In the hospital, it is used in the intravenous and oral form to protect and restore the body before and after it has been exposed to certain chemicals, including radioactive dyes used to illuminate parts of the body during an MRI, and in the case of acetaminophen overdose. It’s also used sometimes to help cancer patients overcome the adverse events that may be associated with isoffamide and cyclophosphamide.
In 2015, NAC is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines 2015, a list of the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system.
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) is a coenzyme (helper molecule), which helps enzymes function effectively. Enzymes are responsible for every activity of life. There are two primary classes of enzymes: digestive and metabolic. Metabolic enzymes are responsible for the structuring, repair, and remodelling of every cell, and the body is under a great daily burden to supply sufficient enzymes for optimal health. Metabolic enzymes operate in every cell, every organ and every tissue, and they need constant replenishment. NAD plays an essential role in the production of ATP (Adenosine triphosphate), the basic energy molecule in the body, and has more than 100 metabolic functions in our human biochemistry.
All human activities require energy. Research has indicated that 90% of our physical energy must be made available from the biochemical processes within our cells. Each cell in your body has a particular function that needs energy to do its job. This energy is produced by various chemical processes in the cells, in little “power plants”. We refer to such power plants as the mitochondrion. Glucose is the fuel for our power plants and is obtained from the food which we consume by means of digestion. Most processes in a power plant which releases energy however require a particular co-enzyme to produce energy. Without the co-enzyme, the power plant will simply not function.
NAD is such a co-enzyme and it maintains the processes in all power plants. When there is a deficiency in NAD, or too few power plants in the cells, there will be a metabolic energy deficiency. This metabolic energy deficiency is called a NAD Energy Deficiency (NED). This NED is insufficient chemical energy for life and can be defined as the physical state which develops when the body does not have enough NAD molecules and accompanying energy metabolic cofactors to generate enough metabolic energy on a cellular level to maintain the body in a constant state of health. Such a NED can result in a wide spectrum of NED related diseases. NED mostly manifests itself as chronic fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, substance abuse, depression, stress, anxiety and various other chronic illnesses.