Kaged Muscle Carnipure™ (L-Carnitine-L-Tartrate)
The health conscious and savvy consumer has long since come to the realization that not all supplements are created equal. There are great differences in quality, bio-availability, and purity. Kaged Muscle Carnipure™ is in the tartrate form. Carnitine-L-Tartrate is a salt of 68% L-carnitine and 32% L-tartaric acid, which is the highest L-carnitine concentration of any currently commercially available non-hygroscopic salt form. To best appreciate why carnitine is so critical for muscle performance, looking at its name speaks volumes.
This amino acid-like nutrient is found in nearly all cells of the body and its name is derived from the Latin work carnus, most commonly translated as “flesh”, which makes sense since it is found abundantly in muscle. In order to make sufficient carnitine, the additional following nutrients must be available in adequate amounts: lysine and methionine, vitamins B3 and B6, vitamin C along with iron. When fueling the body, a clean targeted nutrient should be the sole focus of someone looking to build their body stronger and healthier. Kaged Muscle Carnipure™ is pharmaceutical grade produced by the Swiss company Lonza. The benefits of pharmaceutical manufacturing standards means that not only are the ISO 9001:2008 and FSSC 22000:2010 standards met, they are also fully traceable. Carnipure is non-GMO, gluten free, Kosher and Halal certified, critical for those seeking to keep their body unencumbered by potential burdens to their performance and health.
When fueling your car, you definitely don’t voluntarily fill up with subpar fuel; likewise when it comes to nutrients, “premium grade” is the only reasonable option. Carnipure™ is the premium grade L-carnitine manufactured in Switzerland. In clinical practice, there are just a small handful of amino acids that I have seen that make notable differences in wellness and performance. L-carnitine is just such a critical nutrient. Carnitine plays essential roles in energy metabolism, processing of fats within the diet and your body, and helps fuel the energy production via the mitochondria within your cells. 1,2 I routinely share this analogy with my patients: the creation of ATP (Adenosine triphosphate), the energy currency within your body via mitochondria, is like keeping your Energizer™ bunny batteries charged up. Think of it this way, the best smart phone in the world is but a glorified paper weight if its battery is dead. So, think of your mitochondria as your AA batteries that allow your muscles, brain, heart, and other cells in your body work and work well. Once Carnipure™ is assimilated within the mitochondria, it allows the release of fatty acids to be metabolized and undergo beta-oxidation for the production of ATP, thus allowing fat to fuel your body and performance.
Getting More Out of Your Workout
All too often exercise and overall performance can become limited by recovery time. We all know that after exercising, muscles need to repair and recover to become stronger and to regain their energetic reserves. Carnipure™ research has that exercise performance is supported, and recovery can be accelerated when consumed prior to high-intensity exercise. Additionally, muscle pain and damage is lessened. 3 So often when working out going anaerobic can lead to excess metabolic toxin buildup within the muscles. Researchers have shown that Carnipure™ can help enhance blood flow during and post-exercise, thus lessening hypoxic (suboptimal oxygen) state within active metabolic tissue that can otherwise lead to unnecessary aches and pains post-workout. 4
Lean Body Management
Supplementation with Carnipure™ supports optimization of fatty acid oxidation and I routinely use it to support healthy body weight. Carnipure™ tartrate has been studied and shown to encourage weight loss and regaining of healthier BMI in obese adolescents as part of a dietary program. 5 In order to burn fat, long-chain fatty acids must be broken down via the mitochondria for energy. We all know that losing weight requires increased calorie expenditure relative to the calorie intake. In the absence of adequate carnitine, fatty acid metabolism is hampered, which can lead to decreased performance, slowed recovery, and suboptimal energy creation and expenditure. 5
Heart Pumping Workouts
At rest the human heart beats 72 times per minute, 103,680 times a day. Working out pumps up the workload, and depending on the intensity and duration of your fitness session, your carnitine and other key performance nutrients can fall short and limit peak performance. You can think of your heart as the master pump of an extensive irrigation system, which in the case of a 150-pound person means that blood must be pumped through some 60,000 miles of blood vessels. Like I share with my patients, all the hard work put forth by a gardener can fall short if sufficient nutrients and irrigation are not present during the entire growing season. After all, when you get a kink in your garden hose, the plant shrivels. Definitely not what a person can tolerate when they put such effort into maintaining and sustaining their body via working out and trying to maintain their body’s warranty. Often we forget L-carnitine when it comes to cardiac health and performance, as CoQ10 is what is most commonly discussed at first blush. However, carnitine has been shown to provide a plethora of benefits when administered after a heart attack. Certainly the last thing any of us ever want to think about is our hearts getting over-taxed. To quote the study: “L-carnitine has been shown to lessen infarct size, to reduce ventricular arrhythmias, left ventricular dilation, and heart failure incidence, as well as improve survival. These benefits may, in part, be related to its ability to boost glucose oxidation in ischemic tissues, while moderating increases in fatty acyl-coenzyme A levels that can impair mitochondrial efficiency and promote oxidative stress and inflammation.” 6 Getting over the nature of the study, as a clinician, the study made me think of how important carnitine is for cardiac function, let alone when we are looking to push performance to our individual healthy limits.
