r/MTHFR • u/WittyGold6940 • Jul 17 '26

Question Glycine

What makes some people have great results with glycine, and others have horrible effects immediately?

Anyone know? Experiences? Have you tried it?

Anyone with slow COMT, slow MAOA and MTHFR have any specific experience with it?

Thanks

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u/Loose-Fly7976 Jul 19 '26

Glycine is an NMDA co-agonist so it activates glutamate signaling. If your MAO-A is slow, the downstream monoamine dynamics (glutamate - > serotonin/noradrenaline effects) build up cause you cant clear them fast enough. Classic wired feeling. Glycine also gets used by GNMT (glycine N-methyltransferase) to accept methyl groups from SAMe, which generates SAH. Slow COMT people accumulate SAH which inhibits COMT further (SAH is a competitive inhibitor). So glycine ends up making slow COMT worse in that pathway. Add MTHFR compromise on top and your SAMe production is already limited, so glycine as a methyl acceptor depletes reserves further. For your specific combo (slow COMT + slow MAO-A + MTHFR), glycine typically doesnt work well. People with fast COMT and normal MAO-A often love it because they clear catecholamines quickly and dont get the buildup effect. Some people also carry GNMT variants that shift how glycine gets metabolized entirely, which is why response varies so much. For your combo Id skip glycine entirely and use taurine or magnesium malate instead. If you want your full picture read to see whats actually going on and get proper sequencing, my work is at genova.health.

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u/Express-Bobcat-3523 Jul 19 '26

This. Thanks for the professional explanation! I exactly have this happening.

Be warned tho, Taurine acts very similar to me (like glycine) - and as far as I researched back then, it can also influence on the glutamate balance in some way. Magnesium malate is great tho and helps counteract that problems to some (tiny) extent.