Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
NAC is an incredibly important and very, very powerful precursor to the making of glutathione, which is one of our body’s most powerful antioxidants. Researchers have been studying this nutrient in the setting of COVID-19 as a potential treatment option.
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Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph
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Today we’re talking about supplements that can help you quit smoking. It’s doable.
Smoking harms nearly every organ in the body. There’s more than 16 million Americans currently living with a disease directly linked to their smoking. For every person who dies because they were a smoker, at least 30 go on to live with a smoking-related illness. This includes a whole bunch of cancers, heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, brain damage, lung diseases, eye diseases, and immune system issues. There’s also erectile dysfunction, wrinkles, and thinning hair.
Worldwide, smoking cigarettes causes about 7 million deaths every year. It causes about half a million deaths in the United States every year. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than non-smokers. Tune into the full podcast episode for more information about why cigarettes are harmful for your health.
Many adults who smoke want to quit. In 2015, about 68% of adult smokers wanted to stop smoking. In 2018, about 55% of adults who were smoking made an attempt to quit. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), quitting smoking is beneficial to your health at any age and smokers who quit before the age of 35 had mortality rates similar to those who never smoked. But at any age, at any point, you’ll feel improvements when you quit smoking.
Why is it so hard to quit?
Tobacco smoke contains nicotine, which gets into your brain very easily. It’s extremely addictive. Nicotine withdrawal often makes the process of quitting very difficult. When you’re addicted to nicotine, there’s both psychological and physical dependence, so when you try to quit, you get both physical and mental withdrawal symptoms. These include irritability, anxiety, and cravings. Withdrawal symptoms generally peak about 3 days after quitting and can persist for weeks or months, but they do subside.
Out of the smokers who try to quit on their own without assistance, only about 3 to 6% are successful long term. Some options for assistance include behavioral counseling and medications. Both of those increase the rate of quitting successfully. But when you combine them, it’s even a little bit better.
A meta-analysis of 61 studies from 2018 showed that among people who quit smoking with a cessation medication and perhaps some behavioral therapy, 20% were still not smoking a year later. For more information about drugs that can help with quitting smoking, tune into the full podcast episode.
Supplements can help you quit smoking
There are also supplements that can help with quitting smoking in conjunction with behavioral assistance and certain medications.
When you’re trying to quit smoking, if you get nervous and you’re eating too much, try 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP). It’s very good for calming you down and helping your mood. It’s also really good for keeping your appetite under control. You want a time-release option, like our Trim Hx® formula, because 5-HTP’s effects only last for about an hour or two. The effects of Trim Hx® can last six or seven hours and it helps you contain your appetite. That’s good because a lot of people who quit smoking start to eat more.
Another supplement that’s helpful, especially for jitteriness, is the amino acid L-theanine. A study from the Chinese Academy of Sciences used filters made out of tea that were high in L-theanine. They found that this decreased smoking in users by 57%. 32% of those tested stopped smoking at least temporarily. The green tea plant holds a lot of L-theanine in the early stages of budding. This amino acid helps the brain and improves GABA and dopamine levels. These are neurotransmitters involved with satisfaction, self-control, calming down and enjoying pleasure. L-theanine helps restore the feeling of pleasure that is often overtaken by smoking or drinking.
The most important supplement when you’re quitting smoking is N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC). It’s very good for breaking many habits. It’s good for compulsive behaviors such as gambling, biting your nails or pulling your hair. It’s good for addictive behaviors if you’re trying to quit smoking, drinking or even a drug. The Department of Psychiatry at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam did a study looking at relapse that was published in the European Addiction Research Journal. They gave very heavy smokers either placebo or 3600 mg of NAC a day. The smokers were asked to stop smoking and report on their cigarette cravings, withdrawal symptoms, and any smoking they did during the trial. The people on NAC faced milder withdrawal symptoms. They were also asked to smoke a cigarette and report on how rewarding it felt. They found that people on the NAC reported the cigarette to be less rewarding.
Another study published in the journal Redox Report looked at people who were going to behavioral therapy but were not seeing improvements. It was a 12 week trial where they gave the subjects either placebo or NAC every day. NAC strongly cut back on the number of cigarettes people smoked every day. Over 47% of the people on the NAC were able to quit smoking. So the behavioral therapy with the therapist wasn’t doing it, but when they went on the NAC, they were able to do it. Tune into the full podcast episode for more studies about the benefits of NAC.
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.
