Dr. Ohlenschläger (1930–2008) is the “inventor” of the pharmaceutical active substance S-acetyl-glutathione (SAG). He was the first to apply the process of acetylation to reduced glutathione, so that it can be used effectively in medicine. His more than 30 years of scientific development work is today the basis for the Eumetabol® infusions.
The doctor and biochemist is one of the founding members of the Scientific Advisory Board of Paramedica GmbH. He worked closely with many of the experts who work on the Scientific Advisory Board of Paramedica GmbH today.
Dr. Ohlenschläger published 16 monographs and more than 250 specialist publications on S-acetyl-glutathione, on glutathione therapy, on orthomolecular medicine, on free radicals, oxidative stress, oxygen therapy, cancer therapies, chelation therapies, biophysics, biochemistry, pathobiochemistry, naturopathy and also on natural philosophy.
He holds numerous patents on various medical-therapeutic developments of his own. All of them concern the active substance glutathione and glutathione derivatives. One of the patents relates to the pharmaceutical active substance S-acetyl-glutathione.
30 years of glutathione research
For more than 30 years, PD Dr. med. habil. Gerhard Ohlenschläger was active in teaching and research. His great interest in natural philosophy was an important foundation of his work. His teaching and research focused on the following topics:
- Biological cancer research
- Border areas between biochemistry/biophysics on the one hand and medicine on the other
- Biophysics and biochemistry of free radicals
He devoted particular attention to the oxidation and reduction mechanisms in the human body. Among other things, these serve vital detoxification processes. His scientific work also led to research into the central molecule glutathione.
For decades, Dr. Ohlenschläger studied in detail the significance of the glutathione redox system for the prevention and therapy of a wide variety of diseases. Cancers were a particular focus. The results of his research were the basis for decisive new therapeutic approaches. Many of his medical-therapeutic developments relating to the active substance glutathione were patented.
Philosophical and scientific background
After the Abitur (school-leaving examination), Ohlenschläger first devoted himself to studying philosophy at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. His contact with the so-called “Frankfurt School” was formative here: Ohlenschläger's professors included world-famous sociologists and philosophers, among them Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas.
In addition to his philosophical education, Ohlenschläger devoted himself to medicine. He also studied this subject at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. There he passed the state medical examination in 1958.
After his licensure as a doctor and his doctorate as Dr. med. (1960), he worked for 15 years as a doctor at the bedside in various hospitals. The range of specialist disciplines he covered is astonishing: internal medicine, surgery, laboratory medicine, serology (diagnosis of diseases by examining the blood serum), gynaecology and orthopaedics.
The fact that Dr. Ohlenschläger obtained specialist qualifications in no fewer than three disciplines (1965 specialist in internal medicine, 1967 specialist in laboratory medicine, 1967 specialist in surgery) shows how intensively he familiarised himself with the different specialist fields. In 1966 he completed his habilitation.
With the venia legendi, he was granted the university teaching licence in the same year. Soon afterwards, he additionally devoted himself to the study of biochemistry.
Many specialist fields combined
For more than 30 years, Dr. Ohlenschläger was active in teaching and research at the Gustav Embden Centre for Biological Chemistry at the University Hospital Frankfurt am Main. In addition to medical students, he also trained members of the allied health professions, medical technical assistants, nurses and Heilpraktiker (state-licensed non-medical practitioners).
His specialist fields included biochemistry, pathobiochemistry, molecular biology and clinical-chemical analysis, among others. A special feature was Dr. Ohlenschläger's interdisciplinarity: he combined strictly scientific with philosophical aspects, and conventional medical with naturopathic aspects, into an impressive, coherent whole.
This was also reflected in his personal circle. His intellectual companion and good, almost fatherly friend was Prof. Friedrich Dessauer, head of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main. For many years he maintained an intensive philosophical exchange of ideas with his godfather Prof. Gustav Siewerth, who taught philosophy and pedagogy at various German universities until the early 1960s.
Scientific work
Dr. Ohlenschläger's broad professional horizon was evident in the diverse topics of his international lectures and scientific papers. They attracted, and still attract today, interest and recognition worldwide.
Dr. Ohlenschläger lectured or published on, among other things,
- free radicals,
- oxidative stress,
- oxygen therapies,
- orthomolecular therapies (food supplementation with micronutrients),
- oncology,
- supportive cancer therapies,
- fatigue treatment,
- chelation therapies,
- biochemistry,
- pathobiochemistry,
- biophysics,
- biophoton effects,
- homeopathy,
- homotoxicology,
- naturopathy and
- natural philosophy.
For all his interdisciplinarity and internationality, Dr. Ohlenschläger remained a scientist in the classical sense: his priority was to gain reliable knowledge, to give scientists and practitioners a sound training and, not least, to develop new, responsible medical treatment options. His high reputation rests on his achievements in these areas.
In a lecture on the occasion of Dr. Ohlenschläger's 65th birthday, the well-known biophoton researcher Prof. Dr. Fritz Albert Popp said:
“What I admire most about you, Mr Ohlenschläger, is that you are not present here today as, for example, the director of a large Max Planck Institute (you would actually have deserved it) or as the director of a large pharmaceutical corporation. At a time when the scientific virtues of the past are no longer so much in demand, at a time when a sense of responsibility for the future is not particularly in demand either, it is truly an honour not to have had certain medals of merit hung around one's neck.” (Source: Aktuelle Standpunkte aus der Ganzheitsmedizin – Berichtsband zum Gerhard Ohlenschläger Symposium. Reglin, Köln 1996, p. 71)
Most important book publications
- G. Ohlenschläger: Freie Radikale, oxidativer Stress und Antioxidantien. Krankheitsverursachende, präventive und reparative Prinzipien in lebenden Systemen. Reglin, Köln 1995/2000
- G. Ohlenschläger, H. Dietl: Handbuch der Orthomolekularen Medizin. Prävention und Therapie durch körpereigene Substanzen. Haug, Stuttgart 1994/2001
- G. Ohlenschläger: Schach dem Herzinfarkt. Promedico, Hamburg 1997/1999
- G. Ohlenschläger: Wie entsteht Krebs? Reglin, Köln 1998
- G. Ohlenschläger: Das Phänomen Krankheit. Reglin, Köln 1997
- G. Ohlenschläger: Hat der Zelltod auch mehrere Gesichter? Reglin, Köln 1996
- G. Ohlenschläger, K. Glagau: Vitalstoffe – Bausteine der Gesundheit. Haug, Heidelberg 1994
- G. Ohlenschläger: Das Glutathionsystem – Ordnungs- und informationserhaltende Grundregulation lebender Systeme. Verlag für Medizin Fischer, Heidelberg 1991
- G. Ohlenschläger, K. Lippmann, H. Stadtlaender: Lehrbuch der hämatogenen Oxydationstherapie – HOT. Haug, Heidelberg 1991
- G. Ohlenschläger: Synopsis der Elektrophoresetechniken. G-I-T-Verlag Giebeler, Darmstadt 1980
- G. Ohlenschläger: Reaktionsweise der Blutfaktoren – Agglutinogene und Agglutinine – bei verschiedenen Erkrankungen. Doctoral thesis (Dissertation), Frankfurt 1960