2 replies to this topic

[brosci]

I'm looking to add some glycine to my diet to support joints / tendons and for it's potential anti-inflammatory cardio-protective properties.

 

I'm wondering if I should go with L-Glycine, Porcine Gelatin, or Bovine Hydrolyzed Collagen (or something else?)  It seems like bovine collagen might be the best absorbed and supply glycine with proline / hydroxyproline in a nice balance with other amino acids and peptides, but I'm ever so slightly concerned about BSE / Prions.  I see a few versions of Marine Collagen for sale that look interesting, and soy protein isolate actually looks decent for vegetable-sourced glycine.

 

What's the safest / healthiest way to supplement glycine over my diet?  Are there any potential negatives to supplementing a pure L-glycine powder longterm?

Edited by brosci, 19 July 2015 - 02:47 AM.

[Darryl]

If your primary concern is $/g glycine, I've found USP glycine to be less expensive than gelatin or hydrolyzed collagen (20% glycine) by a significant margin. Glycine is also preferred as an alternative sweetener, about as sweet as glucose/dextrose. I take my heaping tsp in my nighttime hibiscus petal (flor de Jamaica) tea. Commercial USP glycine mostly synthesized by ammonolysis of chloroacetic acid, so its suitable for vegetarians.

 

The major advantage of collagen and gelatin products may be its 25% hydroxyproline content. Hydroxyproline catabolized to proline for collagen synthesis, with the proline residues then hydroxylated at collagen polysomes into hydroxyproline in a process that requires ascorbic acid (scurvy is a disease of unmodified collagen proline). Proline supplementation, as from collagen and gelatin products, also seems to offer benefits in wound healing.

 

Proline isn't an essential amino acid, as its synthesized from arginine and glutamic acid, and without the branch-point stochiometry concerns that may limit glycine synthesis.

 

One downside to too much dietary glycine, proline, hydroproline, or ascorbic acid is that all are excreted as kidney stone forming oxalic acid, this being a larger contributor than poorly absorbed dietary oxalic acid. A given quantity of glycine taken as l-glycine has only 40% the dietary load of oxalic acid precursors as gelatin or collagen  

[aconita]

Collagen is mainly available as porcine, bovine, poultry or marine, marine is more expensive and I am not sure it is worth the effort.

 

Bovine collagen comes from BSE free cows' skin and undergo a process that makes BSE very unlikely to be a concern, AFAIK BSE has never been found in bovine collagen.

 

The big difference between collagen and gelatin is that gelatin is only partially hydrolyzed therefore it gets digested in its amino acids before been absorbed by the intestines while collagen is fully hydrolyzed and is not digested therefore passing directly as collagen in the blood, not a small difference since decline in collagen production is usually not due to a lack of amino acids (if diet is reasonable) but by defective biosynthesis, assembly, postranslational modification, secretion, or other processes involved in normal collagen production, some of which naturally decline with aging.

 

Collagen (5gr twice a day) with hyaluronic acid (150mg/day) and maybe glucosamine sulfate (1,5gr/day) will likely make a superior supplement than glycine or gelatin.