Posted by larryhoover on May 29, 2011, at 23:49:33
In reply to NAC High Dose But No Effect, posted by Questionmark on May 12, 2011, at 15:36:16
I think that I'd like to provide a general recommendation to supplement with NAC. It's just one of the regular supplements that I take. If you're properly replete with NAC, you have provided yourself with a high degree of stress resiliency.
NAC is an antioxidant in its own right. It need not be converted to glutathione to have a beneficial effect. It is a fair to good scavenger of a variety of reactive oxygen species, and can serve as a sacrificial binding agent to some toxic heavy metals such as mercury. Highly structured proteins such as enzymes depend on cysteine-cysteine bonds for their unique 3-dimensional form. Far better to sacrifice blood-borne or intra-cellular NAC that to lose enzyme function, to say nothing of the fact that e.g. mercury bound to cysteine can be excreted.
And then there's the growing realization that much of the physical distress that accompanies mental health issues is mediated by mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondria are the energy factories of every cell, but they throw off reactive oxygen species as part of their production of cellular energy. In the absence of sufficient antioxidant support, they will destroy themselves. That's where your vitamin E and NAC and selenium (preferentially as seleno-methionine) come into play. Your mitochondria are your cells playing with fire (quite literally....that's where food is burned in oxygen), and your antioxidants are your firemen, to keep the oxidation under control. If the mitochondria are permitted to destroy themselves, the cell will die.
The point I want to make is that you need not experience an overt benefit from NAC to have benefited from it. It gives you maximal resiliency. It helps to keep your liver healthy. It directly promotes brain glutathione activity levels. It's just a smart supplement to take.
Rhetorical question: How do you know when you've prevented an adverse mental state? IMHO, you don't. You just didn't have one that you might have had.
Lar
poster:larryhoover
thread:985161
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20110512/msgs/986602.html