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L-Carnosine, until quite recently, has been a curiosity known only to professional biochemists. Recent studies have shown that this nutrient is very useful for athletes and those who need muscular endurance; and it also has benefits for general health, especially in slowing down the unwanted effects of aging. Carnosine is a dipeptide (two amino acids joined together) made from alanine and histidine. |
It is found naturally in many body tissues, including muscles, heart, liver, kidneys and brain, and is made in those tissues from its constituents. Supplements are commercially available, mostly from bodybuilding companies.
L-Carnosine for Endurance
Known biological functions of carnosine include:
Lactic acid buffering (reduces muscle “burn”)
Very strong antioxidant.
Aldehyde scavenger
Prevention of glycation
Prevention of carbonylation
Neurotransmitter
Heavy metal chelation
The Russian scientist W.S. Gulewich proved, in 1953, that carnosine significantly increases chemical buffering in skeletal muscles, the ones you use in exercise. Buffering is a process whereby the acid-alkali balance of the muscles is maintained, despite the fact that lactic acid production during exercise is trying to make the muscles more acidic. This is important because if the muscles get too acidic they won’t work.
Carnosine concentration, like many things in the body, declines as one gets older. This is one of the reasons why muscular endurance decreases with age – supplementation with carnosine will reverse this decline to some extent.
This is not the only reason carnosine helps the muscles. The other reasons are to do with the highly specialised terms used in the list of benefits above.
The large amount of oxygen going through the metabolism during exercise causes damage to cellular structures by a process called lipid peroxidation, which in turn creates toxic aldehydes. These, along with free radicals derived from oxygen, attack the cell membranes of the muscles.
This in turn reduces their effectiveness, because the cell membranes contain structures called calcium channels (essential in muscle contraction) which are damaged by these toxic substances.
Carbonylation is another type of molecular damage occurring during exercise, caused by reaction of these toxic aldehydes with proteins, rather than with the fatty substances in the cell membrane.
Glycation is a process whereby body proteins, including muscle proteins, are irreversibly damaged by joining with glucose, the levels of which are increased during exercise.
L-carnosine reduces the levels of all these types of toxic material and molecular damage.
In short, carnosine reduces the damage done to muscles at a cellular level during exercise.
This will help progress in training because there will be less ground to make up during rest periods. It will also help training because one’s energy level will stay higher during it, and carnosine will help in competition for the same reason.
L-carnosine is within the rules and safe.
L-Carnosine Against Aging?
This nutrient, little known up to now, is going to be the next big supplement for those who want to “grow old gracefully” – and slower.
Carnosine is known to act together with other biological antioxidants (such as vitamin E, vitamin C, zinc and selenium) and with antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase. In plain English, it has antioxidant effects of its own and also acts with other antioxidant substances and systems to give a benefit far greater than the sum of the separate effects; a phenomenon called synergy.
It also “mops up” other toxic substances produced as an inevitable side effect of metabolism, such as aldehydes. These substances damage body proteins and the fats in cell membranes by irreversibly reacting with them to form biologically useless substances in a process called carbonylation.
In addition glucose, if present in high concentration, can react with body proteins to form useless substances in a process called glycation.
L-carnosine blocks (or at least slows down radically) all these degenerative processes, hence slowing down the effects of aging.
Alzheimer’s and other dementias
This problem is one that scares most of us. Alzheimer’s is thought to be caused by abnormal versions of normal brain proteins called prions. The change to the abnormal form is triggered by various forms of damage to these proteins, all of which carnosine can prevent.
In addition, the chelating activity of L-carnosine can help slow down Alzheimer’s as follows:
Lab studies have reported that in brains with Alzheimer’s, levels of copper, zinc and several other metals are excessive. These metals may possibly be important in the degenerative change from the normal protein (called amyloid) to the abnormal one (called beta-amyloid).
Therefore, “mopping up” these excessive amounts of metals in the brain ought to slow down Alzheimer’s. Experimental work with nerve cells has shown that, whether or not this is the way L-carnosine works, it does protect nerve cells against degenerative change of the sort found in Alzheimer’s. In short, L-carnosine protects the brain.
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