Yeah, the body-wide mucous thinning properties of NAC are one of the reasons it has racked up papers showing its efficacy in a truly staggering number of illnesses and conditions. (Including neurodegenerative diseases.)
Highly recommend reading the actual literature on its effects in regard to cystic fibrosis, pancreatitis, COPD, neurodegenerative disorders, high blood pressure, ulcers, IBD, liver and kidney problems, OCD...
The list goes on at a pretty extreme length, and it sounds too good to be true, but the papers are out there.
NAC is in the category of supplements that sound unbelievably amazing on paper, but are frequently discontinued by people trying to take it long term. Some people seem to like it, but it’s common for people to take it for a while and realize it’s causing side effects like anhedonia, apathy, minor sleep disruptions, or other subtle negative effects. Not everyone, but it’s a common outcome.
It also doesn’t quite live up to a lot of the incredible sounding papers for many conditions. It’s really common to find papers or even small trials purporting to find amazing effects from supplements that fail to replicate at scale. NAC does have some legitimate applications and is even used medically for certain conditions. I’m a little more skeptical that all of the amazing positives for every condition under the sun will hold up.
When considering NAC's mechanisms, it seems that it's efficacy is likely dependent on an individuals's glutathione status.
I doubt that folks with a solid diet, high in sulfur would find much benefit from NAC.
However, as someone who's gotten to use it first hand and have dealt with lifelong, mild inflammation (puffy fingers, clogged nose here and there), it's definitely been a huge quality of life enhancer.
> When considering NAC's mechanisms, it seems that it's efficacy is likely dependent on an individuals's glutathione status.
NAC interacts with a lot of things. Not just glutathione.
It modulates glutamate activity in the brain. That’s a key neurotransmitter. It’s why it can be helpful in some specific psychiatric conditions, but also why many people discovering it to be cognitively dulling or to induce blunt effect.
It also interacts with trace minerals in your body. Taking it for a long time can reduce these levels, creating multiple secondary problems.
The list of things it does goes on and on. It’s not a simple supplement for glutathione.
Would also like to ask for a starting point in this. Googling has not really gotten me anywhere credible. Specifically related to stroke or high blood pressure (both family traits).
TLDR: NAC is a derivative of an amino acid called cysteine, as such it is a precursor for one of the most important antioxidants in the body and it can modulate key metabolic pathways associated with good health across a variety of organs, notably for decades it has been a universally successful antidote for acetaminophen (Tylenol) overdose, it’s available over the counter but NAC is not naturally found in foods, eating cysteine-rich foods like chicken turkey yogurt etc is the next best bet.
> By contrast, post-treatment with NAC aggravated ethanol-induced hepatic lipid peroxidation and worsened acute ethanol-induced liver damage in a dose-dependent manner.
The article is about improving the flow of lymph in the brain, and NAC thins mucous, lymph, and various other bodily fluids, which leads to improved flow and general clearance.
It sounds like a hero story – it's not, it's more an existential nightmare and funny story? – but I kind of accidentally came to start reading all kinds of papers. Then fiancée was diagnosed with a severe condition. And just by having read stuff I found myself needing to interject doctors during her treatment, quite pointedly, to avoid risk of harm to her and unborn child – with my view being confirmed every single time by another doctor's second opinion.
It's mostly about reading fast enough, not actually requiring a feeling of comprehension. Skimming and going fast through lots of stuff. With extreme humility!! And then bit by bit an intuition kind of grows and you cut through the jargon and get a feeling for the core things. The mights and maybes and relationships in things. And then sort of learning to trust and not trust that intuition and have it guide your reading. It mostly shows up as doubt – an active doubt? – rather than an opaque sense of not having any feeling for things. Then that sometimes refines away from doubt into a sense of clarity towards some mechanism that's probably at play. Keeping absolutely humble towards it is suuuuuuper important, and it's always necessary to retain the perspective of oneself as limited and fallible.
It's also very hard to get this stuff into words. Seems more nebulous and "cosmic" than it is. It's just how our minds and reading comprehension work. It's about feeding the pattern detection systems with... substrate? A handle on things?
There are a few reasons why it works. "Works" as in is beneficial and useful to read, beyond just trusting doctors. (Do trust doctors!, –Jusr... help them help you. That's the thing.) One reason is that doctors do not have time to read, even if they'd very much want to. This is sort of force-multiplied?... with the personalization aspect: It is immensely valuable to read molecular biology from the personal perspective of operating and being inside a specific instance of that molecular biology machinery. The doctor's view is always more general (and is always a guardrail of safety, in part because of that). Then another reason is that there is SO MUCH actionable science out there. Just eminently safe and very, very actionable. It's so hard to get it across how it might be so, how it could possibly be, but it is. It really is.
Good question; It's also hard to get this into words.
