Benefits of L-Carnitine Supplements
L-Carnitine supplements are quite popular among athletes and workout enthusiasts. They are known to improve athletic performance and endurance. However, the benefits of L-Carnitine supplements do not end here yet. L-Carnitine has several other benefits, such as weight loss, heart health, exercise performance, etc.
Thus, if you want to learn more about the benefits of L-Carnitine supplements, you might want to read on!
Before anything else,
What are L-Carnitine supplements?
L-Carnitine is a natural type of amino acid produced in the body from methionine and lysine amino acids. The purpose of L-Carnitine is to turn fats into energy. Thus, L-Carnitine supplements are essential for people who fail to produce the required levels of L-Carnitine in their bodies.
L-Carnitine supplements burn fats and create energy by transporting fatty acids to the mitochondria of your cells. Besides the amount of L-Carnitine produced naturally in your body, you can get smaller amounts by consuming meat and fish.
Since there are other types of carnitine, you may often get confused. But L-Carnitine is the only standard form of carnitine that is biologically active and found in human bodies, supplements, and foods.
What are the benefits of L-Carnitine supplements?
There are multiple possible benefits of L-Carnitine supplements. Let’s take a closer look at each one of them:
Weight Loss:
Since the major role of L-Carnitine in your body is to convert fats into energy, you may think L-Carnitine supplements will effectively work on weight loss. However, this is not entirely true.
More clinical studies and backups are essential to prove L-Carnitine supplements’ exact effect on weight loss because different studies of L-Carnitine supplements showed varying results.
For instance, in a certain study for a period of 8 weeks, 38 women who exercised four times a week did not show any difference in weight loss, irrespective of whether they took L-Carnitine supplements or not.
In another four week study, people who did a 90-minute bicycle workout showed no improvements in fat burning even after the administration of L-Carnitine supplements.
However, on a particular analysis made on nine different studies, it was recorded that on average, most older or obese individuals lost about 2.8 pounds more weight while consuming L-Carnitine supplements.
On the whole, though, the whole mechanism of L-Carnitine may show fat burning, yet its effects on weight loss may be small.
Athletic performance:
You may expect the positive effect of L-Carnitine supplements on improving athletic performance in three ways-
As said earlier, L-Carnitine transfers fatty acids into the mitochondria and turns them into energy. Thus, as an athlete, if you want to use your body fat as fuel for various activities, you’ll definitely need L-Carnitine supplements.
L-Carnitine supplements may improve your exercise workload and post-exercise recovery phase since they tend to reduce metabolic wastes during workouts.
L-Carnitine supplements may also reduce the formation of lactic acid, which is one of the major causes of fatigue. This may further increase your endurance.
Heart Health:
L-Carnitine supplements may improve certain heart issues like chronic heart failure and coronary heart diseases. In a twelve-month study, there was a positive reduction in the number of deaths and heart failure among several patients who were consuming L-Carnitine supplements.
Improve Workout Performance:
The effect of L-Carnitine supplements on exercise performance may even take weeks to be evident. However, certain studies show some moderate benefits of L-Carnitine supplements regarding workout performance, such as:
L-Carnitine supplements may increase the production of nitric oxide and blood flow. