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Glycine

Specific Recommendations:

• glycine products at Amazon.com
• L-glycine products at iHerb

News & Research:

• COVID-19 patients have severely increased levels of oxidative stress and oxidant damage, and glutathione deficiency, study finds - Science Daily, 1/3/22 - "Compared to healthy age-matched individuals whose samples were taken before the pandemic started in 2019, patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had significantly increased levels of oxidative stress and oxidant damage, and markedly reduced levels of glutathione ... GlyNAC, a combination of glutathione precursors previously shown to reduce oxidative stress and oxidant damage and increase glutathione as well as improve health indicators such as inflammation, might be beneficial to COVID-19 patients. However, GlyNAC supplementation has not as yet been studied in association with COVID-19 ... Increased oxidative stress and reduced glutathione levels are associated with a number of conditions including aging, diabetes, HIV infection, neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular disorders, neurometabolic diseases, obesity and others ... supplementing GlyNAC, a combination of glutathione precursors, improved these defects in all these populations" - Note: NAC has been know for years to increase glutathione. Taking glutathione doesn't work. Amazon and several others have stopped selling NAC. See the article below. I bought about a three year supply from iHerb.  See glycine products at Amazon.com and NAC at iHerb.
  • GlyNAC improves multiple defects in aging to boost strength and cognition in older humans - Science Daily, 3/29/21 - "supplementation with GlyNAC -- a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine as precursors of the natural antioxidant glutathione -- could improve many age-associated defects in older humans to improve muscle strength and cognition, and promote healthy aging ... older humans taking GlyNAC for 24 weeks saw improvements in many characteristic defects of aging, including glutathione deficiency, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, body fat, genomic toxicity, muscle strength, gait speed, exercise capacity and cognitive function. The benefits declined after stopping supplementation for 12 weeks. GlyNAC supplementation was well tolerated during the study period ... Mitochondria generate energy needed for supporting cellular functions by burning fat and sugar from foods, therefore mitochondrial health is critically important for life. Sekhar believes that improving the health of malfunctioning mitochondria in aging is the key ... I am particularly encouraged by the improvements in cognition and muscle strength ... Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are serious medical conditions affecting memory in older people and leading to dementia, and there are no effective solutions for these disorders. We are exploring the possibility that GlyNAC could help with these conditions by conducting two pilot randomized clinical trials to test whether GlyNAC supplementation could improve defects linked to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease and in MCI, and possibly improve cognitive function."
  • GLYNAC (NAC & GLYCINE) 60 x 500mg capsules - youthandearth - "GLYNAC is a powerful precursor to Glutathione consisting of two amino acids NAC (N-acetylcysteine) and Glycine ... Supplementation with GLYNAC has been shown to raise Glutathione levels"
  • FDA Requests Information Relevant to the Use of NAC as a Dietary Supplement - fda.gov - "The FDA is asking interested parties to submit such information by January 25, 2022, while the agency continues to evaluate both citizen petitions. The agency will use the information submitted for our analysis and provide a final response to both petitioners directly once we complete our review."
  • Ask the Pharmacist: NAC supplements going away soon - marconews.com, 5/17/21 - "Cysteine is a natural compound and N acetyl cysteine (NAC) is a dietary supplement. That’s how you can find it in health food stores, as “NAC.” But you won’t find it for long, so if you want NAC, you should buy it now. It’s already virtually gone from Amazon! ... There’s a disagreement between the Food and Drug Administration and the dietary supplement industry over how legal it is for dietary supplements to put this amino acid into their supplements. The NAC is also available by prescription. It is forcing Amazon and other selling platforms to take sides on the issue."
• GlyNAC improves multiple defects in aging to boost strength and cognition in older humans - Science Daily, 3/29/21 - "supplementation with GlyNAC -- a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine as precursors of the natural antioxidant glutathione -- could improve many age-associated defects in older humans to improve muscle strength and cognition, and promote healthy aging ... older humans taking GlyNAC for 24 weeks saw improvements in many characteristic defects of aging, including glutathione deficiency, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, body fat, genomic toxicity, muscle strength, gait speed, exercise capacity and cognitive function. The benefits declined after stopping supplementation for 12 weeks. GlyNAC supplementation was well tolerated during the study period ... Mitochondria generate energy needed for supporting cellular functions by burning fat and sugar from foods, therefore mitochondrial health is critically important for life. Sekhar believes that improving the health of malfunctioning mitochondria in aging is the key ... I am particularly encouraged by the improvements in cognition and muscle strength ... Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are serious medical conditions affecting memory in older people and leading to dementia, and there are no effective solutions for these disorders. We are exploring the possibility that GlyNAC could help with these conditions by conducting two pilot randomized clinical trials to test whether GlyNAC supplementation could improve defects linked to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease and in MCI, and possibly improve cognitive function." - See glycine products at Amazon.com and n-acetyl cysteine at Amazon.com.
• How Did Glycine Significantly Decrease Liver Injury? - Science Daily, 10/31/08 - "Recent studies demonstrated that dietary glycine protected both the lung and liver against lethal doses of endotoxin in rat or other animals and improved graft survival after liver transplantation"
• Glycine Reduces Negative And Cognitive Symptoms in Schizophrenic Patients Taking Olanzapine Or Risperidone - Doctor's Guide, 3/16/04
• Green Tea, Glycine May Slow Tumor Growth - WebMD, 11/2/01 - "high levels of glycine reduced breast tumor growth rates by 15% in rats by blocking the growth of new tumor-feeding blood vessels. The special diet also reduced wound-healing by 30% ... Tumors and wounds have one very important thing in common -- they both produce new blood vessels through the same mechanism, known as angiogenesis ... If you can block one response, you can block the other"

