NAC Supplement Benefits: 5 Reasons To Take NAC

As an antioxidant supplement, NAC or N-acetyl-cysteine could have many benefits to your health and wellbeing.

NAC is an amino acid, formed from the cysteine essential amino acid. Cysteine is a highly sulphur rich molecule and this is how it obtains its high-powered antioxidant action. NAC is a limiting part of glutathione cycling and production within in the body. Glutathione is one of the most powerful antioxidants in the body and contains cysteine.

Antioxidants, such as glutathione and N-acetyl-cysteine, are capable of minimizing damages done to the cells by toxins or free radical molecules. The natural role of antioxidants in the body is to neutralise free radicals that are produced or consumed by the body. Damage can also happen through the energy producing reactions that have to take place in the mitochondria of muscle tissues.

Free radicals contain unstable atom structures and will react with body tissues causing serious damages within cells. Such events can lead to cancers. When damages occur, the body must send in neutralising and repairing molecules. This is done to prevent threatening escalation of damage and preserve itself.

N-acetyl-cysteine is a product of glutathione, one of the cells most potent and powerful antioxidants that it can call upon. Especially with exercise, when oxidative stresses are at one of the highest levels, glutathione is needed in the muscle tissues where the exercises are localized.

Antioxidant supplements could have many health benefits for you health, from potential cancer preventive actions to stress and muscle recovery. Let’s look at the antioxidant NAC specifically, with it’s supplemental benefits, so you can decide if this NAC supplements are for you.

Top 5 Benefits of NAC Supplements

Inflammatory stresses and free radical molecule production can happen in various scenarios from overactive joints, over exposure of the skin to sunlight and chemicals within the foods we eat. A lot of diseases are caused through the accumulation of oxidative stress caused by radical molecules. Antioxidants like NAC can help to prevent the build up of oxidative stress.

NAC Benefits with High Intensity Exercise

Especially when exercising, oxidative stresses are at one of the highest levels. Antioxidants like NAC and glutathione are needed in the muscle tissues, where the exercises are localized. During exercise, the body sharply increases its metabolic or energy production in the mitochondria, our cellular energy powerhouse. Energy forming reactions can produce damaging free radical molecules and increased energy production increases this risk.

Exercise, antioxidant Balance & oxidative Stress

With any exercise, antioxidant levels will drop within the body too. These factors increase risk of damage and stress caused from unstable free radical molecules. Unstable radicals can react with and change the structures of key life molecules within your body. These include proteins, DNA and fatty acids in your cell membranes.

With high intensity exercise, your antioxidant levels become very influential on muscle recovery, stress reduction and overall body wellness after exercise.

This is a result of their direct activity on minimising oxidative cell stresses.

NAC Supplements & Exercise

As antioxidant, NAC and glutathione are able to reduce the inflammation and overall stresses on the body, in various scenarios.

Another thing NAC is good at is preventing cell membrane fatty acid oxidation. This limits muscle function and muscle ability to access key nutrients during and after exercise.

NAC supplementation was found to have a positive influence on muscle performance in initial studies, including resistance to muscle exhaustion and delaying fatigue onset. This includes sprinting and explosive exercises. NAC supplements were seen to assist with a positive antioxidant balance in the cell, supporting healthy glutathione levels.

In short, this means NAC might be able to assist with your gains and slim muscle building at the gym. NAC could support healthy recovery from exercise and minimise localized cell damages that can lead to more serious events or prevent muscle building. The antioxidant action and effects of NAC in the muscle tissue after exercise is one key benefit of NAC supplements.

NAC Supplement Benefits to Joint Health

The lack of joint cartilage and supporting tissues, through chronic joint wear, leads to inflammation and joint pain. Chronic inflammation such as with arthritis leads to the production of inflammatory cytokines. Antioxidants provide essential support to tissues that are in a state of chronic inflammation, tackling the causes of the issue immediately.

