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NAC Lowers DOMS, Initially, but on Day 5-6 it Makes Things Worse | Plus: Putative Performance Benefit is Negligible

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In the long run, choking the exercise-induced fire too much is going to negate all the cherishable benefits of working out. As a SuppVersity  reader, you know what hormesis is and are aware that the proinflammatory assault of exercise, is an essential stimulant to musculoskeletal adaptation - a number of human and dozens of animal experiments show: if you quell the production of pro-inflammatory reactive oxygen species with high doses of vitamin C and E the growth and health response to exercise will be impaired. And vitamin C + E are not the only radical scavengers with this side effect. In 2013, I wrote about a study  that clearly demonstrated how N-acetyl-l-cysteine aka NAC "Reduces Inflammation, Muscle Injury & Cytokine Expression, but Impairs Anabolic Signaling, Satellite Cell Activity and Recovery" ( re-read it ) - keep that in mind before getting overly excited. Read about exercise- and nutrition-related studies in the SuppVersity Classic Articles ...
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Taurine Pumps Up Strength & Recovery in Response to Eccentric Curls. NAC Decreases Peformance & Boosts Fat Oxidation!? Exercise Reduces, Caloric Restriction Increases Inflammation. Carnitine Rescues Fast Twitch Muscle

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Blood glucose alone would not last for 90s of running up the stairs. 80 minutes! That's the SuppVersity Figure of the Week and the impressive timespan you could (theoretically) fuel your energy demands during exercise at 70% of your VO2max from your muscle glycogen stores. The latter hold the energetic equivalent of ~1,500kcal and are thus an almost 40x larger reservoir of energy than the tiny amounts of glucose that's floating around in your bloodstream (data based on Gleeson. 2008). If you had to rely on that alone, you would pass out after 2 mins of the previously mentioned exercise at 70% VO2max. Obviously no workout is going to be fueled 100% exclusively by glucose/glycogen, so that you can still use the amount of energy your body stores in the fat cells (~93,000kcal) and in form of tissue proteins (~49,000kcal) and keep running for another 7,400 minutes or 5.13 days... theoretically Enough of the figures let's get to some recent research results Yo...
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Science Round-Up Seconds: NAC Reduces Inflammation, Muscle Injury & Cytokine Expression, but Impairs Anabolic Signaling, Satellite Cell Activity and Recovery

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Inflammatory cytokines won't build muscle, but without them your body won't notice that it's time to adapt. As a SuppVersity student and listener of the SuppVersity Science Round-Up on Super Human Radio, you will be well aware of the fact that "inflammation" is a pretty loosely - or, I should say, lousily - defined and largely misunderstood term. What most people think of, when they hear the word has little to do with our bodies cytokine reponse (which is "inflammation") and is all about oxidative stress, which is one of the triggers of the release of cytokine. This is a process of which you've already learned that it plays a vitally important role in our bodies' ability to appropriately react to the wear and tear each and every of our cells is exposed to day by day, month by month and year by year. In fact, the misunderstood "inflammation" is a vital necessity to avoid the development of cancer. After all, it is the inflammator...
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Mitohormesis - Suffocated Mitochondria Live Longer: Scientists Probe Longevity-Effect of Low-Level Stressors.

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Image 1: Walter Breuning died in April 2011at the biblical age of 114! And you bet that a man who has seen two world wars has had his share of mitohormetic stress in his life. As a diligent reader of the SuppVersity you will be familiar with the work of S. Schmeisser and M. Ristow from the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Jena , here in good old Germany (where not everyone eats Sauerkraut und Weisswurst, even now that the Oktoberfest is in full swing). In previous publications, the scientists have (at least in my mind conclusively) argued against the publicly accepted free-radical hypothesis of aging, which implies that the presence of free radicals is one of the fundamental mechanisms of aging. Now, a few month after the publication of their last review back in May 2011, they are presenting the latest results from their own lab in a paper that is going to be published in the October issue of Hormone and Metabolic Research ( Schmeisser. 2011 ) . Want to liv...
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N-Acetylcysteine Hampers Adaptive Response To Exercise. 50% Reduction in JNK Phosphorylation Entail Reduced Expression of Genes Involved in Cell Proliferation, Apoptosis, Inflammation and DNA Repair.

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Image 1: The "beneficial" bad guys under the microscope: Reactive oxygen species (green-yellow) within endosomes of human smooth muscle cells ( Circulation Research . 09/2007 ) If you listened to my dissertation on the sulfur-amino acids on Carl Lenore's Super Human Radio (cf. shownotes ), you will be aware that I was and still am quite skeptical as far as the touted beneficial effects of n-acetylcysteine (NAC) supplementation on exercise performance are concerned . A very recent study that has been conducted by a team of Australian scientists from Deakin and Victoria University in Melbourne appears to warrant this skepticism. In a 2006 study ( McKennah. 2006 ) the same group had found that N-acetylcysteine can attenuate the decline in muscle Na+,K+-pump activity and thus delay fatigue during prolonged exercise in humans. But even then, the data on real-world and long-term benefits of n-acetylcysteine supplementation was conflictive and the authors' conclu...
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Amino Acids for Super Humans. Part IV: Purported Ergogenics - Beta Alanine, Carnitine, Glutamine

