NAC Depletes Faster Than You Think | Here's Why

[00:00:01]Welcome to Dr. Osborne's Zone. Today I'm breaking down the antioxidant powerhouse, Knack. And as always, if you want access to the show notes, images, and my master guide, comment nag below, and my team will send it to you. Let's dive in.

[00:00:17]So, what is knack? Knack itself stands for nacetylcyine.

[00:00:23]Some people say inacciline, but it's a modified amino acid. Knack is actually cyine. Lcyine is an essential or rather I should say conditionally essential amino acid. Um so we look at it here cyine often times you'll see an L dash in front of it. But we make cyine from methionine lionine. So you eat methionine from the foods in your diet.

[00:00:48]Your body can convert lthionine into lcyine. And then cyine this sulfur containing amino acid goes on to help your body produce the master antioxidant glutathione. So um this is one of the fundamental functions of knack. Now knack as you can see here it's a modified form of the sulfur containing amino acid cysteine.

[00:01:13]It was modified chemically to enhance absorption. Cyine is not absorbed extremely well, but when you add an acetil group to the front end of it, in acetylcysteine is much easier and much better absorbed by the body. So, it supplies the raw material your body uses to make glutathione. But that's not all that it does. We'll talk more about some of its other functions here shortly, but I think it's important that you understand just how powerful this nutrient is. And and I will say it's a nutrient although it's considered also a medicine and it's used in medicine hospital environments.

[00:01:58]It's actually classified by the World Health Organization as an essential medicine. Um but it's used for Tylenol poisoning. Those of you who've ever um heard of acid acetaminophene overdosing or Tylenol overdosing, this is one of the frontline clinical antidotes, if you will, treatments for Tylenol poisoning. And so, this is one of those things that's IV use. So, in hospital settings, they IV people with an acetylcysteine or knack to help them overcome Tylenol toxicity or acetaminophen toxicity. But it's also a supplement, right? And it's a supplement. is very very safe to take.

[00:02:37]It's got a huge tremendous longstanding track record of safety. It's accessible over the counter in many countries including the US, Canada, and Australia.

[00:02:47]And it's utilized as a precursor for what I like to call graceful aging, metabolic support, general respiratory defense. So, it's it's one of those things that you call it a medicine. It's used in medicine in IV and sometimes even in um um nebulized versions, but ultimately it's a fantastic over-the-counter supplement with many different functions. Glutathione just being the most wellstied and and and so coming back to Tylenol, one of the things that Tylenol does is it depletes glutathione so rapidly that it ends up causing acute liver damage. And so you know in acetylcyine is what your body uses to regenerate glutathione. Without it your liver's toast and so are many other functions. We use we use glutathione as a as a primary agent in our detoxification pathways.

[00:03:44]So what does knack do in the body?

[00:03:47]Well, we've already discussed this first one here. It produces glutathione but it does so much more. It plays a role as a major antioxidant. Now glutathione is an antioxidant. So in its own right, knack produces glutathione which then contributes to the antioxidant function. But detoxification is also very important. One of the ways our liver metabolizes medicines, environmental chemicals uh and other toxicants in the environment is through this process of phase one and phase 2 um detoxification in the liver which requires glutathione. So it's not just that glutathione is an antioxidant. It also aids in the breakdown of toxic compounds. Now beyond the glutathione impact, knack itself in acetylcysteine itself is mucalytic. It helps to break dulfide bonds and mucus which helps clear mucus. So if you've had an upper respiratory infection, if you've got a lot of mucus that drainage in your sinuses and your throat, this is where that can be extremely valuable. As a matter of fact, there are a number of over-the-counter products designed for people with excessive mucus production or to overcome uh or get the mucus out of the lung tissue or get the mucus out of the sinus cavities because it breaks it down. This is one of the things that we use clinically all the time. People have uh colds or flu or when people have um seasonal allergies where they're overproducing mucus to protect themselves and and they start to get backed up. Knack is wonderful home remedy that can support that. We know its role in immune support. Now this h happens to be um aiding the function of white blood cells. So it increases functionality of white blood cells and so it makes people more or less resilient to colds, flu and other infectious microorganisms. It's necessary in cellular repair. Cyine itself is very important amino acid and how our body heals and repairs and puts things back together. So it's not just glutathione.

