Took NAC today

I've been taking it for 3 months now. I haven't had any side effects. My coughing seems to be a bit better and so far my lungs are stable. I just ordered more. Good luck!

@sueinmn AI has so much improved from a few years ago but without it I would never had known how many food restrictions, medicines like Ibruprofen, and times to take the medicine, in my latest case Cipro. Everytime I have a question I have no doctor I can readily call each time, I would drive them Nuts. That is the kind of medicine use I have for meds. No one should ever rely on AI for a medical diagnosis, see a doctor for that. Finally, the paid and unpaid subscriptions on Open AI, Gemini, etc are the only reliable way to get information. General searches while claiming o be true AI are not, they are slanted toward products.

@picartist
Not to mention that AI systems seem to be sycophantic. They flatter you and tell you often what you want to hear as the info is based on the prompt given. Try challenging an answer next time and you'll see what I mean. Doesn't happen all the time but some of the time which gives me pause!

After reading through these posts about NAC, I have a question. On the Lung Matters site, I posted about taking NAC, and the administrator said that NAC has been shown to impair cilia action. She has posted a study on this. Has anyone here ever heard about this or read about this? It is concerning to me, since I need every bit of cilia action I can muster.

@ursala7
From what I can determine from reading from the various lung organizations, there are no recommendations for or against NAC for bronchiectasis because the evidence is still considered low certainty.

Bottom line is that NAC looks promising and appears well tolerated, but larger, better controlled trials are still needed.

There are so few treatments for Bronchiectasis my attitude is you may as well try it you can always stop it.

@scoop Thanks for your input! I'm glad if it helps someone. I may go back to it eventually.

I have been wondering if supplements help us. More and more research says that supplements are a waste of money.

Ling

@wangling @scoop @ursala7
Let's begin by saying that supplements are another form of medication- any time you introduce a substance beyond what your diet provides or your body manufactures, you are medicating yourself.

As a medicine, a supplement can be beneficial, harmful or neutral.

Supplements can also interact with each other, or with other medicines you take, whether prescription or over the counter.

All medicines and supplements must be evaluated based on whether the benefits of using them outweigh any risks.

What about studies and reviews? Some are scientifically sound and provide solid information. Many are commissioned by someone "with skin in the game" and a goal of proving or disproving a particular point. Overall, most are poorly designed and/or executed - too few participants, not having a control group, not accounting for differences between people, poor followup...

So, how do we use the info? Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) allows you to look specifically for reviews of published studies/papers on topics of your choice within a specific time frame. Using that tool to read the summary, then possibly do a deeper dive into individual studies (citations are included.)
Phew! If you're still here you begin to understand why it takes so long to find good answers. At this point AI is NOT a shortcut in this process, because you have to read every source they cite to see if it meets the criteria for being a good study.

If you can cite the exact study from Lung Matters, I will look at it - the studies I found were either regarding nasal cilia, not lungs, or dated back to 1987.

Now it's time to take this discussion back to the topic at hand NAC supplements. Some people here find it helpful for thinning and/or reducing mucus. In early days of my journey I tried it and thought it helped a bit. But I am always in the "less is better" camp so stopped it to see what happened - I detected no difference so I no longer use it.

@ursala7
You can take it orally or you can nebulize it. So it depends on which one they are referring to with the Cilia action.

@irenea8 Good point.