Glycine Post 12/08/2022

Somebody on HU asked people to weigh in on whether or not taking Glycine was a good idea. I don't have a good answer, but this was my response:

So I was taking Glycine (and Taurine and NAC) together up until a year ago, when I made this post (you should read through it): Time to Cut Glycine from my Stack? (this would include GlyNAC) https://healthunlocked.com/cure-parkinsons/posts/146726012/time-to-cut-glycine-from-my-stack-this-would-include-glynac

Without re-reading all the documents in my first post, the mayor points seemed to be
A) The ability of homocisteine to do neurological harm depends on glycine levels. Without the glycine the homocisteine can only do a fraction of the damage: The Controversial Role of Homocysteine in Neurology: From Labs to Clinical Practice 2019 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6337226/
B) Glycine has also been implicated in demyelination: The Inhibitory Neurotransmitter Glycine Modulates Macrophage Activity by Activation of Neutral Amino Acid Transporters 2009 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/jnr.22395

I stopped Glycine cold.

Then about two months ago I added Glycine back to my stack. I probably added it back because A) I have a lot of Glycine in my cupboard leftover from when I was taking it, and B) I had forgotten the bad things I read about Glycine.
This is one of the pages you linked to. This is the full article: Glycine and N-acetylcysteine (GlyNAC) supplementation in older adults improves glutathione deficiency, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, enotoxicity, muscle strength, and cognition: Results of a pilot clinical trial 2021 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/ctm2.372

"This study found that compared to healthy young adults, older humans have severely elevated oxidative stress, glutathione deficiency, impaired mitochondrial function, increased inflammation, insulin resistance and endothelial dysfunction, and lower muscle strength and mental cognition. We tested and found that supplementing GlyNAC (combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine) improved all these defects, and that stopping GlyNAC resulted in a loss of benefits. The results of this trial suggests that GlyNAC supplementation could be a simple, safe and effective nutritional strategy to boost cellular defenses to protect against oxidative stress, correct mitochondrial defects to improve energy availability, increase muscle strength and cognition, and thereby promote healthy aging in humans."
"CONCLUSIONS: The results of this trial suggest that GlyNAC supplementation in OA is well tolerated and could play a novel role in improving healthy aging in OA by correcting GSH deficiency, OxS, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, body fat, muscle strength, gait speed, and cognitive function. GlyNAC supplementation also appears to improve hallmark defects in aging, which could be an exciting discovery and needs to be confirmed in future studies. Dietary supplementation of GlyNAC could improve the cellular, mitochondrial, and metabolic health of OA, improve strength and cognition, and thereby promote healthy aging. No side-effects of GlyNAC supplementation were detected during 36-week duration of the study. The results of this study support the need for future trials to assess the effects of GlyNAC supplementation in a larger population of OAs receiving GlyNAC supplementation for a longer duration."

There were only 8 older people in the trial, but the results looked really good. Especially table 4 and table 6.

The thing about evaluating treatments when you have PD, or any disease, is that it is not like nothing bad is going to happen to you if you don't take the treatment. There is hopefully a reward to go along with the risk and maybe (maybe) you can avoid the status quo risk. Or maybe you will make things worse.

It is still a coin toss. To win this game I need to move the needle, so for now I am in on Glycine. Personally, I take 1200 mg NAC, 1000 mg Taurine, and 1000 mg of Glycine together about 30 minutes before bed. There are articles showing combinations of these supplements work better together than separately.