For starters it saved my life. But for those with a short attention span. Let me start with, it is actually used in hospitals as a drug to detoxify the liver with tylenol overdoses. This is truly a miracle supplement available as an over the counter supplement that has a plethora of benefits. If you drink alcohol, take it, full stop. I am just blown away by the sheer magnitude of articles when I googled “NAC for alcohol” I dont even know where to start. You should try that search yourself.

Here is a nice summary from Forbes Magazine.

“Many acute and chronic health conditions, including aging [related issues], diabetes and heart disease are associated with low glutathione levels. Because of this, glutathione supplementation is often recommended to prevent or treat diseases,” explains Kelly Johnson-Arbor, M.D., medical toxicologist and co-medical director at the National Capital Poison Center in Washington, DC. “Since oral glutathione is not absorbed well by the human body, its precursor—NAC—is often used to achieve higher glutathione levels.”

“NAC’s potential activity against SARS-CoV-2 is still under clinical studies. However, there are clinical studies to support its use to decrease the severity, duration and frequency of influenza, common colds, recurrent bronchitis and recurrent pneumonia,” says Jia-Yia Liu, M.D., an infectious disease specialist and creator of NACPRO+, a supplement primarily based on the properties of NAC.

Why it works Your body breaks down alcohol into acetaldehyde, a highly-reactive compound that is actually much more toxic to your brain than alcohol itself. Hangover symptoms can be prevented or significantly reduced if you help your body get rid of the acetaldehyde. Hangover symptoms are caused when your liver enzymes and antioxidants try to detoxify and eliminate it, but often cannot keep up. You can help your liver by supporting your body’s natural detoxification process. One way to mop up acetaldehyde is by increasing glutathione, your body’s master antioxidant. You can increase glutathione is by taking n-acetyl- cysteine (NAC). NAC is the precursor to glutathione. Oral gluathione does not appear to be effective. I am speaking to the average person that is not getting IV vitamin treatments.

NAC Here is a nice article on Web MD I am not even going to suggest some of the benefits they are suggestion because I dont want the FBI and the FDA raiding my house at 4am for suggesting a supplement can have benefits at preventing a disease. Here is their link and a few of their suggestions.

Glutathione plays a role in many chemical reactions in your body. It also helps detoxify chemicals, including some that your body creates naturally, as well as pollutants and drugs.

“Your supply of glutathione seems to decrease as you get older, possibly because your body can’t create as much. Lower glutathione levels appear to go hand-in-hand with poorer health. For instance, lower levels may play a role in many conditions that are more likely to develop in older people.

Your glutathione levels may also decrease during certain health problems, such as:

• Cancer
• HIV/AIDS
• Type 2 diabetes
• Hepatitis
• Parkinson’s disease”

I can also say from my observation, when my dad was suffering from Parkinsons. He shuffled terribly and could barely walk and needed to lean on his walker all of the time. I took him for glutathione IVs. I took a video of him after his IV. He walked normally and said he didnt need the walker. So I told him to carry it so he could drop it and use it if he needed it. It was quite remarkable.

While NAC is generally considered safe, side effects can occur.

Possible side effects of NAC include: 

• Gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting or diarrhea
• Low blood pressure
• Anaphylactic reactions, such as rash, swelling, tightness of the chest or difficulty breathing
• Increased heart rate
• Dizziness or lightheadedness

In most cases, adverse side effects of NAC are mild. However, the supplement isn’t right for everyone. People with certain medical conditions should avoid taking NAC.

Don’t take NAC if you have a bleeding disorder, know you are allergic to NAC or suffer from cystinuria (a rare kidney stone condition). NAC can also potentially elevate your homocysteine levels in high doses, which is an amino acid associated with heart disease, explains Dr. Liu.

Although NAC is available with and without a prescription, our experts agree that anyone considering a NAC supplement should first talk with their doctor.

PS in the grandest irony of all because NAC is so effective it is still being used in emergency rooms to save lives with tylenol overdoses, so that is a justification to call it a drug and there is a current push to restrict it based upon that. I Sure hope they dont start using vitamin C in hospitals then they can take that away from us too.

