Carnitine: What You Should Know

If you could burn fat, improve your heart, and boost your energy by taking one pill would you do it? I’m not talking about a new a diet drug – or any other medication for that matter. Today I’ll tell you about the amino acid L-carnitine.

L-carnitine plays an essential role in maintaining a healthy body. Here are a few examples of what this natural nutrient does:

1. Slows aging. Carnitine shuttles fatty acids into the energy centers of the cells, where the fat can be burned to produce energy. When the body has sufficient carnitine reserves, the cells can burn more fat and generate more energy. Every cell in your body works better when it has optimal energy available to it.
2. Helps you lose weight. Carnitine is important in weight loss because it helps convert body fat into fuel. It also raises levels of certain enzymes needed to metabolize sugars, starches and other carbohydrates.
3. Increases mental alertness. L-carnitine converts to acetyl-L-carnitine. ALC enhances brain activity. It also prevents brain-cell death and protects nerve cells from degeneration due to aging or disease.
4. Protects your heart. L-carnitine reduces arterial plaque, lowers LDL cholesterol, and increases HDL levels. These benefits appear in healthy people as well as in patients with heart disease.
5. Boosts potency in men. Sperm count, motility, and maturation are related to carnitine concentrations.
6. Enhances exercise. Carnitine improves sports performance and endurance, and reduces the damage caused to the body that can occur during exercise.
7. Improves diabetes. Test data suggest that supplementing with L-carnitine can improve insulin sensitivity in individuals with type 2 diabetes.

Unless you eat a diet high in red meat and dairy, it can be difficult to obtain optimal amounts of carnitine from dietary sources alone. Perhaps the best solution is to take it as a supplement. You can get all you need in one capsule, once a day.

I take 500 milligrams of the L-carnitine form. It is important that you choose naturally occurring L-carnitine and not synthetic D, L-carnitine. The D-form interferes with the natural action of the L-carnitine.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears MD