NAC is an important amino acid for numerous functions throughout the body. It has recently been studied in clinical trials for its benefit for the COVID-19 infection, along with fending off oxidative stress and inhibiting H. Pylori bacteria.
NAC, N-Acetyl Cysteine, is an amino acid that has powerful antioxidant properties. Clinical studies have proved its benefit for a variety of health purposes including the support of the liver and kidneys, respiratory health, and immune system function. However, many are unfamiliar with this amino …
Jerry Hickey is a pharmacist and radio personality and fills the esteemed role of Scientific Director and President of Invite Health. He has spent his professional life analyzing nutritional information and medical studies with the aim of creating the highest quality and most natural nutraceuticals for user’s maximum health benefits. Here, Jerry speaks about the benefits of NAC…
N-Acetyl-Cysteine, or NAC, is the stabilized version of the amino acid known as Cysteine. NAC is a conditionally-essential nutrient, required by the body in larger servings during times of stress, illness and recovery. It is known as a master antioxidant that helps support the regions of the brain that regulate mental health. It has many integral uses for the brain, liver and lungs. According to human clinical trials, NAC is effective in supporting lung health because it helps break down the immune system’s “chemical messengers”, known as leukotrienes. It also helps to break up mucus. NAC is the rate-limiting molecule involved in the synthesis of Glutathione, the Mother Antioxidant enzyme that protects your immune cells, neurotransmitters, and removes toxins in the liver. This makes NAC an extremely beneficial supplement for many people. It supports blood flow to the heart, protects the kidneys, and maintain a normal detoxification process in the liver.
In the winter, you want lung antioxidants. Why else would NAC be good in the winter? Because it gives energy to your immune system. The University of Genoa in Italy published their findings in the European Respiratory Journal about this – using almost 300 people over the age of 65 from 20 Italian medical centers. When they gave elderly people NAC over the winter it improved their immune function and strongly improved their resistance. Do you know why? N-Acetyl-Cysteine energized their immune cells, their white blood cells. Just like the lungs have to be soaked and rich in antioxidants like NAC, so does your white blood cell because when it encounters a virus or bacteria, it gobbles it up. That’s the process called phagocytosis. The white blood cell bumps into the bacteria that it doesn’t recognize it as being part of the person and it literally engulfs it and then it floods itself with hydrochloric acid and other chemicals that kill the bacteria. It literally dissolves the bacteria and the bacteria die. The white blood cell has to be protected from its own acids and its own chemical arsenal. It wages chemical warfare on viruses and bacteria and cancer cells. So, the envelope of the white blood cell, the membrane, the bilipid membrane, which is the outer layers of the white blood cell have to be rich in antioxidants. Once again, what are they? Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Selenium, B-Vitamins and NAC.
In the summer, you want it because of the pollution. I mean, the pollution rises dramatically in the summer. You know, I walk around in the city now and it feels clean. The air is clean, but it’s very dry so you want to NAC to protect your lungs from the dryness, because the dryness causes inflammation in your lungs. But in the summer, the pollution rates sky rocket. All that dampness holds the pollution down like it does in Athens, like it does in Los Angeles, all that moisture from the Hudson River, from the East River, from the Long Island Sound, from the Atlantic Ocean, holds the smog down. You need N-Acetyl-Cysteine to protect your lungs from that smog because that stuff causes violent inflammation in the lungs.
When you take NAC, you protect your immune system from its own chemical weapons, so it can go and fight bacteria and viruses and be energized. It has more energy to do its job. So, take N-Acetyl-Cysteine over the winter. You only have to take it twice a day with food. Always take N-Acetyl-Cysteine with meals. When you take NAC in the winter, take one with breakfast, one with dinner, drink your green tea. It will really help keep you healthy, because it’s really supporting your immune system. It’s a very important thing. In general, it’s great for the lungs. In general, it’s great for the eyeball. It’s great for the kidneys and liver. It is one of the best things for supporting good blood volume. You know, we’ve spoken about grape seed lowering blood pressure, well, NAC strongly supports blood flow too.
When is that important? Well, that’s important when you’re exercising. NAC opens up blood vessels, opens up blood flow and the channels that bring blood and oxygen and nutrition to your muscles. You get a better work out when you take NAC before workout. So, all you guys, 40, 50, 60 years old who are runners, take NAC about half an hour to an hour before the exercise with a meal will open up the blood vessels. Your muscles will get more oxygen. You’ll have greater endurance and you’ll be less sore and have less risk of an injury. You will do better and recover more quickly. N-Acetyl-Cysteine is also great for the brain but it also makes you feel good.
