Copper and a Revised Recipe

First, I apologize for the frequent posting. I promised I would keep readers informed of any changes I made in the Recipe.

I have been on about 7 grams daily in divided doses of glycine and NAC each for 9 months. I have decided to do an experiment and discontinue the NAC while continuing the glycine. There are a number of reasons for this:

1) I first became familiar with NAC for patients with symptoms that could be ascribable to "excess glutamate"- severe OCD, trichotillomania- and I have seen severely affected patients revolve with NAC and I never saw problems in that small population. There's lots of small studies on NAC in the psychiatric literature. So I was ready to accept using glycine (which I feel is benign) together with NAC. That was the path I took into starting GlyNAC. However, in the clinic, I was testing for fasting amino acids and would see patients with high glutathione who were exercising, some of whom were elderly. One elderly bicyclist had the highest glutathione level of the group, as did a few people with high alcohol intakes. So that undermined the idea that the only way to increase glutathione was by feeding precursors.

2) There is just nothing out there comparing glycine alone to glycine plus NAC. Arguments have been made that generally it is glycine that limits the production of glutathione and as some point out GlyNAC is patentable (being a combination of two amino acids) and glycine is not. So one has the feeling that in judging the addition of NAC to glycine that there is a thumb on the scale of which study gets funded.

3) NAC tastes nasty. On the other hand, I find glycine tastes pretty close to table sugar to me.

4) GlyNAC produces all kinds of documented improvement in bloodwork as well as clinical functioning, over the short term of the study. But when discontinued the improvements revert to baseline.

5) If you want to raise glutathione, there's lots of ways to do it- drinking alcohol, exercise, or taking copper among them.

6) I have become very interested in copper supplementation; this study looked at 10 mg copper daily https:

"Glutathione in PMNC increased significantly after supplementation in the total study group and also in women and men when analyzed separately (P = 0.01). Glutathione concentrations [geometric means (± range of 1 SD)] were 5.6 (1.9–17.1) and 12.5 (7.6–20.8) μmol/mg protein before and after 2 mo of supplementation, respectively (P < 0.01). The 2 Cp groups did not differ. eSOD activity and serum homocysteine concentration did not differ before and after controlled copper exposure; eSOD was 77.3 ± 25.6 IU/g Hb (before) and 67.3 ± 23.9 IU/g Hb (after) in the low Cp group and 83.5 ± 33.5 IU/g Hb (before) and 65.7 ± 21.3 IU/g Hb (after) in the high Cp group." www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022316622104293?via%3Dihub

Glutathione levels in this study more than doubled, which is higher than anything in the GlyNAC study.

And so, for those who are exercising, or intermittently stressing their liver by drinking alcohol, or taking copper, I was no longer confident that adding NAC to glycine would do anything at all, or that raising glutathione was the mechanism behind the improved parameters as a group noted in the study.

7) I do think that dietary acids are a chronic stressor, and that includes NAC. A good place to read about this is here https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/the-primary-sources-of-acidity-in-the-diet-are-sulfur-containing-aas-salt-and-phosphoric-acid.23351/ I have also added a potassium bicarbonate supplement taken one with meals; that is a subject for another post but I wanted to keep you informed of what I am doing.

Hence my experiment of a trial of discontinuation of NAC, continuing glycine 7 grams daily, and adding copper. I am working with topical copper preparations and will report on that in the future, here or on my blog.

Disclaimer: As always this blog represents my own personal interests and is not intended to be used as your personal medical advice or a substitute for the recommendation of your health care professionals, and is not intended to be the practice of medicine (I retired from that!).

Updated Recipe (What I am Taking)

1) glycine 1/2 teaspoon twice daily (NAC discontinued on trial)

2) copper 10-20 mg topically daily (a reasonable substitute would be 2 mg twice daily of copper glycinate available on Amazon) (I do not "balance" this with zinc)

3) magnesium carbonate powder 1 scoop in coffee in morning

4) Centrum Silver one daily

5) Vitamin K2 1 mg twice daily

6) Potassium bicarbonate https://www.amazon.com/Pure-Potassium-Bicarbonate-Gluten-Free-Supplement/dp/B08FTJTN5L/ref=sr_1_10?crid=3DH52N6ZPPWE8&keywords=potassium+carbonate+capsules+supplement&qid=1685463634&sprefix=potassium+carbonate+capsules+supplement%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-10 Potassium supplements are potentially dangerous in certain medical conditions and should only be taken under medical supervision. A place to read about potassium and the modern diet is here https://life-enhancement.com/pages/potassium-bicarbonate-supplementation.

7) Elliptical trainer to induce shortness of breath three to five times daily. (I let out my breath and go until I have to breathe, increased with training from about 15 seconds to 30 seconds). Total peak exercise time daily is under two minutes. More on this method and relationship to enzyme induction and hypoxia inducible factor in a future blog.

Selected readings on copper and related subjects

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