The Sweet Truth About Glycine

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The 10almonds Team

Make Your Collagen Work Better

This is Dr. James Nicolantonio. He’s a doctor of pharmacy, and a research scientist. He has a passion for evidence-based nutrition, and has written numerous books on the subject.

Controversy! Dr. DiNicolatonio’s work has included cardiovascular research, in which field he has made the case for increasing (rather than decreasing) the recommended amount of salt in our diet. This, of course, goes very much against the popular status quo.

We haven’t reviewed that research so we won’t comment on it here, but we thought it worth a mention as a point of interest. We’ll investigate his claims in that regard another time, though!

Today, however, we’ll be looking at his incisive, yet not controversial, work pertaining to collagen and glycine.

A quick recap on collagen

We’ve written about collagen before, and its importance for maintaining… Well, pretty much most of our body, really, buta deficiency in collagen can particularly weaken bones and joints.

On a more surface level, collagen’s also important for healthy elastic skin, and many people take it for that reason alone,

Since collagen is found only in animals, even collagen supplements are animal-based (often marine collagen or bovine collagen). However, if we don’t want to consume those, we can (like most animals) synthesize it ourselves from the relevant amino acids, which we can get from plants (and also laboratories, in some cases).

You can read our previous article about this, here:

We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of

What does he want us to know about collagen?

We’ll save time and space here: first, he’d like us to know the same as what we said in our article above

However, there is also more:

Let’s assume that your body has collagen to process. You either consumed it, or your body has synthesized it. We’ll skip describing the many steps of collagen synthesis, fascinating as that is, and get to the point:

When our body weaves together collagen fibrils out of the (triple-helical) collagen molecules…

  • the cross-linking of the collagen requires lysyl oxidase
  • the lysyl oxidase (which we make inside us) deanimates some other amino acids yielding aldehydes that allow the stable cross-links important for the high tensile strength of collagen, but to do that, it requires copper
  • in order to use the copper it needs to be in its reduced cuprous form and that requires vitamin C
  • but moving it around the body requires vitamin A

So in other words: if you are taking (or synthesizing) collagen, you also need copper and vitamins A and C.

However! Just to make things harder, if you take copper and vitamin C together, it’ll reduce the copper too soon in the wrong place.

Dr. DiNicolantonio therefore advises taking vitamin C after copper, with a 75 minutes gap between them.

What does he want us to know about glycine?

Glycine is one of the amino acids that makes up collagen. Specifically, it makes up every third amino acid in collagen, and even more specifically, it’s also the rate-limiting factor in the formation of glutathione, which is a potent endogenous (i.e., we make it inside us) antioxidant that works hard to fight inflammation inside the body.

What this means: if your joints are prone to inflammation, being glycine-deficient means a double-whammy of woe.

As well as being one of the amino acids most key to collagen production, glycine has another collagen-related role:

First, the problem: as we age, glycated collagen accumulates in the skin and cartilage (that’s bad; there is supposed to be collagen there, but not glycated).

More on glycation and what it is and why it is so bad:

Are You Eating Advanced Glycation End-Products? The Trouble Of The AGEs

Now, the solution: glycine suppresses advanced glycation end products, including the glycation of collagen.

See for example:

Glycine Suppresses AGE/RAGE Signaling Pathway and Subsequent Oxidative Stress by Restoring Glo1 Function

With these three important functions of glycine in mind…

Dr. DiNicolantonio therefore advises getting glycine at a dose of 100mg/kg/day. So, if you’re the same size as this rather medium-sized writer, that means 7.2g/day.

Where can I get it?

Glycine is found in many foods, including gelatin for those who eat that, eggs for the vegetarians, and spinach for vegans.

However, if you’d like to simply take it as a supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon

(the above product is not clear whether it’s animal-derived or not, so if that’s important to you, shop around. This writer got some locally that is certified vegan, but is in Europe rather than N. America, which won’t help most of our subscribers)

Note: pure glycine is a white crystalline powder that has the same sweetness as glucose. Indeed, that is how it got its name, from the Greek “γλυκύς”, pronounced /ɡly.kýs/, meaning “sweet”. Yes, same etymology as glucose.

So don’t worry that you’ve been conned if you order it and think “this is sugar!”; it just looks and tastes the same.

That does mean you should buy from a reputable source though, as a con would be very easy!

this does also mean that if you like a little sugar/sweetener in your tea or coffee, glycine can be used as a healthy substitute.

