Glycine is one of the power supplements your body wants, whether it’s preventing aging, helping you sleep better, repairing yourself from alcohol abuse or just living your best life.
What is Glycine?
Glycine is an amino acid that your body uses to create proteins, which is used for the growth and maintenance of tissue and for making important substances, like hormones and enzymes.
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Sure your body naturally creates glycine from other amino acids, but it’s also found in protein-rich foods and vitamin supplement.
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Glycine is pretty amazing.
Along with being a component of protein, it has many impressive health benefits.
Here are the top 5 health benefits and uses of glycine.
The Powerful Antioxidant
Glycine is one of only three amino acids your body uses to make glutathione, a powerful antioxidant that protects your cells against oxidative damage caused by free radicals, which are thought to underlie many diseases.
Without proper glycine support, your body produces less glutathione, which negatively affects how your body handles oxidative stress.
Plus, your glutathione levels naturally decline as we get older, so it’s even more important to supplement.
Collagen for Muscle, Skin and More
Collagen is a structural protein that contains high amounts of glycine. Literally, every third to fourth amino acid in collagen is glycine.
Collagen is the most abundant and resourceful protein in your body. Its value is in providing strength for your muscles, skin, cartilage, blood, bones and ligaments.
Supporting collagen has proven to benefit skin health, relieve joint pain and prevent bone loss.
Improve Your Sleep, Quickly
Do you struggle to get a good night’s rest, either having trouble falling or staying asleep.
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There are several ways you can improve your sleep quality, but this amino acid Glycine has a calming effect on your brain and could aggressively help you fall and stay asleep including lowering your core body temperature.
Research shows that taking as little as 3 grams of glycine before bed increases how quickly you fall asleep, enhances sleep quality, reduces daytime grogginess and improves cognition.
For this reason, glycine may be a good alternative to prescription sleeping pills for improving sleep quality at night and tiredness during the day.
Protect Your Liver From Alcohol-Induced Damage
This isn’t news, but drinking too much alcohol has damaging effects on your body, especially your liver.
The three main types of alcohol-induced liver damage are:
- Fatty liver: A buildup of fat inside your liver, increasing its size.
- Alcoholic hepatitis: Caused by inflammation of the liver resulting from long-term, excessive drinking.
- Alcoholic cirrhosis: The final phase of alcoholic liver disease, occurring when the liver cells are damaged and replaced by scar tissue.
Glycine has been shown to reduce the harmful effects of alcohol on your liver.
In some cases, glycine has been shown to help reverse liver damage caused by excessive alcohol (in animals).
While moderate alcohol-induced liver damage can be reversed by abstaining from alcohol, glycine may improve the recovery process.
People with Type 2 Diabetes
A common result of Type 2 diabetes is low levels of glycine.
A condition characterized by impaired insulin secretion and action, resulting in your body not producing enough insulin or your body not responding properly to the insulin it makes.
Insulin actually decreases your blood sugar levels by signaling its uptake into cells for energy or storage.
Luckily, glycine has been found to increase insulin response in people without diabetes, there’s possibly that glycine supplements may improve impaired insulin response in people with type 2 diabetes.
