A randomized, double blind human clinical trial conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine reveals that supplementation with GlyNAC – a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine – improves many age-associated defects in older humans and powerfully promotes healthy aging (View Highlight)
Published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, the study shows that older humans taking GlyNAC for 16-weeks improved many characteristic defects of aging. This includes oxidative stress, glutathione deficiency and multiple aging hallmarks affecting mitochondrial dysfunction, mitophagy, inflammation, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, genomic damage, stem cell fatigue and cellular senescence. (View Highlight)
The improvements in oxidative stress, glutathione levels and mitochondrial function in the muscle tissue of older humans taking GlyNAC were similar to the improvements in organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys of aged mice supplemented with GlyNAC as reported in the researchers’ recent publication. (View Highlight)
“Gait speed is reported to be associated with survival in older humans. Our randomized clinical trial found a significant improvement in gait speed in older humans supplemented with GlyNAC. This raises the interesting question of whether GlyNAC supplementation could have implications for survival in people”. (View Highlight)
For the last 20 years, Sekhar has been studying natural aging in humans and animal models to understand why age-related declines occur and how to correct them. His work brings mitochondria, known as the batteries of the cell, as well as free radicals and glutathione to discussions about how they are connected. (View Highlight)
Mitochondria generate energy needed for supporting cellular functions. Therefore, normal mitochondrial function is critically important for a healthy life. Sekhar believes that improving the health of malfunctioning mitochondria in aging is the key to healthy aging. “Energy supports life and mitochondria provide energy (View Highlight)
However, the ability of mitochondria to work well declines as we age. How to improve the ability of these failing mitochondria to work is not well understood, and therefore no solutions have been available. Sekhar’s group discovered earlier that supplementing GlyNAC in aged mice corrected malfunctioning mitochondria. (View Highlight)
Sekhar and his team conducted and completed such a randomized clinical trial which found that older people have widespread mitochondrial damage and other age-associated defects compared to young people. (View Highlight)
A second vital benefit offered by supplementing GlyNAC is that it also helps protect the body from an important problem called oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is caused by high levels of toxic waste products known as reactive oxygen species or free-radicals (View Highlight)
“It is really important to understand that this trial supplemented GlyNAC, and did not supplement glutathione,” says Sekhar. “This is because our body does not get its glutathione from food, but the body has to make its own glutathione every day. All our organs maintain different levels of glutathione in a delicate balance that favors health. (View Highlight)
“One of the intriguing questions from this trial is why so many improvements occur toward promoting health. We believe that this is due to the combined effort of three separate components – glycine, cysteine (from NAC) and glutathione, and not just due to glutathione itself. Glycine and cysteine are both very important for cellular health on their own, and GlyNAC provides both (View Highlight)
GlyNAC supplementation improved muscle strength in the upper and lower extremity and a trend toward increased exercise capacity. “These findings could have additional implications for improving the health of older humans, especially in terms of being able to be more physically active,” said Sekhar. (View Highlight)
As he moves forward, Sekhar plans to expand on his work to understand more about the health benefits of GlyNAC supplementation on cells, tissues and organs of the body. He plans on seeking funding to conduct larger clinical trials in more typical older humans to increase our understanding of how GlyNAC could improve health in aging. (View Highlight)
He has studied this further in aged mice and found that GlyNAC supplementation appears to correct multiple age-related declines directly in the brain, and was associated with improvements in memory and brain health – a report on these emerging new and exciting findings is in development. (View Highlight)