role of GSH in basic body processes.²⁰