Finally as I alluded to in the first paragraph. I had hepatitis C, at least since the seventies. So perhaps more than 50 years. In fact I had it before it had a name. They called it Non A Non B they didnt know what it was. My doctor from the seventies retired so they offered me my blood tests. I had highly elevated liver enzyme in my blood tests from the seventies. I also got a biopsy in the 90’s where they take a chunk of your liver out. At that point they said I was stage 3. After that there is stage 4 cirrohsis liver cancer and death. As I also said I was friends with Oz Garcia. I did a lot of IV gluathione and NAC.

Follow me for a moment it gets a bit complicated. So I was stage 3 in the 90’s based on the gold standard, a biopsy. 20 years later around 2010 I did a blood test that said I was stage one, so the insurance company refused to spend over 100k for my treatment. I said hold on I have a biopsy from the 90’s They said well its impossible that you could have improved so we will treat you. How did that happen? My doctor said I would have a compromised liver and would have to be constantly monitoring it for the rest of my life. After treatment I did my first liver scan. They said my liver was perfectly normal. I said normal for someone who has had hep c for 50 years? They said no, normal for someone who never had any disease. You decide why I am healthy with a perfectly normal liver. Not going to jail to suggest that IV vitamins and supplements could have possibly contributed to protecting my liver and reversing liver disease.

I just read Diet Evolution by Dr Gundry.  It was a fascinating read.  One of my other all time favorites is Lights Out.   Lights Out, Sleep Sugar and Survival has a huge bibliography and references countless studies that correlate the advent of electricity the invention of the light bulb and pretty much every disease that has afflicted modern man. Basically all animals and man have circadium rhythms.  The body is engaged in critical repair at night and producing hormones. If you interupt that critical  repair with artificial light you will be more susceptible to disease. He has so many studies that show the long lived people are often rural that wake up and go to sleep with natural light. ( although others ascribe the foods that these remote people eat.  It also tracks what happened when electricity and light came to the most remote farm lands in our country.  So you had places with same diet and the only variation was upsetting the sleep wake cycles with electricity and lights. Its a really fascinating read.  PS if you dont feel like reading it just try to be a little more in tune with natural light. So you can party til midnite in the summer but try to get to sleep  early ( even 9pm) 2  nights a week during the winter.

Many books talk about our genetics.  It actually makes a lot of sense your ancestors date back millions of years to the beginning of our appearance on earth however long ago you believe that to be. The ones that did not have efficient fat storage died off. The ones that didnt have an intelligent sweet tooth ate some bitter poison and died off.  I think we can agree those ideas make sense.  Dr Guthry the author of the diet evolution puts forth an even more radical idea.  He says that just like we witness all kinds of incredibly intelligent behviour for survival of species and propagation in the animal an plant kingdom, human genes are as intelligent if not more so.  He says once you reproduce, its actually in the best interest of your genes ( that want to live forever) to get rid of you.  Especially if you are gluttonous, your genes are going to assume that you are going to starve your babies so it will kill you off… Really stuff that makes you feel like you are reading science fiction. However Dr Gundry is a really famous Heart Surgeon and the book is chock full of examples of patients that were supposed to die, with extreme blockages that he cured with diet alone in a few short months. It was so fascinating I read it in 2 days.  So I will have to go back re read it and take out excerpts.  The other reason I loved this book is because he embraces high protein ( Atkins) and vegetarian ( Pritkin Ornish)  He says that start with Atkins to lose the weight but after you plateau you need to segue into a more vegetarian diet.  Really makes a lot of sense.

Have to mention Eat for Your Blood Type.  You dont even have to read the book just determine your blood type, google search foods that are supposedly good for you and bad for you and see if you feel that way when you eat those foods.  PS the interesting part of it, is that everyone was blood type O up until 10,000 years ago.  At that time type A and B were mutations. That also coincides with the advent of farming.  So supposedly type O’s cant possibly tolerate grains since grain never existed durring their reign on earth.  But then again if you subscribing to some of the other book’s theories it is somewhat irrelevant.  But its definitely worth having a peek at the foods that are suppossed to be avoided by your blood type and see if indeed they do or dont agree with you.

At the end of the day its all about being self aware. You can spend $20,000 a year and work with my best friend Oz Garcia for a year, like many of the rich and famous.  But he will insist that you keep a food log and notice how you feel after eating various foods.