so according to a recent National Health and examination survey L-Carnitine is actually
the third most popular supplement in America now L-Carnitine is especially popular in the
bodybuilding and athletic Community for its uh supposed ability to increase performance however
it's also fairly popular in the Alternative Health Community for its supposed ability to improve
health parameters as well and so essentially what I want to do in this video is take a super deep
dive into L-Carnitine and talk about what it is what it does in the body and why I believe it to
be such an important nutrient for overall health and performance so let's go ahead and dive in
now L-Carnitine is an amino acid that can be synthesized by the body from the amino acids
lysine and methionine however it is estimated that roughly 75 percent of the body's L-Carnitine
stores are a result of dietary intake which is why it's so important to prioritize dietary intake
now L-Carnitine isn't technically an essential amino acid because your body is able to produce
it to some degree however it is considered a conditionally essential amino acid because of
the fact that under certain circumstances your body's not able to produce enough and in these
circumstances supplementation is especially warranted and can be especially beneficial
now the primary role of L-Carnitine in the body is to help transport fatty acids from the cytosol of
the cell across the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes where they can then be broken down into
ATP for energy via beta oxidation now ketosis gets a ton of attention these days for being a
unique metabolic pathway by which fats can be broken down and utilized for energy however
triglycerides can also be metabolized to be a lipolysis to produce fatty acids that can then be
directly utilized by the mitochondria for energy production at a cellular level via the process of
beta oxidation however in order for these fatty acids to enter the mitochondria they first must
cross the mitochondrial membrane and this is where L-Carnitine comes into play L-Carnitine acts as
a shuttle that carries these fatty acids across the inner membrane and into the mitochondria so
that they can then be metabolized and used for energy now this metabolic pathway is formerly
known as beta oxidation and is a very specific type of aerobic respiration which is a form of
cellular respiration that your body uses pretty much like throughout the day as well as during
low to moderate intensity exercise now aerobic respiration can only happen in the presence of
oxygen which means that it can only occur when your respiratory system is able to supply the
cells of your body with enough oxygen to carry out the cellular pathway however if you're doing
some other activity that actually outpaces your body's ability to provide oxygen to the
cells that your body actually has to utilize a different metabolic pathway known as anaerobic
respiration or the creatine phosphate system however what's interesting about L-Carnitine
is that even though it is exclusively utilized for beta oxidation to improve aerobic respiration
which is again in the presence of oxygen it also appears to improve anaerobic and
creatine phosphate cellular respiration as well which actually brings us to our first possible
health benefit of supplementing with L-Carnitine and that is benefits to athletic performance
however before we get into the effects of L-Carnitine on athletic performance I do
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to snag this offer now because of its primary physiological role L-Carnitine is thought to
primarily work by increasing energy output at a cellular level and in this minute analysis
in particular the researchers noted that quote L quarantine plays an essential role in enhancing
endurance and recovery from fatigue The Beneficial effects of both acute and chronic L-Carnitine
supplementation in several pathological conditions are well documented such as infectious diseases
homodialysis cancer and dystonia its intake has beneficial effects on healthy subjects too in the
elderly it reduces fatigue sensation and improves physical mental and cognitive function as well as
reducing fatigue in athletes it facilitates the recovery process and increases blood flow and
oxygen supplied to muscle tissue in addition IT alleviates muscle injury and reduces markers of
cellular damage decreasing free radical formation now in this study in particular the researchers
were slightly more concerned with the effects of L-Carnitine on specific clinical conditions
however they did note that L-Carnitine does appear to be a promising molecule to improve athletic
performance in youth as well and on this note there are a handful of clinical trials that do
show that L-Carnitine can in fact improve athletic performance in young healthy adults and in one of
these studies in particular the researchers concluded that quote the results showed that
the maximal exercise intensity treatment with L-Carnitine significantly increased both maximal
oxygen uptake and power output moreover at similar exercise intensities in the L-Carnitine trial
oxygen uptake carbon dioxide production pulmonary ventilation and plasma lactate were reduced it
is concluded that under these experimental conditions pre-treatment with L-Carnitine
favored aerobic process is resulting in more efficient performance now it is worth noting
that in this study in particular the researchers did specifically note an improvement in Aerobic
performance which again is low to moderate intensity exercise and it's typically what we
would consider cardio however what's interesting is that if you look at studies such as this one
the researchers concluded that quote there were significant increases in bench press lifting
volume at week six and week 9 with L-Carnitine supplementation and a similar Trend was absorbed
with leg press in the L-Carnitine group at week nine there were significant increases in mean
power and Peak power reduction in post-exercise blood lactate levels and beneficial changes to
Total antioxidant capacity They concluded that L-Carnitine supplementation enhances exercise
performance while attenuating blood lactate and oxidative stress responses to resistance training
and so not only does L-Carnitine appear to improve aerobic respiration like cardio which is to be
expected because of its its primary physiological role in beta oxidation but it also appears to
fairly potently improve anaerobic respiration and performance as well but the big question here is
why which is what brings us to this study where the researchers concluded that in summary this
is the first study to demonstrate that muscle carnitine content can be increased in humans by
dietary means and perhaps more importantly that carnitine plays a dual role in skeletal muscle
fuel metabolism that is exercise intensity dependent specifically we have shown that
