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Mitochondrial Enhancers for ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia Pt IV: N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) (Health Rising)

Mary

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This is really worth a read: Mitochondrial Enhancers for ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia Pt IV: N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) - Health Rising

I've been taking NAC for many years. It doesn't seem to do anything but I know it's "good for me" so I keep taking it. The one doctor I had who really seemed to get that I really couldn't exercise no matter how badly I tried started me on it, but in a smallish dose. He unfortunately died 5 years ago, and I would love to be able to tell him about this! (and lots of other things)

I've been taking 600 mg - 1200 mg a day, but am going to increase my dose and see what happens. @godlovesatrier , tagging you here - I know NAC is part of your protocol that you're doing well on :nerd:
 

Mary

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@Rufous McKinney - when you take 2 things together, it's hard to tell what is doing what to you! When I first took glycine I think 6 years ago for sleep, it hit me literally like a truck - I had a huge detox reaction - very spacey, tired,, I got lost going to my sister's house - I think it mobilized mercury in my brain. However, muscle testing by my chiropractor indicated that glycine was good for me, but in much smaller doses. So I started with a very small dose, and gradually increased it over the next 6 months, and by the end of that time, I stopped reacting badly to it. I also did this with inositol and glutamine which by happenstance I had started around the same time, though I reacted much more strongly to the glycine.

After doing a little research, I found that glycine was important for phase II liver detoxification.

Anyways, by the end of the 6 months, I was no longer detoxing at the drop of a hat. Prior to then I had reacted to anything which caused any sort of "cleansing" reaction - I couldn't tolerate apple cider vinegar, or cayenne, etc. etc. I was having a detox reaction to something at least half of the time, if not more, prior to this. I believe that the glycine and inositol and glutamine got my detox pathways working properly. Now I can't remember the last time I had a detox reaction to something and it used to be a weekly thing.

I'm telling this story just to illustrate how important it can be to only try one new thing at a time. The glycine may have caused the "bubble" in your brain, or maybe not.

And you might have done well with the NAC all by itself, or not . . . but one way to find out! :sluggish:
 

seamyb

Senior Member
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I'm interested in both glycine and NAC. But the latter interest I'm suppressing for now because of the recent patent issues. Don't wanna fall in love only to have my heart broken... I have a very strong attachment to supplements.

Anyway, I've bought glycine, glutamine, taurine, ornithine and I'm certain there are others, all because of their use in amino-acid conjugation in phase II liver detox.

@Mary I find that detox reaction fascinating, although somewhat counter-intuitive. Given that the conjugation part is binding to toxic substances to make them less so, you'd imagine an increase in the ability to do this would result in at least no noticeable effect, at most a warm fuzzy feeling or decrease in symptoms. Any idea why the reaction happens? It's good to see it went away after a while and it's useful to know I should definitely go slowly.

Glycine (or serine, or some combination of their exchange from one to the other) is also used to make glutathione, so it should work synergistically, although NAC is the bottleneck.
 

Mary

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@Mary I find that detox reaction fascinating, although somewhat counter-intuitive. Given that the conjugation part is binding to toxic substances to make them less so, you'd imagine an increase in the ability to do this would result in at least no noticeable effect, at most a warm fuzzy feeling or decrease in symptoms. Any idea why the reaction happens? It's good to see it went away after a while and it's useful to know I should definitely go slowly.
@seamyb - I don't know the science behind it, but my guess is that the glycine got toxins mobilized but my body was unable to excrete them. It was just too much of an overload. e.g., anything that supposedly has "cleansing" properties always made me feel sick. Chlorella is supposed is to be good for detoxing but it was too rough on me. Cayenne is supposed to open up cells in some fashion. I can't give you the chemistry or biology but it got toxins moving. Same with apple cider vinegar and lots of other things. BUT - like I said, after gradually increasing my glycine and inositol and glutamine over 6 months, all these detox reactions stopped. I'm taking 3 teaspoons of cayenne a day now (for other reasons) with no problem, whereas before, a supplement I had (can't remember which one) which had cayenne as a side ingredient and made me sick.

I'm just theorizing that my detox pathways were non-functioning or barely functioning and somehow the glycine, inositol and glutamine got my system working properly. I really did spend a lot of my time detoxing before I did this.