If you don’t like sweet tastes, then, condolences. This writer pours two espresso coffees (love this decaffeinated coffee that actually tastes good), puts the glycine in the first, and then uses the second to get rid of the sweet taste of the first. So that’s one way to do it.

Enjoy (if you can!)

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  • Are You Getting The Right Kinds Of Flavonoids?

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First, a quick note on terms:

    • Polyphenol: often simplified to “beneficial phytochemical”, but that’s misleading as there are many beneficial phytochemicals (naturally-occurring chemicals in plants) that do not meet the definition of “polyphenol”, which is very specifically: a compound containing more than one phenolic hydroxyl group
      • Flavonoid: a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in many plants, named for its association with yellow pigment (although the end result in appearance might not be yellow, depending on what else is present, but it’s present in the mix biochemically!). Flavonoids can also be further subcategorized into:
        • Anthocyanidins
        • Anthoxanthins
        • Flavanones
        • Flavanonols
        • Flavans
        • Isoflavonoids

    …which can each be subcategorized further, but if we continue expanding the tree of possibilities each time, this page is going to get very long, so we’ll call it sufficient there for now!

    However, this subcategorization isn’t only important to biologists who get excited about taxonomy; it has important health implications too.

    For example, let’s remember when we wrote about how you can Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin ← Quercetin is a flavonol (which, in turn, is a kind of anthoxanthin)!

    Well, not really!

    By this we mean it’s not one flavonol, but rather a stack of flavonols in a trenchcoat, and by “trenchcoat” we mean a vegetable or something.

    In fact, in today’s “This or That” article, we mentioned that one of the items compared has “more polyphenols (most notably a wide range of flavonoids including multiple anthocyanins, luteolin, and 6 different kinds of quercetin)”. Because we’ve a little more room here and we’re writing about flavonoids, we’ll mention that the data we were looking at, looked like this:

    • Flavonoids
      • Anthocyanins
        • Cyanidin 3-O-(6”-malonyl-glucoside)
        • Cyanidin 3-O-glucoside
      • Flavones
        • Luteolin 7-O-glucuronide
      • Flavonols
        • Quercetin 3-O-(6″-malonyl-glucoside)
        • Quercetin 3-O-(6″-malonyl-glucoside) 7-O-glucoside
        • Quercetin 3-O-galactoside
        • Quercetin 3-O-glucoside
        • Quercetin 3-O-glucuronide
        • Quercetin 3-O-rhamnoside

    …along with a lot of additional data that we won’t bore you with here, pertaining to mg/100g values, minimums and maximums, standard deviations, studies done, etc. The data table fills the screen and more.

    So you see, even following the tree of possibilities down as far as quercetin yields 9 flavonoids including 6 kinds of quercetin present in that plant alone, and that’s a fairly modest list.

    Why this matters for your health

    Scientists (Dr. Alysha Thompson et al.) examined an uncontroversial topic, the connection between flavonoid intake and good health.

    What was a little different from the norm, though, was that the study looked beyond flavonoid quantity, to also look at diversity of flavonoids.

    They found that people who consumed a greater variety of flavonoids had much lower risks of death and major chronic diseases, independent of total quantity consumed.

    This was a big (n=124,805) study, looking at UK adults aged 40+: participants were mostly women (56%), with 60% overweight or obese and 25% hypertensive.

    Shocking nobody in this British population study, 67% of the total flavonoid consumption came from tea.

    Which is a problem. Not because there’s anything wrong with tea (it’s a very healthful drink), but rather because very many people had it as their primary source of flavonoids, which isn’t very diverse; indeed, flavan-3-ols (mostly found in tea) made up 87% of total flavonoid intake.

    Quantity vs Diversity

    People who consumed the largest amounts of flavonoids (mostly from tea) often consumed the least diverse flavonoids (i.e. fewest kinds).

    Which made the results all the starker, since those consuming a wider range of flavonoids got more from beneficial compounds like anthocyanins, flavanones, and proanthocyanidins—rather than just thearubigins from tea.

    Notably, the people who did get more diversity of flavonoids tended to be healthier overall; they were also (as a matter of demographic information, since it’s there in the paper) more likely to be female, older, leaner, more physically active, better educated, and less likely to smoke.

    This means that while previous recommendations focused on quantity (e.g. 400–600 mg/day of flavan-3-ols), this study suggests expanding to include as many different sources of flavonoids as reasonably possible.

    In particular, the researches found that top-scorers for diversity of flavonoids includes berries, apples, citrus fruits, so they’re best enjoyed alongside black and green teas (which are very good), and yes, even some dark chocolate if you like.

