Boosting Levels of known Antioxidant may help Resist Age-related Decline

The chemical structure of glutathione, an antioxidant that may help resist the toxins that are an underlying cause of aging. Credit: Graphic courtesy of Oregon State University

OSU researchers have found that a specific detoxification compound, glutathione, helps resist the toxic stresses of everyday life – but its levels decline with age and this sets the stage for a wide range of age-related health problems. A new study also highlighted a compound – N-acetyl-cysteine, or NAC — that is already used in high doses in medical detoxification emergencies. But the researchers said that at much lower levels NAC might help maintain glutathione levels and prevent the routine metabolic declines associated with aging.

Decline of these detoxification pathways are causally linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. Prof. Hagen said: “In young animal cells, stress doesn’t cause such a rapid loss of glutathione. The cells from older animals, on the other hand, were quickly depleted of glutathione and died twice as fast when subjected to stress. “But pretreatment with NAC increased glutathione levels in the older cells and largely helped offset that level of cell death.”

Glutathione is such an important antioxidant that its existence appears to date back as far as oxygen-dependent, or aerobic life itself – about 1.5 billion years. It’s a principal compound to detoxify environmental stresses, air pollutants, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and many other toxic insults.

In this study, scientists tried to identify the resistance to toxins of young cells, compared to those of older cells. They used a toxic compound called menadione to stress the cells, and in the face of that stress the younger cells lost significantly less of their glutathione than older cells did. The glutathione levels of young rat cells never decreased to less than 35% of its initial level, whereas in older rat cells glutathione levels plummeted to 10% of their original level.

NAC is known to boost the metabolic function of glutathione and increase its rate of synthesis. It’s already used in emergency medicine to help patients in a toxic crisis, such as ingestion of poisonous levels of heavy metals. It’s believed to be a very safe compound to use even at extremely high levels – and the scientists are hypothesizing that it might have significant value at much lower doses to maintain glutathione levels and improve health.

Higher levels of it – boosted by NAC – might help reduce the toxicity of some prescription drugs, cancer chemotherapies, and treat other health issues. “Using NAC as a prophylactic, instead of an intervention, may allow glutathione levels to be maintained for detoxification in older adults,” the researchers wrote in their conclusion.
http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2016/oct/boosting-levels-known-antioxidant-may-help-resist-age-related-decline