Abstracts:

• Glycine Acts Through Estrogen Receptor Alpha to Mediate Estrogen Receptor Signaling, Stimulating Osteogenesis and Attenuating Adipogenesis in Ovariectomized Rats - Mol Nutr Food Res 2022 Feb 25 - "Glycine is commonly used as an additive in bone health supplements ... we concluded that glycine stimulated osteogenesis and attenuated adipogenesis in OVX rats, a process which may involve the ERα-mediated ER signaling pathway" - See glycine products at Amazon.com.
• GlyNAC Supplementation Improves Glutathione Deficiency, Oxidative Stress, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Inflammation, Aging Hallmarks, Metabolic Defects, Muscle Strength, Cognitive Decline, and Body Composition: Implications for Healthy Aging - J Nutr 2021 Sep 29 - "Supplementation with GlyNAC (combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine as a cysteine precursor) was found to improve/correct cellular glycine, cysteine, and GSH deficiencies; lower OxS; and improve mitochondrial function, inflammation, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, genotoxicity, and multiple aging hallmarks; and improve muscle strength, exercise capacity, cognition, and body composition ... GlyNAC supplementation could be a novel nutritional approach to improve age-associated defects and promote healthy aging, and existing data strongly support the need for additional studies to explore the role and impact of GlyNAC supplementation in aging" - See glycine products at Amazon.com and n-acetyl cysteine at Amazon.com and iHerb.
• Glycine increases fat-free mass in malnourished haemodialysis patients: a randomized double-blind crossover trial - J Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle 2021 Sep 14 - "chronic haemodialysis (HD) ... Branched-chain amino acid did not improve lean body mass as compared with glycine. Unexpectedly, glycine improved fat-free mass index in HD patients, as compared with BCAA. Whether long-term supplementation with glycine improves the clinical outcome remains to be demonstrated" - See glycine products at Amazon.com.
• Dietary Supplementation with Glycine Enhances Intestinal Mucosal Integrity and Ameliorates Inflammation in C57BL/6J Mice with High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity - J Nutr 2021 Apr 8 - "Obesity, a major public health problem worldwide, is associated with dysfunction of the intestinal barrier. Glycine (Gly) has been reported to enhance the expression of tight-junction proteins in porcine enterocytes. It is unknown whether Gly can improve intestinal barrier integrity in obese mice ... Gly supplementation enhanced the intestinal barrier and ameliorated inflammation and insulin resistance in HFD-fed mice. These effects of Gly were associated with reduced ER stress-related apoptosis in the intestine of obese mice"
• Improved Cardiovascular Function in Old Mice after N-Acetyl Cysteine and Glycine Supplemented Diet: Inflammation and Mitochondrial Factors - J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2018 Mar 10 - "Metabolic, inflammatory and functional changes occur in cardiovascular aging which may stem from oxidative stress and be remediable with antioxidants. Glutathione, an intracellular antioxidant, declines with aging, and supplementation with glutathione precursors, N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) and Glycine (Gly), increases tissue glutathione. Thirty month-old mice were fed diets supplemented with NAC or NAC+Gly and, after seven weeks, cardiac function and molecular studies were performed.The NAC+Gly supplementation improved diastolic function, increasing peak early filling velocity, and reducing relaxation time, left atrial volume, and left ventricle end diastolic pressure. By contrast, cardiac function did not improve with NAC alone. Both diet supplementations decreased cardiac levels of inflammatory mediators; only NAC+Gly reduced leukocyte infiltration. Several mitochondrial genes reduced with aging were upregulated in hearts by NAC+Gly diet supplementation. These Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation enzymes, suggesting improved mitochondrial function, and permeabilized cardiac fibers from NAC+Gly fed mice produced ATP from carbohydrate and fatty acid sources, whereas fibers from control old mice were less able to utilize fatty acids" - See glycine products at Amazon.com and n-acetyl cysteine at Amazon.com.