    Note that written like that, it looks like 6 different sources. But for example, how many different kinds of flavonoid does a blueberry contain?

    Well, we can’t give an exhaustive list because each one has to be tested for individually, but we can say that a partial list of different kinds of flavonoids contained in a blueberry looks like this:

    • Cyanidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-galactoside)
    • Cyanidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-glucoside)
    • Cyanidin 3-O-arabinoside
    • Cyanidin 3-O-galactoside
    • Cyanidin 3-O-glucoside
    • Delphinidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-galactoside)
    • Delphinidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-glucoside)
    • Delphinidin 3-O-arabinoside
    • Delphinidin 3-O-galactoside
    • Delphinidin 3-O-glucoside
    • Malvidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-galactoside)
    • Malvidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-glucoside)
    • Malvidin 3-O-arabinoside
    • Malvidin 3-O-galactoside
    • Malvidin 3-O-glucoside
    • Peonidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-galactoside)
    • Peonidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-glucoside)
    • Peonidin 3-O-arabinoside
    • Peonidin 3-O-galactoside
    • Peonidin 3-O-glucoside
    • Petunidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-galactoside)
    • Petunidin 3-O-(6”-acetyl-glucoside)
    • Petunidin 3-O-arabinoside
    • Petunidin 3-O-galactoside
    • Petunidin 3-O-glucoside
    • (-)-Epicatechin
    • Kaempferol 3-O-glucoside
    • Myricetin 3-O-arabinoside
    • Myricetin 3-O-rhamnoside
    • Quercetin 3-O-acetyl-rhamnoside
    • Quercetin 3-O-arabinoside
    • Quercetin 3-O-galactoside
    • Quercetin 3-O-glucoside
    • Quercetin 3-O-xyloside

    And there are plenty of other polyphenols in a blueberry too; that’s just the flavonoids, and not even an exhaustive list of those!

    So, all this to say, diversity can be found easily, if you know where to look 😎

    You can read the paper in full, here: High diversity of dietary flavonoid intake is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality and major chronic diseases

    In summary…

    The trick to getting the most health benefits out of flavonoids is not focusing on total quantity, but on diversity.

    Want to learn more?

    Check out:

    Alternatively, for a middle-ground approach of targeting 16 most polyphenol delivering foods, see this super-dense arrangement:

    Mediterranean Diet… In A Pill? ← it’s about plant extracts from 16 specific foods, and the polyphenols they deliver

    Enjoy!

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  • Kava vs Anxiety

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Kava, sometimes also called “kava kava” but we’re just going to call it kava once for the sake of brevity, is a heart-shaped herb that bestows the powers of the Black Panther is popularly enjoyed for its anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing) effects. Despite the similarity of the name in many languages, it is unrelated to coffee (except insofar as they are both plants), and its botanical name is Piper methysticum.

    Does it work?

    Yes! At least in the short-term; more on that later.

    Firstly, you may be wondering how it works; it works by its potentiation of GABA receptors in the brain. GABA (or gamma-aminobutyric acid, to give it its full name), as you may recall, is a neurotransmitter that is associated with feelings of calm; we wrote about it here:

    GABA Against Stress/Anxiety

    So, what does “potentiation of GABA receptors” mean? It means… Scientists don’t for 100% sure know how it works yet, but it does make GABA receptors fire more. It’s possible that to some degree GABA fits the “molecular lock” of the receptors and causes them to say “GABA is here”; it’s also possible that they just make them more sensitive to the real GABA that is there, or there could be another explanation as yet undiscovered. Either way, it means that taking kava has a similar effect to having increased GABA levels in the brain:

    Kavain, the Major Constituent of the Anxiolytic Kava Extract, Potentiates GABAA Receptors: Functional Characteristics and Molecular Mechanism

    As for how much to use, 20–300mg appears to be an effective dose, and most sources recommend 80–250mg:

    Kava as a Clinical Nutrient: Promises and Challenges

    This review of clinical trials found that it was more effective than placebo in only 3 of 7 trials; specifically, it was beneficial in the short-term and not in the long-term. For these reasons, the researchers concluded:

    ❝Kava Kava appears to be a short-term treatment for anxiety, but not a replacement for prolonged anti-anxiety use. Although not witnessed in this review, liver toxicity is especially possible if taken longer than 8 weeks.❞

    Source: The effectiveness and safety of Kava Kava for treating anxiety symptoms: A systematic review and analysis of randomized clinical trials

    Another review of clinical trials found better results over the course of 11 clinical trials, though again, short-term treatment only was considered to be where the “safe and effective” claim can be placed:

    ❝Compared with placebo, kava extract appears to be an effective symptomatic treatment option for anxiety. The data available from the reviewed studies suggest that kava is relatively safe for short-term treatment (1 to 24 weeks), although more information is required. Further rigorous investigations, particularly into the long-term safety profile of kava are warrant❞

    Source: Kava extract for treating anxiety

    Is it safe?