There is something called re-toxing, where toxins get land moving around in your body, only to be re-deposited. You may have read that liver detoxing should be done very slowly. Too many toxins or too large a load of toxins being released all at once can make you quite ill because they can overload your system. That's what I'm theorizing happened.
 

pattismith

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I have low ferritin, and have sometimes problems with NAC side effects.

Considering NAC interference with iron metabolism, I found NAC seems to increase iron gut absorption, but also act as and iron chelator in the body. (these actions may depend on the dose and iron levels)

This might explain why I have difficulties tolerating NAC, and so I feel we must be cautious with NAC as we are with any supplement.

I am currently trying to raise my ferritin level and then I may try NAC again
 

godlovesatrier

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Hey,

I think the glycine NAC mix is really good. Glycine is relatively cheap but NAC is the very expensive one.

Can you folks in america get NAC yet?

Anyway I take 5g glycine 3x a day which slows down fatigue in the muscles by increasing glycosis, so more of the energy from the food itself gets into the muscles.

As for the NAC I take 2g 3x a day. I take a higher dose because I am trying to ward off entereoviral infection. High dose NAC is meant to be antiviral against cytoclymic? (I can't spell it!!) entereoviruses. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31883926/)

Also as an aside Joshua is doing some very interesting work at the moment. He bought an microscope to view things at the cellular level. He's been doing slides of peoples red blood cells both before and after covid vaccination. After vaccination the red blood cells are all stuck together in strange elongated clusters.

He has found studies showing ME patients red blood cells do not repel each other in the blood, they are totally malform or they stick together in lots and lots of clumps. I have asked the question is this simply hyper coagulation?

Anyway my point is that NAC for all we know might help to repel or break up these red blood cells. But Josh is currently getting people to take r-ala, bicarb and NAC and then re-testing there blood after several weeks of taking this. He's found that there red blood cells now repel one another as normal again. Of course htis could all be a huge coincidence, there are no real control measures, there's no way to objectively be certain he's seeing what he thinks he is without adequate controls. But if he's right NAC would be vital to getting this going. 1g 3x a day might be plenty sufficient to get to this repelling stage, but I've no idea for certain.

After pfizer dose
1634198250231.png

After 1 week of NAC and bicarb:

1634198270572.png

This should be taken with a pinch of salt because of the inadequate controls and measures as I said above.
 
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godlovesatrier

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@Rufous McKinney

Pyrrhus has a huge post about NAC somewhere on the forum...there are many posts.

At any rate he titrated up from tiny doses over many weeks/months to get to a normal NAC dose.

I started by taking 100mg NAC and 250mg glycine before bed and gradually worked up to the 2g nac 3x a day and 5g glycine 3x a day that I take now. To be honest I would suggest you give it another go and titrate :)
 

heapsreal

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I was taking nac 600mg twice a day before i even had cfs. Used it as it was a good antioxidant and general health. Then when i got cfs i continued the nac just for general health and then several years later it started becoming popular for cfs. I think its a good general health supp but i havent noticed anything specific it helps with cfs. One thing that made me continue taking it was its liver protective effects and being on antivirals for years plus other meds, i thought it was of value.

As for a source of NAC, swansonvitamins.com still sell it at a good price👍
 

godlovesatrier

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I can agree with that I am not really sure what the NAC does, I took it with everything else but even early on when I titrated up without everything else I wasn't exactly sure what it was doing.

However due to the liver, chelation, enteroviral and red blood cell repelling properties, not to mention the mitochondrial properties, that's why I take it :)
 

Mary

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Considering NAC interference with iron metabolism, I found NAC seems to increase iron gut absorption, but also act as and iron chelator in the body. (these actions may depend on the dose and iron levels)
I didn't realize this - It seems that would be so difficult to balance - increased absorption and chelation of iron at the same time. It's good information to have when experimenting with NAC, as I plan to do. My ferritin levels are okay (69 out of a range of 16 - 288), though my iron binding capacity is a little low (248 out of a range of 250 - 450) and percentage saturation is a little high - 51% out of a range of 16 - 45%. My doctor just shrugged when she saw this. I hope you're able to get your ferritin levels up!
 

Mary

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Can you folks in america get NAC yet?
I just ordered some from Professional Supplement Center, iherb has it and lifeextension.com has it as well, though I don't think you can find it on Amazon. It is crazy! They hand out toxic drugs like it was nothing, but God forbid we're able to buy something we really need!

Anyway I take 5g glycine 3x a day which slows down fatigue in the muscles by increasing glycosis, so more of the energy from the food itself gets into the muscles.
So you take a total of 15 grams of glycine a day? That's quite a high dose.

