N-Acetyl Cysteine Increases Free T3 in NTIS

May 21, 2018

N-Acetyl Cysteine Increases Free T3 in NTIS


References: Critical Care


 A reference to this article caught my eye when I saw the reference to NTIS which is jargon for Non-Thyroidal Illness Syndrome (NTIS). NTIS is what happens to you when you get critically ill, like with a heart attack. Your free T3 plummets and your reverse T3 rises dramatically. Just when you need it, your body goes into a perverse "antagonistic pleiotropy" cycle. Antagonistic pleiotropy is the concept that what is good for you in one environment, isn't good for you in another. I suspect you can make the reasoned argument that Neolithic humans, when injured or ill, were well served by "hunkering down" and getting through an illness or crisis in medical care by downregulating their metabolism. 


That allows calories to be shifted to immune function instead of metabolic function. That remains conjecture because we weren't there to test it. We just see the effect in modern humans. That's what NTIS is. Your body "Hunkers Down" in response to a crisis. In this study, the crisis was 67 patients with heart attacks. In the ICU their Free T3 and Reverse T3 were measured, and predictably they changed dramatically, shifting from regular T3 to reverse T3. NAC reversed that and improved T3. Reverse T3 reverses T3. It blocks the action of the free T3 on your body. (Remember, T3 is the active thyroid hormone your body actually runs on. You convert it from T4, made by your thyroid. T4 is not biologically active. It's simple the precursor template.) 


You feel the effect of low T3 when you get sick. You feel exhausted and can't get out of bed. A heart attack patient can hardly lift their head off the pillow. Folks in an ICU are sick. Really sick. Can hardly move. That is the nugget of Non-Thyroidal Illness Syndrome. You get a physiological stress and your body goes into "hunker down", or NTIS. In this study, N-acetyl cysteine was given to the study folks in a randomized, placebo-controlled fashion. 


The folks who got the NAC got better and had higher free T3. What is NAC? Very simple. It is the key building block to make glutathione. Glutathione is your body's key anti-oxidant. At age 20 you make tons of it, naturally. At age 50, dramatically less. Older, less, older, less. Now, let's switch to the modern era of day-to-day 24-hour stress, media, artificial light, sugar, deadlines, jerks at work - have I named enough of your stressors? Ok, add in-laws and teenagers. You feel tired all the time. Your free T3 is just too low. Could you be low in glutathione, your natural anti-oxidant? Well, NAC is the natural building block for making more of it. It is simply two amino acids plugged together, waiting for a third to be attached and presto, you have glutathione. Your stress may not be as dramatic as a heart attack, but it's nevertheless real. Could NAC help you? I bet it could. 


WWW.What will work for me. Simple. I take NAC myself. Every day. It's on Bredesen's lists of suggested supplements for brain health. That's good enough for me to pull the trigger and add it to my list. I remember back when NAC was a precious, rare ICU drug to reverse Tylenol overdoses. Worked like a charm. Then it became an ER drug. Then it became a take-home drug. Then it became an OTC supplement. You can buy it yourself. This incredibly powerful building block for you to make your own glutathione is available for you over the counter. Gives you back the vital T3 for your own energy system. Isn't that a unique cross synergy of metabolic systems? 


 Pop Quiz 


1. Free T3 is the hormone your body naturally runs on. T or F                   Answer: True 

2. You make less free T3 when you are under stress. T or F                    Answer: True. Probably a result of "antagonistic pleiotropy" which means it was good for us in one environment, but not the one we are in now. 

3. NAC boosts our ability to make free T3 when we are under stress. T or F                   Answer. Bingo. Either you guessed right or you actually read and understood the article above. 

4. We make less glutathione as we age. T or F                       Answer: Double bingo. 

5. The right way to fix our low Free T3? (Bonus question)                           Answer: Get rid of the stress, add selenium and zinc, make sure you have enough iodine, avoid PCBs and dioxins, and take a break from the teenager.  

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