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This relevant for all of you - regardless of whether you can or cannot spare the time: Tune in live and listen to me @ Carl Lenore's Super Human Radio to learn that amino acids are far more than just the building blocks of the proteins of your body... Listen live to SHR @ 12:00PM ET Amino Acids for Super Humans. Part IV Purported Ergogenics - Beta Alanine, Carnitine, Glutamine In the fourth installment of the show, we are going to look at three of those amino acids everyone interested in fitness and body building knows: Beta Alanine, Carnitine and Glutamine . Will the increase performance, fat loss and muscle gains, as some supplement companies would have it, or will they mostly cost your hard earned money or even make you sick? Tune in live @ 1pm ET and learn more!
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Show Notes: Amino Acids for Super Humans. Part III - Sulfur, More Than Just Rotten Eggs.

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Amino Acids for Super Humans. Part III Sulfur, More Than Just Rotten Eggs Episode available for download, now ! notice! this are 100% uncorrected show notes not originally intended for publication In this episode we are going to tackle: methionine (essential amino acid, EAA) cysteine (conditionally essential amino acid) n-acetyl cysteine (acetylated variety of cysteine, not found in food sources) taurine (non-essential amino acid)
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Amino Acids for Super Humans. Part III - Sulfur, More Than Just Rotten Eggs.

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This relevant for all of you - regardless of whether you can or cannot spare the time: Tune in live and listen to me @ Carl Lenore's Super Human Radio to learn that amino acids are far more than just the building blocks of the proteins of your body... Listen live to SHR @ 12:00PM ET Amino Acids for Super Humans. Part III Sulfur, More Than Just Rotten Eggs update : Episode available for download, now ! In the third installment of the show, we are going to look at the commonly overlooked. yet vitally important sulfur-containing amino acid methionine , its "children" and "grand children", cysteine , n-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) and the purported "cell volumizer" taurine. As usual, I will do my best to provide relevant examples and relate the theory to practical advice. The magic of individual amino acids will be tackled in the shows to come. update : Episode available for download, now !
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NAC + Zinc + Selen = Silver Bullett Against Mercury Poisoning

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Mercury certainly is among the most dangerous and, at the same time, most ubiquitous heavy metals, we are exposed to. In a recent article (thanks to Dominique for raising my awareness of its publication) strength coach Charles Poliquin references a 2010 study from Michigan State ( Wirth. 2010 ) : Looking at several well-designed studies, they determined that even low exposures from cadmium, lead and mercury had an impact on semen quality and reproductive hormone levels in men. As far as solutions to this problem are concerned, Polliquin refers somewhat dubiously to "a specific herbal combination" of "andrographis paniculata, zinc citrate, humulus lupulus, and curcuma longa" without providing scientific evidence for why he thinks this specific formula would work (guess what, Charles sells it ;-). Chances would have it, though, that Joshi et al., in a very recent study ( Joshi. 2011 , still ahead of print) report the beneficial effects of another, from my perspe...
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Reactive Oxygen Specimen (ROS) Trigger Muscle Hypertrophy via IGF-1 Signaling

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I have touched on the "usefulness" of oxidation, only yesterday. Now, a very recent study appears to confirm the notion that a controlled amount of inflammation is necessary in order to achieve metabolic and muscular adaptations. Figure 1: Eesult of the quantitative analysis of myotube diameter after IGF-I and NAC treatment ( Handayaningsih. 2011 ) Scientists from  Division of Diabetes and Endocrinology and Division of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine published a paper ( Handayaningsih. 2011 ) describing an investigation into the role of Reactive Oxygen Specimen (ROS) in the IGF1-signaling pathway. In this study N-Acetyl-Cystein (NAC), commonly used by recreational athletes as an "ergogenic" aid, blunted myocyte response to IGF1 and thus inhibited muscle hypertophy (cf. Figure 1): While treatment with H2O2 significantly enhanced IGF-I-induced phosphorylation of the IGF-I receptor (IGF-IR), IGF-IR phosphoryla...
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NAC Improves Markers of Oxidative Stress Induced by High Intensity Exercise

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The word "anti-oxidant" has lost some of its glory within the past couple of years. In absence of overt deficiency, the real-world effects of super high doses of vitamins and other nutrients which have been found to exhibit anti-oxidant activities is negligible if not opposing to the originally intended effect. One of those anti-oxidants which may even produce adverse side effects at very high doses is N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) . For athletes who expose their bodies to a high amount of oxidative damage, NAC may yet well be a candidate for the list of basic supplements you may want to consider to take. A recent study ( Trevin. 2010 ) involving nine well-trained male cyclists (mean ± SD; 27 ± 6 years of age, VO2peak 69.4 ± 5.8 ml.kg−1.min−1) found that a NAC -loading protocoll consisting of 2 days on 100mg/kg NAC, followed by one day with two servings of 100mg/kg and another dose of 100mg/kg 1h before a 10 minute self-paced time trial, produced the following results: Respirato...
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