An important antioxidant
• Protects the heart
• Boosts levels of the body's best antioxidant
• Improves immunity
• Protects against toxins

An antioxidant precursor
NAC is a highly efficient form of cysteine and has a number of health benefits. Cysteine is the most important precursor for glutathione (GSH), one of the body's hardest working antioxidants. NAC also helps heart health, immunity, and detoxification.

Heart health and other benefits
NAC protects the heart by preventing bad cholesterol from being oxidized, lowering levels of the dangerous amino acid homocysteine, and quenching free radicals to prevent cellular damage. NAC also protects against the damage caused by ischemia and reperfusion. GSH, which has a strong influence on the function of immune cells, is impaired during HIV infections. NAC increases GSH levels, and has been shown to block HIV production in cellular studies. It also helps prevent influenza. NAC provides protection against toxins such as pollutants, drugs, microorganisms and heavy metals. It also reduces the viscosity of mucus to help people with diseases such as bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia and cystic fibrosis.

Sustained release for longer effects
NAC by itself is very short lived in the bloodstream. AOR's NAC sustained is formulated to deliver NAC over a longer period of time, thereby prolonging its benefits.

N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine, or NAC, is an amino acid that acts as an antioxidant and is a precursor to glutathione (GSH). While glutathione can be described as the most important endogenously produced antioxidant in the human body, it tends to be cleaved inside the body into its individual amino acid units. These units are glutamic acid, glycine and cysteine. Of these, cysteine is the most critical for GSH synthesis, and N-acetyl-l¬cysteine is an excellent form of cysteine. NAC is more bioavailable than glutathione and is approximately 6 times as cost-effective. However, it is in the role of glutathione precursor that NAC exerts most of its beneficial effects. These include clinical applications for:

1. Heart disease. NAC has the unique ability to inhibit levels of a specific lipoprotein called Lp(a), which is a highly advanced indicator of heart disease. In fact, Lp(a) is a much more reliable indicator than blood cholesterol levels, low density lipoprotein (HDL) levels, or the ratio of LDL to HDL. Diets and drugs designed to lower blood cholesterol levels do not lower Lp(a) levels. Recently, it was reported that NAC is the most effective nutrient known to lower Lp(a) levels. NAC also inhibits heart damage by preventing LDL from being oxidized, by reducing plasma homocysteine levels, and by free-radical quenching effects. NAC also protects against ischaemic and reperfusion damage. NAC also potentiates the coronary dilating and anti-platelet effects of nitroglycerine as well as limiting the development of tolerance to nitroglycerine.

2. Immunity and AIDS. NAC affects immunity via its role in intracellular GSH production. This role becomes critical when normal GSH production pathways are impaired, as for example, by HIV. Intracellular GSH has a powerful influence on how well T- and B-lymphocyte cells function and on the production of phagocytes (macrophages, monocytes and neutrophils). NAC has been shown to block production of the AIDS virus in¬vitro.

3. Detoxification & Chelation. Sulphydryl groups protect against toxins by directly reacting with many poisons, including herbicides, drugs (acetaminophen), environmental pollutants such as carbon tetrachloride, microorganisms including E. coli and aflatoxin, and against heavy metals. Indirectly, NAC helps with detoxification by producing optimal amounts of GSH for reactions that make harmful compounds less toxic. NAC is approved as a drug in some European jurisdictions for use in preventing liver damage from acetaminophen overdose.

4. Respiratory effects. NAC is a useful mucolytic in persons having bronchopulmonary diseases including chronic bronchitis, cystic fibrosis, asthma, sinusitis, and pneumonia. NAC helps reduce the viscosity of mucus so that it may be more easily coughed up. Recently, a number of studies have also found a role for NAC in preventing influenza.

Although the body's intestinal absorption of NAC is both rapid and almost complete, its bioavailability (the amount that actually enters the bloodstream) is quite low. NAC levels peak in the bloodstream less than one hour after oral ingestion and have a plasma half-life of approximately 2.15 hours. In order to overcome this problem, NAC's antioxidant and cardio-protective abilities have been enhanced by its infusion to a time¬released, sustained delivery system that more than triples NAC's ability to stay in the bloodstream and prolong its benefits accordingly.