[00:05:52]There are other functions and a couple of those that I I want to point out. So we mentioned the mucalytic aspect here the mucalytic function and then it's an anti-inflammatory and I'm going to show you shortly here. Stay with me. I'm going to show you human trials, human studies where it's actually being used to treat autoimmune conditions and the inflammation associated with them. We'll talk about that more shortly. Again, antioxidant, we talked about this and these are two functions that very few people are aware of for knack. One is that it's an antibbofilm compound. So, it breaks down biofilms.

[00:06:33]Where this is important is bacterial infection, bacterial and yeast infection more specifically. Um, if we look at this diagram here, I'm going to blow this up for you, but this is studies demonstrating the antibbofilm functionality or activity of knack against bacterial and fungal pathogens. So you can see all these different research studies showing how inetylcysteine can break down the biofilms of ecoli of clubsella interobacttor proteus sudamonus different types of sudamonus asen asenitobacteria prevatella staff most people have heard of staff and then down here you can see candida candida is a type of yeast so these microorganisms produce slimy layers that they hide under like a shield or a film. And so these are what are called biofilms. And sometimes when these microorganisms form a thick enough biofilm, they're very very hard to get rid of. And so this is why one of the reasons why antibiotic resistance um is increasing in our society is that these microorganisms produce bofilms and those biofilms protect the microorganism colonies from the effectiveness of the antibiotic. Well, knack degrades biofilms. It's actually been shown in in some research studies to be very effective and help with outcomes. And so this is a a function of knack very rarely gets discussed. You see here degrades extracellular polymer substances biofilm dismantling bacterial bofilms and restoring antibiotic susceptibility. So let's say you have an infection and you're not getting over it. Your doctor's maybe giving you two, three, four antibiotics. is very common in women with urinary tract infections.

[00:08:24]You know, one of the things you might want to have a conversation with that doctor about is use of knack and approximately 1,200 to 1,800 milligrams per day because your doctor's probably not going to know this. Most doctors don't study nutrition. So, wouldn't surprise me if you tried to have this conversation with a doctor and they're like looking at you like you had horns growing out of your head. And if your doctor doesn't really want to do that, then maybe you can just take it upon yourself to take Knack um with the antibiotic and hopefully have better outcomes than what you're having. Now, one of the other core aspects to Knack that very rarely gets discussed is the fact that it is a toxic metal chilator.

[00:09:07]So, it can bind cadmium and arsenic and lead and mercury and it can help your body pull those out. And you see here effectively binds and chilates heavy transition metals aluminum mercury lead for excretion. So very commonly um knack is effective at helping get toxic metals out of the body. Now we said earlier that knack is important for glutathione production. Here's the chemistry behind that for those of you that like the biochemistry. Knack up here is the rate limiting amino acid if you will. It's the rate limiter. So without this glutathione doesn't get produced but your body you take in knack your body converts that your liver rather a deacetylates the knack into lcyine which is an amino acid. Then lcyine combines with glutamate which is glutamine and then also glycine is added on at the end. So we have these three one two three that form glutathione.

[00:10:11]Glutathione is sometimes referred to as a tripeptide.

[00:10:16]Peptides are really popular right now.

[00:10:18]This is a tripeptide.

[00:10:20]Try because one, two, three amino acids form it. So this is the biochemistry behind that process. It's one of the functions of knack as a supplemental.

[00:10:32]That's why it increases glutathione so effectively. Now this is taken from the journal antioxidants and it's just a summary again of some of the functions of enocyline but you can see it has a direct antioxidant function. It is a chelating action. This is binding metals and removing them from the body. It builds glutathione. It's an indirect antioxidant as well. It um it has mucalytic properties. So it can break down mucus. So if you're drowning in mucus this is a great idea for you to consider this. and it's an anti-inflammatory and uh research has shown uh in in a number of autoimmune conditions that it's effective and helpful uh for some people. Now main routes of administration you can see here oral intravenous and inhalation.

