Comparing Riboceine to N-Acetyl Cysteine for increasing glutathione levels

A member wrote to me asking if I had heard of a product called MaxOne, noting that the compound "Riboceine" in the product had supposedly been proven in studies to raise liver gultathione levels 300% better than N-Acetyl Cysteine.

I did some checking and want to share my response:

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I hadn't heard of it until your message.  However, upon checking into it I have some definite opinions.

First of all, it is sold via MLM and I have avoided any and all MLM products because they tend to be over-hyped and over-priced, in addition to frequently having minimum monthly orders and autoship requirements.

Now, let's look at their claim (apparently based on an in vitro liver cell study):

According to the sales hype, MaxOne is 300% more effective than NAC at raising liver glutathione levels.  Let's suppose that is true.  Such comparison has to be per equivalent amount of milligrams (mg).  Each MaxOne capsule contains 125 mg of their trademarked product Riboceine.  Therefore, the equivalent amount of NAC which should raise glutathione levels in the liver would be 375 mg (300% of 125 mg).  MaxOne also retails for $92 per bottle of 60 capsules.  That comes to $1.53 per capsule.

The product I use, NAC Sustain, contains 100 capsules per bottle.  Each capsule contains 600 mg of N-Acetyl Cysteine.  Going by MaxOne's claims, that should raise liver glutathione levels more than 1 and a half times as much per capsule.  A bottle of NAC Sustain sells for $18.50 at Utopia Silver and is lowered to about $15.73 when you use the CZ discount code of LR001.  That comes to about 15 and 3/4 cents per capsule.

As best I can figure, you pay about 1/10th as much for the NAC and get over 1.5 the benefit as compared to MaxOne.

Isn't MLM wonderful?