This is a blast from the past. Many many years ago we got a call from someone with an interest in multiple sclerosis who had the idea that n-acetyl cysteine was a real treatment for MS and asked if we would do some work in animal models. The person was dosing themselves up with the drug and we said we would give it a go. The idea was that NAC was an antioxidant molecule that would protect nerves and affect progression. But what did we find…It did absolutely nothing in EAE and with that info the person soon went off into the sunset and left the country and the MS world. But sadly they were before there time and we was doing this stuff in the early 90s and we didnt understand the model enough and it was never going to do anything the way we test it…becuase the model was looking at immunosupression we needed to do neuroprotection…Fast forward and we were hunting for treatments for the progressive alliance and why not resurect NAC we had done all the background work…and we were just about to start as we had a way to look at neuroprotection by then,,,but a paper from Israel surfaced and they said that NAC does not penetrate the CNS very well…so NAC was never going to be useful for progressive MS it that was the case. The Isrealis had made a CNS penetrant version and after 6-9 months of begging them to get access to their agent, we got nowhere and moved on.
So I was interested to read that peole are getting interested in NAC
Mîndreanu R, Chiș IC, Sevastre-Berghian A, Login C, Stan A, Stan T, Clichici S, Suciu Ș. N-Acetylcysteine in Neurological Disorders: A Systematic Review of Clinical and Translational Evidence Across Seven Disorders. Int J Mol Sci. 2026;27:3076
N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a glutathione precursor with established antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that has been investigated as a neuroprotective agent across multiple neurological conditions. This systematic review systematically mapped the clinical evidence for NAC across seven neurological disorders. PubMed and Cochrane Library were searched for studies published between 1 January 1995 and 31 December 2025. Twenty-three studies were included: traumatic brain injury (TBI, n = 6), Alzheimer’s disease (AD, n = 5), Parkinson’s disease (PD, n = 5), multiple sclerosis (n = 4), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (n = 2), and migraine (n = 1); no eligible epilepsy studies were identified. The strongest evidence emerged for acute mild TBI, where early NAC administration significantly improved symptom resolution, and for PD, where combined intravenous/oral NAC improved dopamine transporter binding. In AD, nutraceutical formulations including NAC and other active compounds showed trends toward cognitive stabilization. Most included studies had a high or serious risk of bias, and only eight of 23 assessed oxidative stress biomarkers. NAC demonstrated a favorable safety profile across all conditions. Despite fragmented and heterogeneous evidence, the encouraging signals identified warrant large-scale randomized controlled trials with a standardized biomarker assessment.
During COVID-19 glutathione which is master ant-oxidant, was implicated in protection and I went done to the Health food shop…(online) and took it for ages…I dint’ notice much side effect altough perhaps abit of acid reflux. But does it get into the CNS at therapeutic concentrations?
Maybe we put too much faith in the literature
Cherneva DI, Kehayova G, Dimitrova S, Dragomanova S. The Central Nervous System Modulatory Activities of N-Acetylcysteine: A Synthesis of Two Decades of Evidence. Curr Issues Mol Biol. 2025;47:710.
Source: multiple-sclerosis-research.org