[00:11:18]The intravenous would be if you're in the hospital with Tylenol uh Tylenol overdose. Inhalation would be in in some hospital scenarios and even doctors will sometimes prescribe um prescribed for home use in cases like asthmatic problems or chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. But most of the research is on oral use. Oral that means supplemental taking it by mouth.

[00:11:46]Okay, what depletes cyine? Because remember, knack in acetylcyine is a is an acetylated version of the amino acid cyine. And we can eat cyine from our diets. Um, and I'll show you foods that contain that here shortly so that you make sure you're getting enough. But what happens is that cyine as an amino acid it's it's what we call non non-essential meaning your body can produce it and it can make it from methionine the amino acid methionine.

[00:12:25]But what happens sometimes is when we're under a toxic load, methionine will not should say make cyine. It won't make it not in adequate quantities. And so what happens is cyine goes from a non-essential amino acid to what we would call conditionally essential.

[00:12:47]We'll talk more about that. So what are some things that deplete cyine or increase the need for it? Number one is those of you who are popping Tylenol for every headache you have, for every ache and pain that you have, and I see this all the time in my practice, people are chronic users of Tylenol and they think it's okay. What you're slowly doing is you're is you're aging yourself, right?

[00:13:10]Because as you're taking, the more Tylenol you take, the more cetaminophen you take, the more you're going to deplete long-term your glutathione stores, the faster you're going to age, the less antioxidant protection you're going to have. The more aggressive this builds, the worse your problems can actually get. So blocking pain instead of addressing why it exists is, in my opinion, is always a bad idea. Now, there's acute times where this could be helpful. you know, over the span of a day or two, let's say if you had a had a surgery and after the surgery, you were just trying to kind of normalize your pain levels and and get past that initial very acute pain. But I'm talking about chronic use, um, high sugar diets, and high sugar diets we know increase oxidative stress, which is part of what depletes glutathione. And when you're depleting glutathione, you're depleting cyine.

[00:13:58]Gluten consumption, the the the inflammation triggered as a result of gluten exposure. This is, you know, this is true for those of you with celiac disease or even those of you with non-seliac gluten sensitivity, but it drives up inflammation. And when you drive up inflammation, when you have chronic inflammation, so this is not just true of gluten consumption, this is true of anyone with autoimmune disease or anyone else that has uh any kind of chronic inflammatory problem, health problem, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease. Um what's happening is the inflammation, the excessive inflammation in your body is burning through your cyine. It's burning through your glutathione. It's increased. The need goes up and you generally people don't have enough coming in to match the demand of the inflammation. And then we get low protein diets. See this quite a bit um especially with methionine.

[00:14:52]Methionine really um you know to get adequate methane it's really best consumed through animal protein. Uh, but a lot of people that are on like plant-based diets um can can definitely be at risk. So, my advice there is if you're following a plant-based diet, if you're following a vegan or vegetarian diet, monitor your amino acid levels to make sure you're doing it well and make sure you're getting enough. Um, and then of course just generalized unhealthy lifestyle. So, people that are under chronic stress that don't sleep well, remember these are all things that drive inflammation. uh alcohol consumption will drive this. Increased environmental toxin burdens or exposures as I mentioned earlier heavy metal can deplete glutathione and and subsequently deplete cyine. But like if you're if you've got mold in your environment, mold and micotoxins can can drain through it. Environmental exposure to toxins like plastics, you know, the microplastics and other chemical compounds that people are exposed to.

[00:15:54]When you add up kind of our modern lifestyle where we eat and drink out of plastics, where we're exposed to pesticides, uh we're exposed to herbicides, we're exposed to environmental air pollutants, the indoor air quality, we're being exposed to VOCC's and other compounds that are outgassing from our paints and furniturees and everything else. It's like all of these things add up and all of these things are going to put a greater degree or burden on glutathione stores because it's glutathione that protects you. Now, in this scenario, you you add in medication. Remember that your liver has to process every medication you take. And we'll talk more in depth about which medications beyond Tylenol can can pose a problem shortly.

[00:16:39]And if you want my full crash course on Knack, including how to take it, how much to take, when to take, what it's good for, comment knack below and I'll send it to you.