N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a harmless (EDIT: please check at least https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcysteine for possible side effects) compound which protects your liver, you can buy after searching like for 10 seconds
I ve been taking it for a week (1 pill, 600mg per day) before noticing that drinking doesn’t do anything. Went to a party, drank 3 pints of beer, one after another, with absolutely zero effect. Usually, just 1 pint is enough to get socially talkative, 3 pints of beer i am supposed to be very obviously drunk.
Another time, drank a third of a bottle of wine (at my place, so it cannot possibly be watered down), the only effect was nausea (which never happened before), again, zero drunk-ness effect.
Now, depending on people that anti-alcohol protection might be an advantage or drawback. I just found it interesting, so sharing here
Edit: as one comment points out: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30019966/
So big mistake here: NAC is not harmless. It does have side effects and it also has toxicity at high doses.
It has not been studied in long term use orally or IV, it’s main use bomg short term use for paracetamol overdose treatment. Inhalation is more studied but it is not absorbed into the body in the same way.
We think it is safe but we haven’t actually done human trials to be sure. What we have found in mice is that high doses can cause lung and heart damage and also when it comes to alcohol it is protective if taken before alcohol consumption BUT it amplifies the toxicity to the liver if about 4 hours taken after alcohol. All of this is summarised on the Wikipedia page which looks to be good quality.
Overall it may be a useful drug but don’t take it off label or self medicating. Medicine is littered with unexpected effects of drugs that only came out once it was too late. Thalidomide is a good example - a “wonder drug” for nausea used in pregnancy that was not tested and caused horrific birth defects which only became evident when it was too late.
Your body is not a lab, be careful experimenting with supposedly “safe” drugs.
What we have found in mice is that high doses can cause lung and heart damage
NAC promotes cancerous tumour growth in mice, just FYI. A few studies have found cancer related results.
Thank you, that’s an important note.
Evident to end users. Thalidomide was well known to the makers to be godawful for pregnant people well before then - check out the behind the bastards episode on it.
Are those the same dicks who made the fake breast milk that starved kids of nutrients or am I thinking of a The Dollop episode?
That was Nestle wasn’t it? In Africa?
Nestle gave free formula in Africa for long enough for the mothers to stop producing breast milk then charged for more, causing a bunch of starvation. Not sure if that’s what Cruxifux meant.
Plus pushing formula milk in places where clean drinking water isn’t a given is pretty supportive of spreading disease in infants.
What I use it for short term is removing middle aged smell.
Middle aged smell is the result of the skin’s antioxidant properties declining, so whenever I start getting middle age smell going, I take an NAC and the problem’s gone for a month or two.
Yes, all good reminder here. You re right
Cool. All the medical risks of alcohol for getting none of the things why I’d drink it. What a deal.
Lol again, i wasn’t taking it because, neither for, alcohol
Just learned it coincidentally
I was immediately imagining how I could use this knowledge to my advantage at a high stakes poker game or high level business negotiations, until I remembered I’m sat in my underpants talking shit on the internet.
Hey, me too! We should collab.
I guess thats one way to ask for sex
It didn’t work. My negotiation skills are terrible.
Bruh, you’re supposed to take your underpants off first.
Yes, that’s known and studied.
I am surprised how well that works! I was taking it for completely different reason, so totally unexpected
Now, depending on people that anti-alcohol protection might be an advantage or drawback.
Yup. Please, please don’t drink too much regardless of how drunk or not it gets you. Alcohol is never good for your body.
It’s also useful for other addiction treatment for things like meth, etc. IIRC it can also be used to cycle with ADHD meds to reduce tolerance, (though if taken with them, you don’t get any benefit from the ADHD med).
NAC is also useful for things like COPD, and weirdly is a pretty great chelation agent for heavy metals and I want to say is also used for paracetamol overdose.
Semi-related: is there a nootropic/drugnerds community on Lemmy yet?
@Uranium_Green let me know if you find one
As some people have pointed out, it protects the liver, but from personal experience, I can’t confirm the “not getting drunk” part … so I’d be really cautious about blanket statements as the one in the title of this post.
Interesting, thanks for your experience
NAC is amazing and I highly recommend it, especially for long covid problems involving lung capacity.
But NAC does have one potential harmful effect that I am aware of. It is a powerful antioxidant, and too much antioxidant activity has been found to predict lung cancer.
So don’t take a lot of NAC for a long period of time.
I swear by it myself. It has done amazing things for me. But it is a powerful drug (I think it’s a drug and not a supplement because I don’t think it’s a nutrient but I could be wrong)
Cool, thanks for sharing!
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This is a common coughing medicine I believe. This is also used to cure paracetamol/acetaminophen poisoning
I eat a lot of paracetamol because longtime unwell. Would NAC benefit my liver from the hit it takes from paracetamol?
Not a doctor myself, so you shouldn’t base your decisions on my comment
But from I understand, NAC protects you by blocking damaging components. I would say if you take paracetamol + NAC, one (the nac) will make the other(=paracetamol) useless. Can’t have a cake, and eat it too lol
Does it protect the liver or does it reduce the alcohol consumption?
It does protect the liver. That’s the whole point. Check the article
This paper presents a rationale for investigating the use of N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) to promote abstinence or reduce heavy alcohol consumption for patients with an alcohol use disorder, particularly in the presence of liver disease.
No, that is not what the article is about. It is about reduced consumption.
NAC does protect the liver, that a fact. It’s also used to treat paracetamol overdose which otherwise, would kill the liver. I don’t know how to interpret that sentence you cited
It is known to protect the liver in specific circumstances, i.e. paracetamol overdoses, but there is not the same body of clinical evidence to support the same hypothesis in relation to alcohol. Even in paracetamol overdoses there is a time limit in its efficacy.
NAC is not a panacea when it comes to drug-induced liver injury.
That sentence says clearly it is used to reduce alcohol consumption, especially in patients with liver disease. It might also protect the liver but it doesn’t say that.
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Stick to naltrexone
