Where is l carnitine from

Acetyl-L-carnitine, for example, can be used in doses up to 2, milligrams per day while the dose for L-carnitine L-tartrate, a form typically used to enhance athletic performance, can range all the way up to 4, milligrams. Most people use L-carnitine to help boost weight loss and increase fat burning. However, there are many other potential reasons you may want to add carnitine into your diet. It can correct deficiencies, boost brain function, prevent muscle damage, increase endurance and enhance athletic performance.

It can also be incredibly useful for vegans and vegetarians who may have a limited intake of carnitine-rich foods. Taking a supplement can be an easy way to help meet your needs for this crucial amino acid. Here are some recipes that are high in carnitine for you to try out:. When used as directed, carnitine can be safe and effective with minimal risk of side effects. Common L-carnitine side effects include stomach pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. L-carnitine may increase the risk of seizures in those with epilepsy.

Additionally, carnitine may worsen symptoms of hypothyroidism. If you have an underactive thyroid, you should consult with your doctor before taking this amino acid.

If you experience any negative side effects, be sure to report to your doctor to determine if supplementation is right for you. Finally, keep in mind that carnitine may enhance fat loss and weight loss for some people, but it should be used in combination with a healthy diet and active lifestyle to see the most results.

Josh Axe is on a mission to provide you and your family with the highest quality nutrition tips and healthy recipes in the world What Is L-Carnitine? More Nutrition Dr. Axe on Facebook 1 Dr. Axe on Twitter 22 Dr. Axe on Instagram Dr. Axe on Google Plus Dr. Axe on Youtube Dr. The use of various plants and herbs known as phytotherapy and herbalism Read More. Axe on Facebook Dr. Axe on Twitter 5 Dr. Turnip plants, which have the scientific name Brassica rapa, belong to the It was healthy, active men and women.

Better blood flow and pumps: This supplement's performance benefits not only stem from its ability to increase fat burning and decrease glycogen use, but also from the way it can enhance blood flow to the muscles. How does this work? For one, carnitine reduces oxidative damage in the body's nitric oxide NO. But it also enhances the activity of a key enzyme involved in your body's NO production. The net result is higher NO blood levels, which not only enhance energy during workouts, but also muscle recovery following workouts.

There are few negative side effects from this supplement at reasonable doses. It can cause nausea, abdominal cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea when taken in high doses. Rare side effects can include muscle weakness in uremic patients and seizures in people with seizure disorders. Quite simply, take it with carbs. Some early studies showed no benefit of carnitine because they failed to adequately raise muscle carnitine levels.

This was because the supplement wasn't taken at the right time, when insulin would be spiked and muscle uptake would be adequate. Newer research shows that insulin levels must be quite high for adequate amounts of L-carnitine to enter muscle cells, where it performs the majority of its work.

While as little as 1 gram of L-carnitine can be effective, your best bet is to take grams per dose for maximum benefit, along with at least grams of carbs and grams of protein, preferably with a meal. This applies if you take straight-up L-carnitine, L-carnitine L-tartrate, or propionyl-L-carnitine. Acetyl L-carnitine, however, is more easily taken up by the intestines and the muscle cells, not to mention the brain, in the absence of food. Therefore, this form of carnitine may be stacked with other ingredients that enhance fat-burning, such as caffeine and green tea, and taken between meals.

At this time, it appears that there is no need to cycle L-carnitine. Taken regularly, it should continue to be effective long term. One of the best times to take L-carnitine is post-workout, but you can take it with any other high-carb, high-protein meal throughout the day. If you want to stack carnitine with other fat-burning ingredients between meals, consider using the acetyl L-carnitine form. One strategy I found to work well for both fat loss and performance is to take doses of acetyl L-carnitine with other fat-burning ingredients without food between meals, and to take 1 dose of L-carnitine or L-carnitine L-tartrate with a post-workout meal.

You can take it with any other high-carb, high-protein meal throughout the day. Supplements like carnitine can help with body composition, but to see dramatic results you need to have your diet and workout program locked down. So, here it is: everything you need to know about L-Carnitine and its variations. What it can and cannot do for you, how much you should take, what products to look out for, and what to avoid.

There are several forms of L-Carnitine supplement or supplements containing L-carnitine , depending on how the compound is paired with another, to maximize different biological effects. L-Carnitine, in its various forms is promoted by supplement companies for the following benefits:. So, it looks, sounds and behaves like an amino acid, and for the sake of simplicity most people will refer to it as such. Having been studied for nearly seven decades now, we know quite a lot about l-carnitine, but some of its effects still remain to be fully explained.

