yes I weigh the taurine on a scale, before I take it. I have noticed that the volume is approximately 10 ml= 2 teaspoons. I use the powder from NOW food.
Does anyone know if a glutathione blood test is a reliable way to check our glutathione level?
Not really, all available, in 400-500€ range, look intended for research purposes only, as other lab equipment is required to provide results.
BEWARE! NAC can artificially lower your LDL and HDL in blood work according to ConsumerLab.
Regarding the idea of Glycine + NAC, I would speculate that if you are someone who eats a lot of animal protein-based foods, whole grains, and maybe nuts/seeds, then you might not really need the NAC. Take a look at this list of foods highest in cysteine: Top 10 Foods Highest in Cystine (Cysteine)
However, the glycine is a different story. Other than collagen-y kinds of meats (tripe, pigs’ ears, bone broth, other kinds of foods that even pretty healh-conscious folks typically don’t eat much), there aren’t many sources of glycine. Thus, depending on your diet, I can’t help but think that glycine is the most lacking ingredient here for many, except for those who supplement with solid doses of collagen regularly.
What you say makes some sense at first glance. However we know for a fact that after the age of 45, the amount of Glycine and Cysteine our bodies have decreases steadily. I doubt it’s because our diets have changed, but more of the fact that our bodies cannot produce or extract Glycine and Cysteine from food as well as they could when they were younger. That’s why it’s necessary to supplement both.
It reminds me of people saying there’s no use taking rapamycin unless you’re old. Yet in animal models the younger they start the better, and that is true for all interventions with effect.
We are detrimentally aging way before we are considered old.
It’s not clear whether glynac works at all but if it does younger will probably be better.
How early do they recommend to start for dogs?
I am mainly basing this off of the ITP data for mice - not sure if we have comparisons by starting age for other animals.
It stands to reason it would apply similarly for any intervention that reduces the damage of aging in any animal, though.
That may be one reason that glycine and cysteine decrease in the body with age. The other reason could be that our bodies are pretty good at making these aminos when we’re younger – even when not actually getting any of them from food at all – but lose the ability to produce them when older. (That might be part of the reason that young people can have absurdly poor diets and yet maintain pretty good health/high glutathione.) Cysteine, for example, is produced in the liver from methionine (see https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/supplement/cysteine). I imagine, like many processes affected by aging, this process probably runs pretty well when you’re 20 years old, but starts to break down by age 45 or so. Thus, getting plenty of cysteine from food as you get older might be a way to ensure glutathione doesn’t begin a precipitous decline. I’d consider taking NAC as well, but it does appear that NAC might be something of a double-edged sword in some ways, which is why I’d like to imagine that getting adequate cysteine through food is a possibility.
I have been taking 8 gms of Glycine, 6 gms of NAC and 8 gms of natural clam at bedtime for a week. It has literally been life changing. My sleep has been messed up for 35 years from taking night call. Since Glynac/Mag, I have had over 7 hours of blissful sleep each night. Crazy wonderful dreams. Very rested. More energy and better pickleball. When I wake up at night, I now fall right back to sleep. My wife having the same experience.
Thank you. I will now try to do the same. I will take glycine and NAC before bed. I did so last night and I slept 6 hours before waking up first time. I had more than normal amount of REM sleep and deep sleep. This is ofc only one night so far. But I will post my feedback after a week or two.
Chase it with a pleasant bitter taste - coffee or cacao.
The text of the image you posted says those are false result; a mere interference in blood tests, not a true physiologic result. Skipping a day before blood draw solves it.
NAC can interfere with results of blood tests for cholesterol *including HDL-cholesterol) and uric acid, showing falsely low results, but this effect is mainly of concern when large doses (several thousand milligrams are given within 12 hours before blood draw, such as when NAC is given intravenously to treat acetaminophen overdose. It is very unlikely that typical oral doses of NAC will cause interference, but to eliminate the chance of interference, you can avoid NAC within a day before blood tests.
Yes, it gives a false result in blood tests. But for those of us who take NAC daily…
GlyNAC versus TMG-NAC?
I’m considering adding TMG (Betaine) as a supplement. It’s said to be useful for muscle growth, mental health, DNA methylation, etc. and it is a form of glycine. Any thoughts on using TMG as a replacement for glycine making the combination TMG-NAC instead of GlyNAC?
I keep trying to find ways to reduce or consolidate useful supplements and this may be one way to do it.
Isn’t that too big of a daily dose? Did you start small and then ramped up?
Hi Ruben, I chose the dose based on the following study. GlyNAC (Glycine and N-Acetylcysteine) Supplementation Improves Impaired Mitochondrial Fuel Oxidation and Lowers Insulin Resistance in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: Results of a Pilot Study. They used 100mg/kg/day of both glycine and Nac. I am 80kg so that equates to 8gms of each per day. Other studies were in the same ballpark with most being a bit lower.
I scaled down the Nac to 6gms daily.
I started out with the full dose of each, but I can see the wisdom of working up to the final dose over a week or two.
I have since added 1gm of taurine to the bedtime dose and have added 5 more grams of glycine each morning.
Sleep is almost always much better than my baseline even after 4 or so weeks. Pickleball endurance also better.
Its interesting you mention about the sleep and glycine. I tried taking magnesium with glycine
My sleep pattern got distorted with too much of light and REM sleep and yes disturbingly vivid dreams. The deep sleep went way down.
I have since reverted back to Magtein which works way better for me. Almost 2 hrs of deep sleep.
I do take NAC 800 mg in AM and small amount of glycine in AM.