Is the bicarb you're referring to sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)? And how much do you take, and how often do you take it?

Thanks for all the info @godlovesatrier !
 

godlovesatrier

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Well sh** that might be the cause of my very mild drop in iron levels...woops!

Think I better find a very low iron supp.

The glycine has absolutely no effect in terms of under or over active stimulation. Assuming that's true for others I'd highly recommend this higher dose. Once you've got over any startup effects you should see quicker recovery from exercise and overall less muscle fatigue. This does take it's time though.

Yep I take 15g a day.

Sadly I've no idea how much bicarb Joshua is prescribing. The science here is to regulate the pH of the blood because if memory serves me Joshua found it's either too high or low which causes issues with red blood cells not repelling each other. He took slides from ME patients as well which showed this malformed and stuck together red blood cells. I think this is probably similair to hyper coagulation. That and low electrolytes causing issues which we sort of already knew anyway. Potassium, phos, sodium, magnesium.

A link to Joshua's site which has an article explaining the ph and ion channel red blood cell issues he researched in ME patients which ties in with the suggested nac, bicarb, r-ala ( https://bornfree.life/experimental-...eurotransmitters-and-mineral-deficiencies/37/ )

So can't responsibly comment about bicard I'm afraid. I do know bicarb would have to be on an empty stomach to not interfere with food being digested properly. And yes sorry sodium bicarbonate. If Joshua can get enough blood samples the. He can either prove out his theory or not. I find it fascinating would love to reproduce his work by buying a microscope for myself.

My ferritin, iron and the other iron marker I've forgotten the name of have been trending down since I started Joshua's protocol. I need new tests to understand whether they are healthy or not. But that's next month. My iron levels have been solid as a rock for years so it's a bit annoying.
 
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Mary

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Anyway I take 5g glycine 3x a day which slows down fatigue in the muscles by increasing glycosis, so more of the energy from the food itself gets into the muscles.
The glycine has absolutely no effect in terms of under or over active stimulation. Assuming that's true for others I'd highly recommend this higher dose. Once you've got over any startup effects you should see quicker recovery from exercise and overall less muscle fatigue. This does take it's time though.

Yep I take 15g a day.
I had never heard of this benefit from glycine before - another thing to add to my list! I do take 1 g at night before bed to help with sleep. And I do tolerate it now after a very rough start!

Thanks again @godlovesatrier for all the info :nerd:
 

godlovesatrier

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👍

Glycine Increases Insulin Sensitivity and Glutathione Biosynthesis and Protects against Oxidative Stress in a Model of Sucrose-Induced Insulin Resistance
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/omcl/2018/2101562/

Glycine Regulates Expression and Distribution of Claudin-7 and ZO-3 Proteins in Intestinal Porcine Epithelial Cells
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27029941/

Glycine, the smallest amino acid, confers neuroprotection against D-galactose-induced neurodegeneration and memory impairment by regulating c-Jun N-terminal kinase in the mouse brain
https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12974-020-01989-w

Effects on muscle growth,

The Effects of Glycine on Subjective Daytime Performance in Partially Sleep-Restricted Healthy Volunteers
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3328957/

It also helps digestion and repairs the intestinal lining to prevent food particles entering the blood stream aka leaky gut. So maybe that's why I can tolerate gluten now but dairy is still off the cards?
 

Rufous McKinney

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I'm telling this story just to illustrate how important it can be to only try one new thing at a time. The glycine may have caused the "bubble" in your brain, or maybe not.

And you might have done well with the NAC all by itself, or not . . . but one way to find out! :sluggish:

I'm so embarrassed to be so not very good at this, and circled back here to apologize for my whining and unsupportive comments.

I must try harder.

I now recall taking NAC and the carnetine, most every day for quite a long time. At some point I stoped the NAC who knows why. (usually its due to stomach stuff). (gastroperesis acute events I experience).

so that was my first glycine so its definately suspect. (meaning be more careful)
 

Mary

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Thanks @Rufous McKinney, but no worries ! :) I've taken sooooo much stuff for soooooo many years, it's impossible to keep track of it all! I do keep a diary but I'm not that organized and there's just too much to keep track of!

I remember the glycine so well because my reaction to it was so extreme, but it ended up being such a good thing for me, I think it's the primary reason I no longer react to soooooo many things!