NAC and glycine: the Baylor glutathione patent
A 2016 WIPO patent from Pharmaplan LLC and Baylor College of Medicine describes a glycine-plus-N-acetylcysteine composition for restoring glutathione levels, with claimed benefits in oxidative stress, mitochondrial fuel oxidation, and mouse lifespan that the available data cannot sort by level of evidence.
Patent application WO2016191468A1 (Pharmaplan LLC and Baylor College of Medicine, 2016) describes a composition of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and glycine for restoring glutathione (GSH) levels. The patent characterizes NAC as a cysteine-delivering glutathione precursor. One possible rationale for the combination: if NAC supplies cysteine and glycine supplies the second substrate for glutathione synthesis, the pair addresses both bottlenecks at once. The available patent text does not state this reasoning explicitly.
The claimed effects include reduced oxidative stress and C-reactive protein, improved mitochondrial fuel oxidation, improved muscle outcomes in older HIV patients, protection against drug toxicity (including acetaminophen hepatotoxicity), and increased lifespan in mice receiving cysteine and glycine supplementation. The available data does not reveal which of these outcomes come from human trials, which from animal experiments, and which exist only as patent claims. Doses, effect sizes, and whether the combination outperforms either ingredient alone are not established.
N-Acetylcysteine, Eternal Search · WO2016191468A1
Sources
[1] Benefits of supplementation with n-acetylcysteine and glycine to ...
The edge links a specific patent document to NAC at high confidence (0.99), surfacing the origin of the GlyNAC hypothesis: a dual-substrate rationale for glutathione repletion. The post names what the patent actually claims and immediately marks where the evidence boundary sits, which is the genuinely useful thing to communicate.