Comment · Tue, July 21, 2015 · Ceretropic
I have clinically diagnosed ASD. I started using N-acetyl cysteine about a month ago, here are my results.
Original post in this thread
Seicair · 9 points
Background
I've been reading about glutathione reducing oxidative stresses associated with autistic symptoms, and after a while decided to try N-acetyl cysteine to increase my glutathione levels. Search pubmed for "n-acetyl cysteine autism" for various studies.
Cysteine is an amino acid naturally present in our diet, and that our body requires to function. It can be synthesized from methionine, a different amino acid, but methionine cannot be synthesized by our body. N-acetyl cysteine is a form of cysteine with an additional acetyl group that's more readily absorbable; even at that oral availability is fairly low, (wiki says 4-10%).
Glutathione has a number of functions, among them it behaves as an antioxidant. It's made from 3 amino acids; cysteine, glycine, and glutamate. Cysteine is the limiting reagent, as glycine and glutamate can be fully synthesized by our body. Supplementation of cysteine can increase levels of glutathione.
Results
I feel a little calmer, more relaxed, laid back. The studies you can find on pubmed often focus on reduced irritability as an effect of supplementing NAC. I wasn't really sure what that meant when I started taking it, but…
What they were answering
Seicair · 2 points
That makes sense, considering the carboxylate will be charged at physiologic pH, but the amide would be neutral.
Do you know what happens once it's in the cell? Is it still a glutathione precursor with the amide on there, just with release of ammonia instead of water when the peptide bond is formed?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
It exchanges a sulfhydryl group with oxidized glutathione, which regenerates it. It also scavenges free radicals by itself, along with chelating copper.