Putting Carnitine to Work
The demand for L-carnitine may exceed an individual's capacity to synthesize it, making it a conditionally essential micronutrient. 7,8 My patients will generally take 2000 to 3000 mg of Carnipure™ with a carb meal or a protein shake pre or post workout. There is a difference of supplemental bioavailability for carnitine depending on if a person is a vegetarian/vegan vs. a carnivore. One study reported that bioavailability of L-carnitine in individuals adapted to low-carnitine diets (i.e., vegetarians; 66%-86%) is higher than those adapted to high-carnitine diets (i.e., regular red meat eaters; 54%-72%).9 Aging and sustained performance can sometimes be a challenge, there is evidence that tissue levels of carnitine drop as one gets older, all things being equal. Clinically I have found this fact very helpful to help athletes and those wishing to support healthy BMI, lean muscle performance, and overall health. 10 Whole body nutrient support is always essential, and creating an overarching supplemental routine for your individual needs is always critical when looking to augment a health promoting diet. A simple take home on this is that one of the earliest symptoms of vitamin C deficiency is fatigue that many experience, and is believed to be associated in part with decreased synthesis of L-carnitine. 11
References
1. Müller DM, Seim H et al.: Effects of oral L-Carnitine supplementation on in vivo long-chain fatty acid oxidation in healthy adults. Metabolism 2002;51(11):1389-1391
2. Wutzke KD, Lorenz H: The effect of L-Carnitine on fat oxidation, protein turnover, and body composition in slightly overweight subjects. Metabolism 2004;53(8):1002-1006
3. Pathobiochemical Basics and Clinical Applications. Ponte Press, Bochum 1996
4. Spiering BA et al. (2007). J Strength Cond Res 21(1):259–264
5. Volek JS et al. (2008). Am J Cardiol 102:1413–1417
6. Dinicolantonio JJ et al. L-carnitine for the treatment of acute myocardial infarction . Rev Cardiovasc Med.2014;15(1):52-62.
7. De Grandis D et al. (2002) Acetyl-L-carnitine (levacecarnine) in the treatment of diabetic neuropathy. A long-term, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Drugs R D. 2002;3(4):223-231.
8. Seim H et al. L(-)-Carnitine and its precursor, gamma-butyrobetaine. In: Kramer K, Hoppe P, Packer L, eds. Nutraceuticals in Health and Disease Prevention. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc.; 2001:217-256.
9. Rebouche CJ et al. Metabolic fate of dietary carnitine in human adults: identification and quantification of urinary and fecal metabolites. J Nutr. 1991;121(4):539-546.
10. Costell M, O'Connor JE, Grisolia S. Age-dependent decrease of carnitine content in muscle of mice and humans. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1989;161(3):1135-1143.
11. Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine. Vitamin C. Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Selenium, and Carotenoids. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press; 2000:95-185. (National Academy Press)