increasing muscle carnitine content spares muscle glycogen during low intensity exercise consistent
with an increase in muscle lipid utilization but during high intensity exercise results in a better
matching of glycolytic PDC and mitochondrial flux thereby reducing muscle anaerobic ATP production
and so in layman's terms what appears to be going on here is that L-Carnitine is so potent
at improving aerobic respiration at a cellular level that it's a low lowering the demands being
placed on the anaerobic system to produce ATP now the reason this is a good thing is that typically
anaerobic respiration is considered more of a dirty cellular respiration because of the
fact that it produces lactate as a byproduct now when lactate builds up in muscle tissue
it increases the acidity of the muscle tissue and will eventually shut down contractability
of muscle tissue however this is not an issue with aerobic respiration and is the reason why
you can kind of run at a slow pace for a long time however if you're doing like a Max Sprint
or a max weight lifting set there becomes a point where you just can't do anything further and that
happens very quickly because of the lactate that is produced via the anaerobic cellular pathway
and so what it looks like is happening is that L-Carnitine is improving your body's ability to
produce ATP via the aerobic respiration cellular pathway and thereby both increasing aerobic
performance and anaerobic performance now as a result of this L-Carnitine also appears to
secondarily also be able to reduce exercise induced inflammation decrease exercise induce
muscle damage lower exercise induced oxidative stress and a decreased muscle soreness and what's
really cool about all this is that not only does all of these effects lead to an increase
in performance over time but it also appears to lead to a decrease in fat Mass over time as
well as an increase in the accumulation of muscle tissue Over time however not only does L-Carnitine
appear to improve physical performance but it also appears to improve cognitive performance as well
and one of the most remarkable studies that I came across doing research for this video the
researchers of this study in particular concluded that the pulled data across nine randomized
controlled trials showed that L-Carnitine significantly reduced depressive symptoms in three
randomly controlled trials comparing L-Carnitine versus antidepressants L-Carnitine demonstrated
similar Effectiveness compared to established antidepressants in reducing depressive symptoms
in these lateral randomized controlled trials the incidence of side effects was significantly lower
in L-Carnitine than the antidepressant group subgroup analysis suggested that L-Carnitine
was most efficacious in older adults L-Carnitine supplementation significantly decreases depressive
symptoms compared to Placebo slash no intervention whilst offering a comparable effect to established
antidepressant agents with fewer side effects and as alluded to in this paper L-Carnitine appears
to be especially beneficial for the population that is dealing with age-related cognitive issues
and has been confirmed in a handful of other trials that have looked into the effects of
L-Carnitine on Alzheimer's disease as well as generalized cognitive decline and have also found
positive effects however the cognitive benefits of supplementing with L-Carnitine don't appear to
be just specific to the Aging population there are also a handful of clinical trials that have shown
some benefits of L-Carnitine supplementation in youth dealing with symptoms of ADHD as well
now the mechanisms of action here appear to be two primary factors the first one being
l-carnitine's ability to just in general improve ATP production at a cellular level and thereby
allow the neural cells in particular to be more efficient at producing energy which is going to
produce improvements in cognitive function and the second mechanism of action here appears to
be that L-Carnitine can increase the level of some specific neurotransmitters in some specific brain
regions that are responsible for memory attention and cognition now specifically L carnitine's been
shown to increase levels of Serotonin Gaba and adrenaline and load levels of these hormones have
been linked to cognitive issues and mood issues and so by L-Carnitine being able to at least
maintain the level of these neurotransmitters in key brain regions it does appear to be able to
improve again both attention memory and mood now the last possible benefit that I want to
take a deep dive into in this video aside from its ability to improve physical performance and
cognitive performance is its ability to improve testicular function in men now there is little
to absolutely no evidence that L-Carnitine can increase testosterone unfortunately however there
is some evidence to suggest that it can maintain testosterone in instances of stress However
unfortunately even in men that are experiencing age-related drops in testosterone L-Carnitine
still doesn't appear to improve testosterone levels even though it does appear to improve mood
fatigue and sexual dysfunction associated with low testosterone now where L-Carnitine appears to
really shine is that it appears to be extremely potent at improving fertility markers and as
it turns out L-Carnitine is actually the most well-researched and most consistent compound that
has ever been researched at least it's natural that has been shown to improve several different
markers of fertility making it one of the best go-to options for any guy that's out there that's
looking to improve fertility for the purposes of conceiving now aside from L carnitine's ability
to maintain testosterone levels in the face of stress as well as improve fertility markers it
also appears to interestingly enough increase the level and the density of Androgen receptors on
muscle tissue and so even though it doesn't increase testosterone per se it does appear
to increase the responsiveness to testosterone which means that this might actually be one of
the mechanisms by which it actually improves physical performance as well as recovery and
muscle retention and fat burning now aside from its benefits to physical performance cognitive
performance as well as testicular function it also appears to be fairly potent at improving
markers of liver function blood pressure blood glucose control blood lipids oxidative stress and
inflammation as well which is why in my opinion L-Carnitine is not just a fantastic and promising
option to improve performance but also just gen General Health and well-being as well but other
than that guys that's pretty much all I have for this video if you have any questions feel free
to leave a comment down below and make sure to check out the description down below for a link
to snag your free sample of element but other than that I think I'll see you guys next time