    Nope! It has been associated with liver damage:

    FDA | Consumer Advisory: Kava-Containing Dietary Supplements May be Associated With Severe Liver Injury

    The likely main mechanism of toxicity is that it simply monopolizes the liver’s metabolic abilities, meaning that while it’s metabolizing the kava, it’s not metabolizing other things (such as alcohol or other medications), which will then build up, and potentially overwhelm the liver:

    Constituents in kava extracts potentially involved in hepatotoxicity: a review

    However, traditionally-prepared kava has not had the same effect as modern extracts; at first it seemed the difference was the traditional aqueous extracts vs modern acetonic/ethanolic extracts, but eventually that was found not to be the case, as toxicity occurred with industrial aqueous extracts too. The conclusion so far is that it is about the quality of the source ingredients, and the problems inherent to mass-production:

    Kava hepatotoxicity in traditional and modern use: the presumed Pacific kava paradox hypothesis revisited

    Meanwhile, short-term use doesn’t seem to have this problem, if you’re not drinking alcohol or taking medications that affect the liver:

    Mechanisms/risk factors – kava-associated hepatotoxicity ← you’ll need to scroll down to 4.2.4 to read about this

    Want to try it?

    If the potential for hepatotoxicity doesn’t put you off, here’s an example product on Amazon ← we do not recommend it, but we are not the boss of you, and maybe you’re confident about your liver and want to use it only very short-term?

    Take care!

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  • The Sleep Solution – by Dr. Chris Winter

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    This book’s blurb contains a bold claim:

    ❝If you want to fix your sleep problems, Internet tips and tricks aren’t going to do it for you. You need to really understand what’s going on with your sleep—both what your problems are and how to solve them.❞

    So, how well does it deliver, on the strength of being a whole book rather than an Internet article?

    Well, for sure we wouldn’t have the room to include all the information that Dr. Winter does, in one of our main feature articles here (we’d need to spread it out over several weeks, at least).

    He examines very thoroughly what is going on with sleep, sleep disturbance, and sleep deprivation. What’s going on with the different phases of sleep (far more than your phone’s sleep app will), and how imbalances in these can cause problems.

    While the usual sleep hygiene tips do get a mention, he broadly assumes we know that part already. Instead, he focuses on aligning as many components as possible of our rich and interesting circadian rhythm. Yes, even if that means clawing our way out of insomnia and/or a bad sleep schedule (or lack of coherent sleep schedule) first. He gives plenty of practical advice on how to do that.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to more deeply understand sleep, what is or isn’t wrong with yours, and how you can fix it, this book is a great resource.

    Click here to check out The Sleep Solution, and enjoy the benefits of better rest!

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Related Posts

  • How To Manage Your Mood With Food (8 Ways)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    It is hard to be mentally healthy for long without good diet. Food can not only affect our mood directly, but also indirectly because of how our brain works (or doesn’t, if we don’t have the right nutrients, or it is being sabotaged in some other dietary fashion).

    Selecting the food for setting the mood

    Mind, the mental health charity, have these advices to share (with some bonus notes of our own):