Being able to synthesize it endogenously, and obtain it from animal tissue, the omnivores amongst us are rarely deficient in L-Carnitine. However, because it is mostly found in meats with a little absorbed from milk vegans and vegetarians have less.

Vitamin C dependent enzymes, Vitamin B6, niacin and iron play a role in the synthesis of l-carnitine. Therefore, deficiencies in any of those can also be problematic for endogenous l-carnitine levels. The rest must come from food and milk. There is also some debate as to how vegetarians who do not supplement l-carnitine seem to avoid a deficient state. Modern research suggests it could be a regulatory feedback mechanism that enhances bioavailability, increases biosynthesis and reduces urinary waste to mitigate the otherwise low intake.

Our bodies can store about 20 grams of l-carnitine on average. Ninety-five percent of that is in our muscle tissue and heart, while the remainder is in circulation through our blood and post-production in the liver and kidneys. This also means vegans, vegetarians, meat and dairy eaters are pretty much on a level playing field after supplementation.

During Low-Intensity exercise, l-carnitine acts as the platform for an enzyme called CPT1 to transport long-chain fatty acids into the mitochondria of cells. The mitochondria — essentially our cellular power stations — can use these fatty acids as fuel for metabolic processes. This movement through the membrane to the mitochondrial compartment of the cell is known as mitochondrial flux.

During High-Intensity exercise l-carnitine forms acetylcarnitine which maintains a pool of Coenzyme-A, essential for mitochondrial flux to continue. Given the depletion of the free carnitine pool for the formation of acetylcarnitine, an increase in muscle carnitine content from supplementation would provide additional substrate for the fatty acid translocation to continue even longer.

In basic terms, l-carnitine provides a buffer which prolongs the use of fat as fuel rather than switching to carbohydrates. Additionally, this would delay the production of lactic acid and thus reduce muscle acidosis and the fatiguing effect to performance. Increasing the provision of l-carnitine through muscle carnitine storage is therefore one of the main reasons for supplementation.

Symptomatic of that deficiency, are few potential health risks:. The vast majority of people will never need to consider such health issue because so little is required and it is prevalent in a rounded diet. There is also that potential for a safety switch that alters absorption ratios to fix low intake. As for the importance of l-carnitine supplementation — it depends on your dietary intake. Like I said, first world vegetarians and vegans should think about supplementing, despite modern research showing that other mysterious regulators are at work to raise endogenous levels.

Some congenital defects or acquired damage to organic cation transporter mechanisms can lead to carnitine deficiencies and the aforementioned cardiomyopathy and skeletal muscle myopathy. Regardless of the problems a deficiency can cause, it is still not classified as a vitamin or mineral because it can be biosynthesized to some degree from methionine and lysine. Aside from all of that, commercial supplements are, generally speaking, intended for the benefits I listed in the introduction, rather than for avoidance of a diseased state.

This is because it has been found in some research to provide benefits at dosages far above those possible from dietary intake. There are a lot more reported benefits of l-carnitine supplementation, and some of them feed into the muscle gain and weight loss effects. In which case, they will also be discussed here.

The following studies highlight some very important information with respect to how l-carnitine works when you supplement it, what dosages are effective and under what conditions it is effective.

One of the larger studies on L-Carnitine was conducted back in The scientists took elite level athletes, including those that competed in rowing, kayak, canoe, swimming, weightlifting and long-distance running. Subjects were given mg 1 gram of l-carnitine per day for 3 weeks. They observed differences in athletic performances after a single dose and following the 3 week course. The scientists attributed the improvements to the increased transportation of fatty acids into the mitochondria of cells to be used as a fuel.

Basically, l-carnitine assists the process of fatty acid transport into the mitochondria your cellular power engines to be burned as fuel. Drawback: The study was only 3 weeks in length. As you will see, however, later studies were up to 24 weeks in total and involved more accurate measurement techniques.

Those are some good results, but not all l-carnitine studies tell the same story. Some show little to know improvement in performance, while others still appear to find different benefits. The latter could be due to the design of the study and of course what the scientists are measuring, but how can we explain the differences in studies that are essentially measuring the same thing?

In fact, the results from studies involving trained athletes, including resistance trained men, are pretty unreliable. This might be in part due to unreliable testing and old methodologies. Perhaps comparing a 30 year old study to one conducted in the last few years is not fair because the quality of the two are probably not equal. Continuing with that logic, studies conducted after the year do show, on the whole, that l-carnitine supplementation does have a positive impact on physical performance, fat metabolism, muscle recovery, fatigue and cognitive function.