What Is Glycine and How Does it Boost Brain Health?

Your brain is the most complex organ in your body. It’s the center of personality and your locus of thought. On top of that, it handles all the automatic physiological reactions you don’t spend time worrying about, like beating your heart or breathing.

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But your brain requires a lot of compounds and nutrients to stay in tip-top shape. Among the most crucial is glycine: a non-essential amino acid you probably relate more to skincare and collagen production than anything else.

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Let’s look at what glycine is and how it boosts brain health more than you might think.

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What Is Glycine?

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Glycine is an amino acid that your body naturally produces and can find in healthy foods. Other key amino acids and peptides include methionine, serine, cysteine, threonine, leucine, proline, and more.

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Glycine is one of the most important amino acids because it plays a crucial role in many bodily processes and has many beneficial effects.

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For example, glycine is needed for your skin and other tissues to produce collagen: a compound that helps tissues bind to each other. The more collagen your skin has, the better it will feel and the more supple it will be as it ages.

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Glycine is also important as it gives structure to your bones, muscles, and other connective tissues. On top of that, glycine is needed by your nervous system to send signals throughout the body properly.

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In other words, glycine is a major component of your physical health. But it can also play a critical role in mental health.

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Does Glycine Help the Brain?

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While most people think of glycine as a vital compound for skin health and ligament resilience, it's also crucial for brain health in two significant ways.

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Creatine Creation

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Firstly, glycine is one of the three amino acids needed to create another compound called creatine. Creatine allows your muscles to expend energy rapidly — imagine quickly lifting something heavy. Your muscles use creatine to produce that energy and perform the physical action. That’s one reason why many workout supplements include creatine.

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However, creatine is also vital for brain health. Certain studies indicate that creatine plays a role in brain functionality and overall neurological health.

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While the exact link isn’t yet understood, it’s clear that creatine does play a role in memory and neurological stability.

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Supported Sleep Quality

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Secondly, glycine may majorly impact brain health as it relates to sleep. When you go to sleep, your brain processes memories from the day and converts them into long-term memories. Furthermore, your brain heals from daily wear and tear; some scientists believe that spinal fluid washes over the brain to eliminate waste products when you sleep.

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Perhaps more importantly, glycine has a calming effect on your mind. Since it helps lower your core body temperature, glycine helps ensure that you both fall asleep and stay asleep for between seven and eight hours each night.

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Mental Health Benefits

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In addition to these benefits, glycine may have ancillary benefits for brain health and stability. Glycine may be related to:

• Memory formation
• Brain health and everyday damage
• Cognitive abilities

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Ultimately, glycine could be one of the most critical amino acids for long-term brain wellness.

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What Are the Further Benefits of Glycine?

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The effects of glycine supplementation go far beyond your brain, affecting your central nervous system and serving as building blocks for many tissues in the human body.

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For example, glycine is necessary to produce glutathione, a powerful antioxidant that can defend tissues and cells against free radical molecular damage (or oxidative stress). Free radical damage leads to inflammation and other negative health effects, so having enough glycine is crucial to avoid them.

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As noted above, glycine is necessary for your body to have enough collagen. Collagen plays a major role in the look and feel of your skin, hair, and nails. As you age, your skin cells produce less collagen. Providing your body with more glycine can help replenish spent collagen, leading to greater skin cell health, faster skin cell turnover, and slower wrinkle formation.

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In addition to those benefits, the use of glycine may help protect and support your liver health. While it can't stave off damage entirely, glycine may help prevent fat build-up inside the liver, which is related to conditions like alcoholic hepatitis or alcoholic cirrhosis.

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Lastly, glycine can support your heart health by helping the body manage blood pressure and other risk factors.

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How Can I Get More Glycine?

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Although your body makes glycine naturally, most of us need to get this amino acid from other sources. Luckily, it’s easy to find glycine for brain health and wellness. Here are three options if you want to increase your glycine intake:

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Dietary Choices

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Firstly, you can get glycine from foods and beverages. For example, glycine is a significant part of gelatin, which is also packed with collagen. Gelatin is used as an ingredient in many food products to improve consistency or texture.

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Aside from gelatin, you can find glycine in foods and beverages like:

• Yogurt
• Protein shakes
• Oatmeal
• Coffee and tea beverages
• Various soups
• Certain meats (since it’s a structural protein)
• Legumes

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Supplements

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Alternatively, you can give your body more glycine via dietary supplements. Remember, glycine is the primary amino acid used to make collagen.

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So if you take collagen protein supplements, you’re already giving yourself extra glycine as a side effect. You can always target glycine-specific supplements, which come in powder, tablet, or gummy form.

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The best option for improving glycine intake is by ingesting collagen protein instead. That’s because glycine competes with other amino acids in your body. Your body can only absorb a certain amount of compounds via exosomesat a time. It's less efficient to absorb glycine by itself than with other amino acids that make up collagen or creatine.

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Furthermore, you should analyze your glycine levels before taking a dedicated supplement. Certain sources of glycine might have too much. Ask a healthcare professional for medical advice before beginning any major supplement regimen.

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IV Infusions

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Lastly, you can get more glycine without changing your diet at all. Instead, you can receive IV drip infusions from Next Health.

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IV drip infusions are beneficial for several key reasons. First, your body will instantly receive extra hydration and nutrients thanks to intravenous absorption.

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Also, your body receives more nutrients and hydration through IV drip infusions because they don't pass through the digestive tract before absorption.

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Even better, Next Health offers a variety of IV drip infusions and therapies, depending on your needs. For example, our Longevity IV infusionis a perfect choice for clearing the skin, boosting brain health, revitalizing your hair and skin, and more. Glycine is one of the main ingredients in this IV infusion.

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You can check out the other IV drip infusions we offer. No matter what you choose, you’ll enjoy a comfortable and brief appointment from start to finish. We offer comfortable lounge chairs to each patient, and you can easily fit an IV drip infusion session into a busy day.

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Contact Next Health Today!

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Glycine is important not just for brain health but overall bodily wellness. If you suspect you’re a bit glycine deficient, you can quickly correct that with an IV drip infusion appointment at yourlocal Next Health facility.

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However, we offer much more than just IV drip infusions with glycine and other key nutrients. Whether it's infrared sauna therapy, cryotherapy, or something else entirely, we can help you take the right steps you need to meet your health goals.

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Contact us today for more information and to set up an appointment.

Sources:

Effects of Creatine and Resistance Training on Bone Health in Postmenopausal Women | NCBI

New therapeutic strategy for amino acid medicine: glycine improves the quality of sleep | NCBI

Alcoholic liver disease | NCBI