    1. Eat regularly: blood sugar peaks and troughs can heighten feelings of tiredness, irritability, or depression. Instead, enjoy foods that are high in energy but low in glycemic index, such as nuts, seeds, and oats—that way you’ll have plenty of energy, that lasts longer.
    2. Choose the right fats: omega-3 fatty acids are essential for the brain. So are omega-6 fatty acids, but it is rare to have a deficiency in omega-6, and indeed, many people have the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 far too imbalanced in omega-6’s favor. So, focussing on getting more omega-3 fatty acids is important. Nuts and seeds are again great, as are avocados, eggs, and oily fish.
    3. Get a healthy amount of protein: and importantly, with a good mix of amino acids—so a variety of sources of protein is best. In particular, if you are vegan, paying attention to ensure you get a full spread of amino acids is critical, as not many plants have all the ones we need (soy does, though). The reason this is important for mood is because many of those amino acids double up as the building blocks of neurotransmitters, so they’re not entirely interchangeable.
    4. Stay hydrated: our bodies are famously made of mostly water, and our brain will not work well if it’s dehydrated. The human body can squeeze water out of almost anything that has water in it, but water from food (such as fruit, or soups) is best. If enjoying actual drinks, then herbal teas are excellent for hydration.
    5. Eat a rainbow of fruits and vegetables: these have many nutrients that are important for brain health, and the point of the colors is that most of those pigments are themselves nutrients. Additionally, the fiber content of fruits and vegetables is of topmost important for your heart, and as you’ll remember (we say it often, because it’s true): what’s good for your heart is good for your brain.
    6. Limit caffeine intake: for many people, excess caffeine can lead to feelings of anxiety, disrupt your sleep, and for everyone who has developed an addiction to it, it will cause withdrawal symptoms if stopped abruptly. Cutting back on caffeine, or even eliminating it, may improve your mood and sleep quality. Note, however, that if you have ADHD, then your brain’s physiological relationship with caffeine is a little different, and stimulants will be more beneficial (and less deleterious) for you than for most people. If unsure, speak with your doctor about this one.
    7. Support your gut health: because of the gut-brain axis (via the vagal nerve), and also because nearly all of our endogenous serotonin is made in the gut (along with other neurotransmitters/hormones), getting plenty of fiber is important, and probiotics can help too.
    8. Consider food intolerances: if you know you have one, then keep that in mind and tailor your diet accordingly. If you suspect you have one, seek a nutritionist’s help to find out for sure. These can affect many aspects of health, including mood, so should not be dismissed as a triviality.

    For more on all of this, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    The 6 Pillars Of Nutritional Psychiatry

    Take care!

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  • Dark Calories – by Dr. Catherine Shanahan

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    You may be wondering: do we really need a 416-page book to say “don’t use vegetable oils”?

    The author, who was a biochemist before becoming a family physician, takes a lot of care to explain in ways the non-chemists amongst us can understand (with molecular diagrams very well-labelled), exactly why certain seed/vegetable oils (both of those names being imprecise and unhelpful as umbrella terms) cause metabolic problems for us, when in contrast olive oil, avocado oil, and even peanut oil, do not.

    Understanding is, for many, the root foundation of compliance. We are more likely to abide by rules we understand the logic behind, than seemingly arbitrary “thou shalt not…” proclamations.

    So that’s an important strength of the book, demystifying various fats and how our body responds to them on a biochemical level, not just “is associated with such-and-such, based on observational population studies”. This kind of explanation clears up why, for example, seed oils correlate with obesity more than calories, sugar, wheat, or beef—having as it does to do with affecting our body’s ability to generate and use energy.

    She also offers practical tips/reminders throughout, such as how “organic” does not necessarily mean “healthy” (indeed, many poisonous plants can be grown “organically”), and nor does “organic” mean “unrefined”, it speaks only for the conditions in which the raw product was first made, before other things were done to it later.

    We learn a lot, too, about the processes of oxidation, the biochemistry behind that (more diagrams!), and of course the inflammatory response to same (an important factor in most if not all chronic disease).

    The style is mostly very easy-to-read pop-science, though if you’re not a chemist, you’ll probably need to slow down for the biochemistry explanations (this reviewer certainly did).

    Bottom line: this is more than just a litany against vegetable oils; it’s a ground-upwards education in metabolic biochemistry for the layperson, and what that means for us in terms of chronic disease risks.

    Click here to check out Dark Calories, and learn what’s going on with these oils!

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  • The Menopause Brain – by Dr. Lisa Mosconi

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    The 10almonds Team

    With her PhD in neuroscience and nuclear medicine (a branch of radiology, used for certain types of brain scans, amongst other purposes), whereas many authors will mention “brain fog” as a symptom of menopause, Dr. Mosconi can (and will) point to a shadowy patch on a brain scan and say “that’s the brain fog, there”.

    And so on for many other symptoms of menopause that are commonly dismissed as “all in your head”, notwithstanding that “in your head” is the worst place for a problem to be. You keep almost your entire self in there!

    Dr. Mosconi covers how hormones influence not just our moods in a superficial way, but also change the structure of our brain over time.

    Importantly, she also gives an outline of how to stay on the ball; what things to watch out for when your doctor probably won’t, and what things to ask for when your doctor probably won’t suggest them.

    Bottom line: if menopause is a thing in your life (or honestly, even if it isn’t but you are running on estrogen rather than testosterone), then this is a book for you.

    Click here to check out The Menopause Brain, and look after yours!

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