Ray Peat has written about the wonderful anti-stress and protective abilities of Glycine. In this article we will pull together all the quotes we can find where Ray Peat is discussing this amazing substance.
“A generous supply of glycine/gelatin, against a balanced background of amino acids, has a great variety of antistress actions. Glycine is recognized as an “inhibitory” neurotransmitter, and promotes natural sleep. Used as a supplement, it has helped to promote recovery from strokes and seizures, and to improve learning and memory. But in every type of cell, it apparently has the same kind of quieting, protective antistress action. The range of injuries produced by an excess of tryptophan and serotonin seems to be prevented or corrected by a generous supply of glycine. Fibrosis, free radical damage, inflammation, cell death from ATP depletion or calcium overload, mitochondrial damage, diabetes, etc., can be prevented or alleviated by glycine.”
“Some of these amino acids, such as glycine, have a very broad range of cell-protective actions.”
“When collagen is broken down, it releases factors that promote wound healing and suppress tumor invasiveness. (Pasco, et al., 2003) Glycine itself is one of the factors promoting wound healing and tumor inhibition.”
“It has a wide range of antitumor actions, including the inhibition of new blood vessel formation (angiogenesis), and it has shown protective activity in liver cancer and melanoma. Since glycine is non-toxic (if the kidneys are working, since any amino acid will contribute to the production of ammonia), this kind of chemotherapy can be pleasant.”
“When we eat animal proteins in the traditional ways (for example, eating fish head soup, as well as the muscles, or “head-cheese” as well as pork chops, and chicken-foot soup as well as drumsticks), we assimilate a large amount of glycine and gelatin. This whole-animal balance of amino acids supports all sorts of biological process, including a balanced growth of children’s tissues and organs.”
“In the context of the excitatory actions of estrogen, and the inhibitory action of glycine, it would be reasonable to think of glycine as one of the antiestrogenic substances. “
“Glycine’s inhibitory effects appear to oppose estrogen’s actions generally, in sensory and motor nerves, in regulating angiogenesis, and in modulating the cytokines and “chemokines” that are involved in so many inflammatory and degenerative diseases, especially tumor necrosis factor (TNF), nitric oxide (NO), and prostaglandins. Exposure to estrogen early in life can affect the health in adulthood, and so can an early deficiency of glycine. The degenerative diseases can begin in the earliest years of life, but because aging, like growth, is a developmental process, it’s never too late to start the corrective process.”
“Glycine inhibits lipolysis (another antiexcitatory, “antiestrogenic” effect), and this in itself will make insulin more effective, and help to prevent hyperglycemia. “
“Skin cells and nerve cells and many other cells are “electrically” stabilized by glycine, and this effect is currently being described in terms of a “chloride current.” A variety of mechanisms have been proposed for the protective effects of some of the amino acids, based on their use as energy or for other metabolic purpose, but there is evidence that glycine and alanine act protectively without being metabolized, simply by their physical properties.”
“A small dose of glycine taken shortly after suffering a stroke was found to accelerate recovery, preventing the spreading of injury through its inhibitory and antiinflammatory actions. Its nerve-stabilizing action, increasing the amount of stimulation required to activate nerves, is protective in epilepsy, too. This effect is important in the regulation of sleep, breathing, and heart rhythm.”
“Glycine’s antispastic activity has been used to alleviate the muscle spasms of multiple sclerosis. It is thought to moderate some of the symptoms of schizophrenia.”
“Inflammation produces fibrosis, because stress, hypoxia, and inadequate supply of glucose stimulate the fibroblasts to produce increased amounts of collagen. In lungs, kidneys, liver, and other tissues, glycine protects against fibrosis, the opposite of what the traditional view would suggest.”
“The simplest, nonessential, amino acid, glycine, has been found to protect against carcinogenesis, inflammation, fibrosis, neurological damage, shock, asthma, and hypertension. Increased glycine improves learning (Handlemann, et al., 1989; File, et al., 1999), glycine antagonists usually impair it. Its antitoxic and cytoprotective actions are remarkable.”
“The varied antiinflammatory and protective effects of glycine can be thought of as an antiserotonin action. For example, serotonin increases the formation of TNF (tumor necrosis factor, also called cachectin), glycine inhibits it. In some situations, glycine is known to suppress the formation of serotonin.Antagonists of serotonin can potentiate glycine’s effects (Chesnoy-Marchais, et al., 2000). People who ate traditional diets, besides getting a lower concentration of tryptophan, were getting a large amount of glycine in their gelatin-rich diet.”
“In specific fibrotic conditions, such as cirrhosis of the liver, it is known that glycine and saturated fats can reverse the fibrosis. In fibrosis of the heart, thyroid hormone is sometimes able to reverse the condition. “
Both proline and glycine (which are major amino acids in gelatin) are very protective for the liver, increasing albumin, and stopping oxidative damage.
“Glycine, like carbon dioxide, protects proteins against oxidative damage (Lezcano, et al., 2006), so including gelatin (very rich in glycine) in the diet is probably protective.”
“Glycine protects against fat accumulation in alcohol-induced liver injury (Senthilkumar, et al., 2003), suggesting that dietary gelatin would complement the protective effects of saturated fats.”
Ray Peat has proven that Glycine is :
Glycine is an amino acid and is usually considered non essential due to the body being able to synthesize it from other amino acids. Needless to say, we are not the fine tuned bodies of yesteryear and do not make adequate amounts for optimal health. We also do not eat like traditional people of the past which took full advantage of the nose to tail eating habit of making sure to injest every bit of the animal that they could. Therefor, it would be beneficial to make sure dietary sources are being supplied that have copious amounts of glycine along with supplementing it if needed.