• Glycine supplementation during calorie restriction accelerates fat loss and protects against further muscle loss in obese mice - Clin Nutr. 2015 Sep 25 - "GLY treated mice lost more whole-body fat mass (14%, p < 0.05) and epididymal fat mass (26%, P < 0.05), less lean mass (27%, P < 0.05), and had better preserved quadriceps muscle mass (4%, P < 0.01) than ALA treated mice after 20 d CR ... Taken together, these findings suggest that glycine supplementation during CR may be beneficial for preserving muscle mass and stimulating loss of adipose tissue"
• Dietary glycine and blood pressure: the International Study on Macro/Micronutrients and Blood Pressure - Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 May 8 - "The study was a cross-sectional epidemiologic study that involved 4680 persons aged 40-59 y from 17 random population samples in the People's Republic of China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States ... glycine, but not alanine, was significantly related to BP. Estimated average BP differences associated with a 2-SD higher glycine intake (0.71 g/24 h) were 2.0-3.0-mm Hg systolic BP (z = 2.97-4.32) stronger in Western than in East Asian participants. In Westerners, meat was the main dietary source of glycine but not in East Asians (Chinese: grains/flour and rice/noodles; Japanese: fish/shellfish and rice/noodles)"
• Orally administered L-arginine and glycine are highly effective against acid reflux esophagitis in rats - Med Sci Monit. 2011 Dec 22;18(1):BR9-15 - "L-alanine and L-glutamine exert a deleterious effect on the esophagitis, while L-arginine and glycine are highly protective" - See L-arginine products at Amazon.com and L-glycine at Amazon.com.
• Deficient synthesis of glutathione underlies oxidative stress in aging and can be corrected by dietary cysteine and glycine supplementation - Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Jul 27 - "Compared with younger control subjects, elderly subjects had markedly lower RBC concentrations of glycine (486.7 +/- 28.3 compared with 218.0 +/- 23.7 μmol/L; P < 0.01), cysteine (26.2 +/- 1.4 compared with 19.8 +/- 1.3 μmol/L; P < 0.05), and glutathione (2.08 +/- 0.12 compared with 1.12 +/- 0.18 mmol/L RBCs; P < 0.05); lower glutathione fractional (83.14 +/- 6.43% compared with 45.80 +/- 5.69%/d; P < 0.01) and absolute (1.73 +/- 0.16 compared with 0.55 +/- 0.12 mmol/L RBCs per day; P < 0.01) synthesis rates; and higher plasma oxidative stress (304 +/- 16 compared with 346 +/- 20 Carratelli units; P < 0.05) and plasma F(2)-isoprostanes (97.7 +/- 8.3 compared with 136.3 +/- 11.3 pg/mL; P < 0.05). Precursor supplementation in elderly subjects led to a 94.6% higher glutathione concentration, a 78.8% higher fractional synthesis rate, a 230.9% higher absolute synthesis rate, and significantly lower plasma oxidative stress and F(2)-isoprostanes. No differences in these measures were observed between younger subjects and supplemented elderly subjects ... Glutathione deficiency in elderly humans occurs because of a marked reduction in synthesis. Dietary supplementation with the glutathione precursors cysteine and glycine fully restores glutathione synthesis and concentrations and lowers levels of oxidative stress and oxidant damages. These findings suggest a practical and effective approach to decreasing oxidative stress in aging" - See l-glycine products at iHerb and n-acetyl cysteine at Amazon.com.