Basically I'm fine but I shouldn't be, people are fine who wouldn't have been, lost one unborn child and the next one not; Got a pretty good handle on some significant sleep issues, pulmonary issues, one of the real autoimmune diseases, autonomic nervous system issues, recovery from a life-threatening endocrine issue, pregnancy and placental viability with same issue. All completely opaque to healthcare, all surprisingly mechanistic and actionable by just... reading. Very unbelievable but this is just how it's been.
It's not about me being special or a hero or anything. The gap between really truly actionable knowledge and medical practice is so big and generally so unseen that it's hard to talk across it. Classically maddening. So easy to get there though, by just... reading.
OK, I just read the abstract and conclusion of the NAC paper posted above. But then I saw a comment from Aurornis saying it’s not that good. Not sure who I should listen to.
Which ones? This one in particular is special? See the problem? I still need to trust some authority on which ones to spend time on.
I think the parent was implying that we should try to avoid bias by reading it ourselves, but I still need to trust someone, so still getting biased feedback. "reading the paper" does not remove the bias, because I still need to narrow it down to read only specific ones.
Very interesting, especially in light of the Chinese study’s claiming to have success with a large subset of Alzheimer’s by adding a shunt to the cervical lymphatic nodes, which seems to be exactly what they’re doing here too.
For those who don’t want to wait and have someone they love who can benefit from this, simply massaging the lymph nodes in the neck 10 minutes a day also significantly increases flow through these lymph nodes and thereby increases drainage of lymph from the brain.
.. and I think there are already evidence that it tends to affect people who had regular lymphatic inflammations throughout their life (on a less serious note: like yours truly's.. the neck/throat ones.. and I am already forgetting things and blanking out and I haven't even touched 40 :/).
You absolutely can! Look up "lymphatic face drainage" on YouTube, there are lots of tutorials. You can do it with just your hands or a jade gua sha tool.
I wonder if anyone has ever done a study to see if there is a correlation between daily wet facial shaving with soap and Alzheimer's? A wet shave would be a short facial massage, whilst lathering the shaving soap.
The thyroid is I think far enough away from the main cervical lymph nodes and also the olfactory lymphatic drainage pathways too that I don’t think you need to worry about thyroid removal affecting the lymphatic drainage there.
That being said your lymphatic drainage could still be affected by many other things. Eg do you have chronically inflamed sinuses? Difficulty breathing? These would be things pointing towards greater obstruction of the drainage pathways as it points to inflammation potentially impacting the flow of lymph out of the head/brain.
I like hanging upside down which seems to get a lot of fluid flow to the brain. Using ankle hooks and an electric hoist or just hanging by the back of the knees over a bar.
Mainstream science has poo-poohed for years any notion that Oriental medicine practices for facilitating lymph flow have any utility. Nice to hear they're back on the allopathic table.
It's big leap to assume that massage of peripheral lymph vessels (e.g. arms and legs) affect lymph draining in the brain. I'm always a bit perplexed when people's first reaction to new hard science is to assume that it supports more or less pseudoscience. Especially in a forum where hard evidence is the norm and encouraged. Just because some research shares a noun with pseudoscience doesn't mean that X supports Y.
Yeah, the body-wide mucous thinning properties of NAC are one of the reasons it has racked up papers showing its efficacy in a truly staggering number of illnesses and conditions. (Including neurodegenerative diseases.)
Highly recommend reading the actual literature on its effects in regard to cystic fibrosis, pancreatitis, COPD, neurodegenerative disorders, high blood pressure, ulcers, IBD, liver and kidney problems, OCD...
The list goes on at a pretty extreme length, and it sounds too good to be true, but the papers are out there.
NAC is in the category of supplements that sound unbelievably amazing on paper, but are frequently discontinued by people trying to take it long term. Some people seem to like it, but it’s common for people to take it for a while and realize it’s causing side effects like anhedonia, apathy, minor sleep disruptions, or other subtle negative effects. Not everyone, but it’s a common outcome.
It also doesn’t quite live up to a lot of the incredible sounding papers for many conditions. It’s really common to find papers or even small trials purporting to find amazing effects from supplements that fail to replicate at scale. NAC does have some legitimate applications and is even used medically for certain conditions. I’m a little more skeptical that all of the amazing positives for every condition under the sun will hold up.
When considering NAC's mechanisms, it seems that it's efficacy is likely dependent on an individuals's glutathione status.
I doubt that folks with a solid diet, high in sulfur would find much benefit from NAC.
However, as someone who's gotten to use it first hand and have dealt with lifelong, mild inflammation (puffy fingers, clogged nose here and there), it's definitely been a huge quality of life enhancer.
> When considering NAC's mechanisms, it seems that it's efficacy is likely dependent on an individuals's glutathione status.
