How To Increase Endogenous Glycine Synthesis?

[lampofred]

I saw somewhere that we are supposed to produce 40-50 grams of glycine per day, but whenever I get even 6-8 grams of gelatin from bone broth or a powder supplement the relaxation hits me so hard that it almost feels like a drug. So clearly I am not producing enough glycine.

Does anyone know what increases endogenous glycine synthesis? @haidut

I saw some stuff about enzymes related to serine on Wikipedia but it seemed really technical and went way over my head. Has Dr. Peat ever talked about this?

 

[Markus]

B6.

 

[rob]

@lampofred The enzyme converting serine to glycine uses B6, as per Markus’ comment.

However, depending on your serine intake, the body also synthesises serine and, thus glycine, from a glycolytic intermediate. So, in this pathway adequate glucose is obviously needed and B3 (for NAD+), B6 again and glutamine (for glutamate) are necessary for the related enzymes.

 

[rob]

Btw, if haven’t already, also worth noting the study recently cited by GorillaHead: Once Again Mitochondrial Dysfunction At The Center Of AGING. Glycine Supplementation Huge

Seems as we age the deleterious epigenetic changes may inhibit our ability to synthesise glycine. So it’s probably a problem we’ll all have as we get older. Looks best mitigated by just supplementing glycine directly rather than sweating the serine pathways too much.

 

[Amazoniac]

For every glycine molecule synthesized from serine, folate is methylated and will have to transfer before it can be recycled and more glycine generated (manz, 2015). Depleting methyl groups should do it if there's enough nutrition to support cycling (magnesium, riboflavin, pyridoxine, cobalamin, and so on); consuming them in excess (through choline, betaine, meats, etc) or sparing (creatine) will go against this.

 

[Kingpinguin]

I saw a study that an increase in glucose boosted collagen production by 70% so that might be good for glycine. But that study was on diabetics so the boost might not be as dramatic.

 

[baccheion]

I saw a study that an increase in glucose boosted collagen production by 70% so that might be good for glycine. But that study was on diabetics so the boost might not be as dramatic.

Does it matter where it comes from (ie, potatoes vs. fruit)?

 

[Kingpinguin]

Does it matter where it comes from (ie, potatoes vs. fruit)?

they used injected glucose in the study. So in the end as long as it breaksdown to glucose it should show similair result?

 

[Amazoniac]

In that article, they had to estimate the daily flux of methyl groups through folate (summarized in Table Ein), the value is extremely high, if there wasn't for recycling, it would require you to ingest methylfolate in gram doses (?). This must be why Mito mentioned somewhere that you can't negate the enzymatic inefficiency with supplementation. Although recycling is extensive, some folate has to be replenished, you can't expect it to work right if you were barely getting enough when the pathway was not being strained.

Obtaining it as methylfolate should be fine for the reasons commented, but I can't explain why people experience symptoms of overmethylation right after taking when the expected reaction would be of indifference if having it already methylated had little impact; perhaps it's because of better availability.

It's safer to get glycine directly from diet because it's guaranteed (for not relying on multiple factors) and finding a way around this risks being at the expense of other aspects.