Dr. A compares NAC and glutathione supplements, explaining how NAC converts to glutathione in your body and why genetic variations affect this pathway. Use NAC for long-term cysteine support or respiratory issues; choose liposomal or acetyl-glutathione formulations for acute situations like surgery or liver detox.
Have you ever wondered if you can just take NAC, N-acetylcysteine, instead of paying for glutathione, and would that work? Let's dive into this. Hey, I'm Dr. A. I use this channel to answer questions. I've been involved in teaching and research in the naturopathic integrated medical community for over 30 years now, and I've been seeing patients for a long time. And the purpose of this channel is really answering questions that you guys send in or patients ask or other clinicians even ask. So the first thing is just definition of terms. NAC is N-acetylcysteine. It is a form of L-cysteine, which is more absorbable if you take it orally. So N-acetylcysteine is the kind normally used to take orally. It's also a drug that is used in respiratory medicine as a nebulized product. It's used intravenously in and out of hospitals as an IV drug. It is also used in overdose from Tylenol situations because it helps with glutathione And other support in the liver. So NAC is both a drug and a supplement, and it is widely available in most countries where you can buy supplements. Glutathione is a tripeptide, meaning— so NAC cysteine is one amino acid, so tripeptide is 3 amino acids. And so in addition to cysteine, which sits in the middle of glutathione, there's 2 other amino acids on each side, and that would be glutamine and glycine. And what it does in the body is it is a primary antioxidant, meaning it helps to relieve the body of free radicals, helps to run the redox system. That doesn't work alone, but that's the big picture of what it is. So how does cysteine and glutathione relate to one another? They relate because cysteine is the rate-limiting amino acid that helps you form glutathione. Your body makes glutathione itself. Rate limiting means if I lower the amount of cysteine in my diet or as a supplement, I'm going to lower the speed at which I make new glutathione. And really the big endgame is we want our body to make its own glutathione so we have redox support, antioxidant support, et cetera. Now, just saying that NAC or cysteine is the rate limiting step, there are also glycine and glutamine, and you can give either one of those. Those will boost your glutathione levels as well. And then there's the more modern use of 2 of them called GlyNAC, which is glycine and NAC together, and that will also raise your levels. So this one, we're just talking about NAC, but there's other ways to do that too. Quick plug here, if you're a healthcare practitioner working with patients with these issues, I have a CE website and I do webinars on this topic and others. So we're going to put a link in the description below to the CE website link and the particular webinar of interest. Thank you. So how does NAC go to cysteine and then convert into building your friend glutathione? Well, you take NAC orally. As I said, it's better absorbed than L-cysteine. That was a question a bunch of you asked. So it's just, it's better absorbed orally. So it gets in the system. It does smell like sulfur. It's very sulfury and your pee might smell sulfury. So watch out for that. That's normal. But then it gets inside your system and it eventually becomes, it goes back to the L-form, L-cysteine. And then there are enzymes that help to put the glutamine, glycine, and cysteine together as a tripeptide. So if the enzymes systems that put those together, those 3 aminos, cysteine, glycine, and glutamine, if the enzymes to put them together are all functional, great. I take NAC, it turns into cysteine, it goes in, enzymes make more glutathione for me. That's fine. If I have SNPs, so single nucleotide polymorphisms that are genetic changes that we all inherit in any of those enzymatic step pathways that help to make the glutathione, then I can take a ton of NAC and not have any formation of glutathione at as fast a rate as somebody who doesn't have those genetic SNPs. Now, you can have those things tested, certainly, but it is important to know that. So why might somebody take glutathione? And we have a bunch of other content on glutathione and what does absorb and what doesn't absorb. But just to keep in mind, there are forms of oral glutathione that absorb very well. There's forms that don't absorb. So we get comments saying oral glutathione doesn't work, it doesn't absorb. Not true. There's Tons of research. There's a big form of oral glutathione that does not absorb. And then the others like acetyl glutathione, liposomal, they all absorb just fine. We got content on that. So why would you take that? And maybe even not knowing about your genetics instead of NAC? Well, that depends. That's sort of a clinical determination. And there's a couple of reasons you might take glutathione, at least short-term. One would be, you know, you have some of those genetic problems, so let's work around them and just put the whole glutathione in. The next might be you have a really large need for glutathione as an antioxidant support. And that might be you, you're gonna have surgery or you're just recovering from surgery. That might be that you're having some liver phase 2 detoxification problems or any other reason. You're, you're doing a lot of detox or your body's dumping a bunch of stuff. You might just need more glutathione more quickly. You're going to get it faster regardless of your genetics, but especially if you have those SNPs, you're going to get it faster if you just take the glutathione. Now, why might someone use NAC and not glutathione? Because even with So genetics, you're going to eventually get over to making some glutathione if you're looking at the long, long haul, kind of the long game with NAC. But NAC does other things that glutathione is not as involved in. One is NAC is a mucolytic substance. So if I have a cold and my mucus secretions are real tight and stuck together and you have trouble coughing things out, mucolytics help to break those bonds up and help to move essentially the mucus so it gets out of you faster. That's why it's used in nebulizer therapy. that you breathe in, but you can get that by taking it orally if you take enough over a long enough period of time. NAC also is a cysteine donor. So cysteine's an amino acid for other pathways that are not glutathione formation. So there's other reasons you might need cysteine in your body. And so NAC would be the preferred supplement for that. And then there's a number of other places where N-acetylcysteine may be useful all on its own that are exclusive of glutathione. So the real question, if you're looking at it from a therapeutic point of view is, do I just need the cysteine function from NAC, such as a respiratory support or a support for cysteine that doesn't have to do with glutathione or other supports for cysteine? Then N-acetylcysteine is great. Am I taking it really more for the long term? Then N-acetylcysteine is going to be fine. On the other hand, do I have an acute need for a whole bunch of glutathione to get me through a healing process or dealing with toxicities or other stuff? Then you might want to think about taking an absorbable form of glutathione. And getting that in your system. All right. Well, I hope this answered all those questions. I tried to kind of form them into one NAC versus glutathione video, and that's what we just did here. I'm Dr. A. I really appreciate everybody who's been a member of the channel, subscribers, and the growing number of subscribers. We love that. And we're just here to answer questions and try and break stuff down that you have an interest in, the larger patient community does, et cetera. So I will see you guys on the next video, and please take a look at some other videos we're going to suggest here at the end. See you next time.