This is where supplementary NAC may have a potential benefit to helping suffers or prevent suffering, as a result of excessive joint wear or damage.

Studies have shown that N-acetyl cysteine or NAC supplements might prevent osteoarthritis. This is where the accumulation of free radicals in certain key joints leads to severe pain and deformity of joints. Eventually cartilage wears down to an unrepairable state, but mild cartilage damage can repair itself. NAC supplements have been specifically shown to display potential as a treatment for this joint disease.

This could be important for the elder members of our globally aging population, where arthritic risk increases and joints become weaker and more unstable.

Cancer & NAC Supplements

Chronic inflammation, such as arthritis, leads to cancer causing events within the body. As antioxidant levels are depleted, the cells within the body and DNA get more and more exposure to damaging free radicals. This can ultimately lead to cancer.

Antioxidants such as NAC or glutathione are able to mop up cancer causing free radicals quite easily in the body and therefore might be a preventative measure for various cancers in the body. Supplementation with NAC could help to prevent or reduce cancer risk and development.

It is possible that NAC supplements could one day become part of an additional treatment for various cancers.

Skin Cancer & Sunburn

One way you can get cancer is through excessive sun exposure without adequate body antioxidants, acclimatisation to the sun and or protection. UV radiation exposure is one of most important factors in skin cancer and aging.

Repeated overexposure to damaging sun rays can lead to cancer causing events, such as direct oxidation of the DNA. All it takes is one of these events to go unchecked, to cause a type of skin or other cancer.

UV caused free radicals cause oxidative and cancer-causing stress in the skin cells when your body’s antioxidants are out of balance. This is where your NAC supplement might be of use, either for sun exposure or sun damage prevention. NAC, or n-acetyl-cysteine, helps to maintain an antioxidant balance in the body and might help to prevent skin or other UV caused cancers.

The sun has been shown to deplete glutathione levels, which help the body sensitise to UV. NAC is directly involved in glutathione level maintenance and NAC supplements might be of benefit in helping to sensitize the body and protect it from damaging UV.

Selected studies show that supplementary NAC might be able to protect skin cells from UV-induced skin cancer.

Studies have suggested that NAC could be used as a sunburn pill, to protect against oxidative inflammation and stress. NAC has all the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant qualities that match the profile of a sunburn preventative.

NAC Benefits On Bodily Detoxification

As well as UV radiation from the sun, you are exposed to a soup of toxins every day. The balance of antioxidant levels in the body, such as NAC, are essential for the detoxification process. NAC can help to eliminate damaging toxins from the body and has also developed a lot of interest as a liver cleansing antioxidant.

The liver is one of the major detoxification organs in the body, its functioning is vital to keeping the body in top health and condition. Supplemental use of NAC has been shown to dramatically reduce oxidative stress in the liver.

NAC also enhances glutathione activity, this adds to its potential to cleanse the liver. Using NAC as a supplement might be able to improve liver function, especially after injury from excessive alcohol intake or paracetamol use.

Supplementing with NAC might also help with the detoxification ability of the kidneys, after NAC supplements reduced the effects of a heavy metal water toxin on the kidney. Damages to the kidney and liver from excesses in another heavy metal, chromium, were lessened and reversed with NAC. NAC supplements might benefit the detoxification pathways in both the kidneys and liver.

Conclusion

Supplements containing antioxidants, such as NAC, could benefit the body’s systems in various way. Including preventing many different pathways to serious cell damage.

Cell damage events from unstable free radical molecules can lead to cancers. Antioxidants like NAC benefit the prevention of these actions.

The anti-inflammatory actions of NAC assist with the prevention of chronic inflammatory diseases and sun induced inflammatory damage. This preventative action includes various inflammatory diseases of the joints.

NAC supplements may also assist with the reduction of radical damage, oxidative stress, muscle fatigue and may help to support optimal muscle performance at the gym.

Supplementing with NAC could support the whole body’s antioxidant levels, while promoting healthy body detoxification.

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