07-31-2008, 02:12 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Propecia, CA
Posts: 1,845
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Carnitine May Benefit Bones
This is highly preliminary but still interesting, I think.
My mom recently started using a liquid carnitine supplement. She's not taking it for her bones but that would be a welcome "side-benefit".
Quote:
The researchers used female rats that had had their ovaries removed (ovariectomised) to model postmenopausal bone loss, which is associated with osteoporosis. This is characterized by low bone mass, which leads to an increase risk of fractures, especially the hips, spine and wrists. An estimated 75 million people suffer from osteoporosis in Europe, the USA and Japan.
Women are four times more likely to develop osteoporosis than men. Rats were divided into two groups, with one fed the control diet, while the other fed the control diet and supplemented with 150 mg of carnitine per kg of diet for eight weeks.
At the end of the study, Hooshmand and co-workers report that, in addition to the higher bone mineral density, animals supplemented with L-carnitine also had lower levels of a substance called tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) by 73 per cent. TRAP is an indicator of bone resorption, or a weakening of the bones.
Moreover, levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and collagen type-1 (COL) – substances associated with bone formation – were also decreased by 64 and 61 per cent, respectively.
“To our knowledge, the present study is the first to report that carnitine suppresses the expression of selected genes involved in both bone resorption and formation in aging rats under in vivo conditions,” wrote the researchers.
“Our data here showed that carnitine decreased […] levels of TRAP as well as ALP and COL, suggesting that carnitine may suppress bone turnover by decreasing the rates of both bone resorption and formation. decreasing two markers of bone formation by over 60 per cent, compared with the control group,” they added.
The researchers, affiliated with Florida State University, the University of Connecticut, and Lonza, called for further study to build on these promising results.
Source: Phytomedicine (Elsevier)
1 August 2008, Volume 15, Issue 8, Pages 595-601
“Dietary l-carnitine supplementation improves bone mineral density by suppressing bone turnover in aged ovariectomized rats”
Authors: S. Hooshmand, A. Balakrishnan, R.M. Clark, K.Q. Owen, S.I. Koo, B.H. Arjmandi
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