Benefits of NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine)

A great way to boost your health!

F N-acetyl cysteine or NAC is a form of cysteine. When consuming adequate amounts of cysteine and NAC is important for a variety of health reasons. When doing so it helps replenish important antioxidants in your body along with a couple other benefits that I will be talking about.

1. Detoxification to Prevent or Diminish Kidney and Liver Damage

NAC plays an important role in your body’s detoxification process. We have come to learn it can help prevent side effects of drugs and environmental toxins that accumulate in our body.

2. Helps Make the Antioxidant Glutathione

One of the main things we know about NAC is it has a big role in antioxidant production along with two other amino acids glutamine and glycine. NAC is also needed to make and replenish glutathione. What is glutathione you ask; well it is one of the body’s most important antioxidants. This means it’s essential for immune health which can translate to help fight oxidative stress! This can lead to improving a variety of health conditions.

3. Helps Relieve Symptoms of Respiratory Conditions

If you didn’t know NAC can help relieve symptoms of respiratory conditions because it is an antioxidant and expectorant. This helps with loosening the mucus in your air ways.

This can relate to people with COPD because they experience long-term oxidative damage and inflammation of the lung tissue. This results in the airways to constrict and leading to shortness of breath and coughing. Luckly, NAC supplements have been used in certain cases to improve the symptoms of COPD patients. In a one-year study, 600mg of NAC twice a day improved lung function and symptoms in those with stable COPD while once a day at 600mg did not.

Not only can NAC help improve symptoms COPD symptoms but it can also help people with bronchitis. Bronchitis happens when your mucous membranes in your lungs bronchial passageways become inflamed. Now with NAC producing glutathione it helps thin the mucus in your bronchial tubes relieving the effects of bronchitis.

4. Regulating Glutamate and Replenishing Glutathione for the Brain

NAC has the ability to replenish glutathione and regulate glutamate which in turn can boost brain health. Glutamate is involved in a broad range of learning, behavior and memory actions while glutathione helps reduce oxidative damage to the brain. Furthermore it can also help those with memory problems. 

5. Helps Blood Sugar Level

A little fun fact is that NAC may stabilize blood sugar by decreasing inflammation in fat cells. There has been multiple animal and human research on this topic all confirming that NAC does have these effects on the blood sugar control within the body

6. What to pull from all of this information

NAC plays many important roles in the human body. It not only helps keep you healthy and lower risk factors but it also can help improve brain function in certain accounts.