NAC interacts with a lot of things. Not just glutathione.
It modulates glutamate activity in the brain. That’s a key neurotransmitter. It’s why it can be helpful in some specific psychiatric conditions, but also why many people discovering it to be cognitively dulling or to induce blunt effect.
It also interacts with trace minerals in your body. Taking it for a long time can reduce these levels, creating multiple secondary problems.
The list of things it does goes on and on. It’s not a simple supplement for glutathione.
I used NAC supplement for 1 year and it changed my life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC3gH0GC8E
Can you suggest a review article or two? Interested in this as my dad passed from hemorrhagic stroke, my mom from occlusive stroke. Thanks.
Would also like to ask for a starting point in this. Googling has not really gotten me anywhere credible. Specifically related to stroke or high blood pressure (both family traits).
Here’s a starting point:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5241507/#B1
TLDR: NAC is a derivative of an amino acid called cysteine, as such it is a precursor for one of the most important antioxidants in the body and it can modulate key metabolic pathways associated with good health across a variety of organs, notably for decades it has been a universally successful antidote for acetaminophen (Tylenol) overdose, it’s available over the counter but NAC is not naturally found in foods, eating cysteine-rich foods like chicken turkey yogurt etc is the next best bet.
[dead]
It's also very effective at helping reduce the damage of alcohol, if you take it before drinking. Lessens hangovers too.
Potentially dangerous to put this idea in others' heads without being more explicit about the role of timing and the risk of harm.
A dual effect of N-acetylcysteine on acute ethanol-induced liver damage in mice - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16439183/
> By contrast, post-treatment with NAC aggravated ethanol-induced hepatic lipid peroxidation and worsened acute ethanol-induced liver damage in a dose-dependent manner.
Mice be warned!
Citation?
I can't find anything in the article about NAC or N-acetylcystein. What's the relevance?
The article is about improving the flow of lymph in the brain, and NAC thins mucous, lymph, and various other bodily fluids, which leads to improved flow and general clearance.
Thins lymph? And other bodily fluids?
Seconded.
I... I don't know how to get it across; For the love of God read the literature on NAC, alpha lipoic acid, bromhexine, and ambroxol.
Just... read. Read the molecular biology papers.
Would regular engineers like us understand molecular biology papers?
I'm just some rando and I do!
It sounds like a hero story – it's not, it's more an existential nightmare and funny story? – but I kind of accidentally came to start reading all kinds of papers. Then fiancée was diagnosed with a severe condition. And just by having read stuff I found myself needing to interject doctors during her treatment, quite pointedly, to avoid risk of harm to her and unborn child – with my view being confirmed every single time by another doctor's second opinion.
It's mostly about reading fast enough, not actually requiring a feeling of comprehension. Skimming and going fast through lots of stuff. With extreme humility!! And then bit by bit an intuition kind of grows and you cut through the jargon and get a feeling for the core things. The mights and maybes and relationships in things. And then sort of learning to trust and not trust that intuition and have it guide your reading. It mostly shows up as doubt – an active doubt? – rather than an opaque sense of not having any feeling for things. Then that sometimes refines away from doubt into a sense of clarity towards some mechanism that's probably at play. Keeping absolutely humble towards it is suuuuuuper important, and it's always necessary to retain the perspective of oneself as limited and fallible.
It's also very hard to get this stuff into words. Seems more nebulous and "cosmic" than it is. It's just how our minds and reading comprehension work. It's about feeding the pattern detection systems with... substrate? A handle on things?
There are a few reasons why it works. "Works" as in is beneficial and useful to read, beyond just trusting doctors. (Do trust doctors!, –Jusr... help them help you. That's the thing.) One reason is that doctors do not have time to read, even if they'd very much want to. This is sort of force-multiplied?... with the personalization aspect: It is immensely valuable to read molecular biology from the personal perspective of operating and being inside a specific instance of that molecular biology machinery. The doctor's view is always more general (and is always a guardrail of safety, in part because of that). Then another reason is that there is SO MUCH actionable science out there. Just eminently safe and very, very actionable. It's so hard to get it across how it might be so, how it could possibly be, but it is. It really is.
Sure, I get it - trying to understand a specific condition affecting someone close to you. I personally have very little trust in doctors.
But, outside of this need, what actionable science have you learned and applied to your own life?
Good question; It's also hard to get this into words.
Basically I'm fine but I shouldn't be, people are fine who wouldn't have been, lost one unborn child and the next one not; Got a pretty good handle on some significant sleep issues, pulmonary issues, one of the real autoimmune diseases, autonomic nervous system issues, recovery from a life-threatening endocrine issue, pregnancy and placental viability with same issue. All completely opaque to healthcare, all surprisingly mechanistic and actionable by just... reading. Very unbelievable but this is just how it's been.
It's not about me being special or a hero or anything. The gap between really truly actionable knowledge and medical practice is so big and generally so unseen that it's hard to talk across it. Classically maddening. So easy to get there though, by just... reading.
You’ll understand the abstract and the conclusion!
:eyeroll:
OK, I just read the abstract and conclusion of the NAC paper posted above. But then I saw a comment from Aurornis saying it’s not that good. Not sure who I should listen to.
Keep reading papers until you decide for yourself.
Or browse these; https://www.freefullpdf.com/search_gcse/?q=NAC#gsc.tab=0&gsc...
"just read the paper" is a bogus argument.
There are thousands of subjects with thousands of papers. To read them all would take thousands of years.
The reason we use summaries is because there is no time to be an expert at everything.
This isn't an argument. This is a description of an angle on staying alive, better, for longer. It's a competitive advantage in a Darwinian situation.
Don't read thousands of papers. Read some papers. Not too carefully. Mostly published ones.
Why talk to people? There are billions of them? It would take many years? C'mon.
Which ones? This one in particular is special? See the problem? I still need to trust some authority on which ones to spend time on.
I think the parent was implying that we should try to avoid bias by reading it ourselves, but I still need to trust someone, so still getting biased feedback. "reading the paper" does not remove the bias, because I still need to narrow it down to read only specific ones.
Where would you recommend?
Why uh.. why is this ludicrous threadjack the top comment?
Very interesting, especially in light of the Chinese study’s claiming to have success with a large subset of Alzheimer’s by adding a shunt to the cervical lymphatic nodes, which seems to be exactly what they’re doing here too.
For those who don’t want to wait and have someone they love who can benefit from this, simply massaging the lymph nodes in the neck 10 minutes a day also significantly increases flow through these lymph nodes and thereby increases drainage of lymph from the brain.
It would be really interesting if we find out that a simple 10 minute daily massage of the lymph nodes in the neck significantly prevents Alzheimer's.
.. and I think there are already evidence that it tends to affect people who had regular lymphatic inflammations throughout their life (on a less serious note: like yours truly's.. the neck/throat ones.. and I am already forgetting things and blanking out and I haven't even touched 40 :/).
Is this something I can do to myself? Is there some kind of video tutorial to see what I really need to do?
You absolutely can! Look up "lymphatic face drainage" on YouTube, there are lots of tutorials. You can do it with just your hands or a jade gua sha tool.
I wonder if anyone has ever done a study to see if there is a correlation between daily wet facial shaving with soap and Alzheimer's? A wet shave would be a short facial massage, whilst lathering the shaving soap.
Other than maybe helping with Alzheimer's as claimed above, is there any benefit to this?
Andrew Huberman did an episode in October on the lymphatic system. I learned a lot. Highly recommend.
Hmm, I had a bunch removed due to thyroid cancer. I wonder if that reduced my brains ability to clean itself out.
The thyroid is I think far enough away from the main cervical lymph nodes and also the olfactory lymphatic drainage pathways too that I don’t think you need to worry about thyroid removal affecting the lymphatic drainage there.
That being said your lymphatic drainage could still be affected by many other things. Eg do you have chronically inflamed sinuses? Difficulty breathing? These would be things pointing towards greater obstruction of the drainage pathways as it points to inflammation potentially impacting the flow of lymph out of the head/brain.
No, it spread to the cervical lymph nodes, many of which were removed.
It will turn out we just need to sit in a box for 15 minutes a day to pound us with magnets, sound waves, and hardcore vibrations to live to 125
Don't forget near infrared lasers for some photobiomodulation!
supposing you brought the light inside the body, either through the skin or some other way
also living on 600 calories a day of course
Heavy metal stops Alzheimer's! Yeah! \m/_(>_<)_\m/
Huh? What did you say? You'll have to speak up louder, though.
Makes me wonder if body posture promoting blood flow to the head (yoga or else) can be helpful here too.
I like hanging upside down which seems to get a lot of fluid flow to the brain. Using ankle hooks and an electric hoist or just hanging by the back of the knees over a bar.
[dead]
Full article: https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/scientists-unlock-brain...
Mainstream science has poo-poohed for years any notion that Oriental medicine practices for facilitating lymph flow have any utility. Nice to hear they're back on the allopathic table.
It's big leap to assume that massage of peripheral lymph vessels (e.g. arms and legs) affect lymph draining in the brain. I'm always a bit perplexed when people's first reaction to new hard science is to assume that it supports more or less pseudoscience. Especially in a forum where hard evidence is the norm and encouraged. Just because some research shares a noun with pseudoscience doesn't mean that X supports Y.
It is based on hard data: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09052-5
Is this this something that can help with autism symptoms?
I love getting my lymph nodes drained. Feels so good afterward.