Try This Nutrient Combination to Prevent Disease and Reduce Signs of Aging

Can supplementing with nutrients prevent disease and slow aging? A recent clinical trial found that supplementing with the nutrient combination of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and glycine can increase the body’s glutathione level. Glutathione is essential and plays a vital role in anti-aging, anti-cancer, and anti-tumor processes and in treating chronic diseases.

The human body can be thought of as a high-performance machine. It can perform essential functions, but at the same time, it also produces waste products, causing wear and tear on the machine itself. However, the body is a machine of extreme precision that can self-recover. While constantly producing waste and causing wear and tear on cells and tissues, the body also constantly cleans up waste to self-repair.

Several important elements are involved here: free radicals, antioxidants, oxidative stress, and glutathione.

Free Radicals a Double-Edged Sword, Too Many Not Good for Health

Free radicals are substances the body produces as it metabolizes fats, proteins, and sugars. They are very active, and they search for electrons to make them stable because they lack an electron. When the body is infected, free radicals use their affinity for electrons to destroy bacteria and viruses. If the body produces too many free radicals, this will initiate the body’s self-repair mechanism. These are the positives of free radicals.

Another substance in our bodies is antioxidants, which can provide an electron to free radicals to stabilize them so they won’t damage tissues and cells. In medicine, the interaction and balance between free radicals and antioxidants are called oxidative stress reactions.

However, too many free radicals and insufficient antioxidants will cause oxidative stress. Oxidative stress can damage various organs, tissues, and cells in the body, resulting in tumors, diabetes, heart disease, cerebrovascular diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Glutathione Eliminates Oxidative Stress, Helps Slow Aging

Glutathione plays a vital role in the body’s process of antioxidation. In cells, it is mainly used to balance the adverse effects of free radicals.

Since oxidative stress may cause tumors, chronic diseases, etc., everyone naturally thinks supplementing with glutathione is a suitable means of prevention. Unfortunately, once glutathione enters the body, it decomposes before it can reach the cells. To reduce this waste of glutathione, someone suggested wrapping it in liposomes and using this carrier to bring it into cells directly. This sounds ingenious, but there is a problem here. Bringing too much glutathione to the cells may affect free radicals’ normal positive functions.

Therefore, the amount of glutathione in the human body can be neither too much nor too little. The important thing is maintaining a balance. The amount of glutathione the body produces is best determined according to the body’s own needs.

3 Nutrients Help Synthesize Glutathione

Many think that since fewer antioxidants are available to us nowadays, many must be supplemented. However, the best way to supplement antioxidants is not to supplement glutathione directly but to supplement the nutrients the body needs to produce glutathione. These substances include N-acetylcysteine (NAC), glycine, and glutamic acid. Once the essential substances for producing glutathione are available, the body will decide on the appropriate amount of glutathione to make according to its needs, which is preferred.

However, if the body is having trouble producing glutathione in the first place, supplementation may not help at all. The assumptions above are based on whether the body can still produce glutathione.

Human Study Indicates 2 Nutrients Combine for Anti-Aging Effects

In January, a clinical trial published in The Journals of Gerontology Series A Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences found that supplementation with NAC and glycine can address glutathione deficiency and help reduce aging indicators in older people. These indicators included mitochondrial function, telomere length, oxidative stress markers, body fat metabolism, abdominal obesity, muscle function, walking speed, and more.

Researchers supplemented participants with a relatively large dosage—100 milligrams of NAC and glycine per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight daily—while supplementing the control group with a placebo alanine of 200 milligrams per kilogram of body weight daily. The combination of the first two nutrients is much larger than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-recommended dosage (pdf) of NAC (140 milligrams per kilogram of body weight), but this 16-week trial was still very safe, and the conclusions were quite optimistic.

However, the study’s sample size is relatively small, and the variations among participants were relatively limited, so this nutrient combination may not be helpful for everyone because the number of nutritional supplements must vary from person to person.

Still, this experiment proved that antioxidants are essential in preventing chronic diseases, aging, tumors, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Antioxidant-Rich Foods

If you don’t want to take supplements, you can also get enough antioxidants from food.

Many foods are rich in antioxidants. Such foods include various berries, cherries, citrus fruits, dark green vegetables, onions, carrots, and tomatoes, as well as various nuts, olive oil, fish, green tea, turmeric, garlic, and cinnamon, among others. These are all significant sources of antioxidants.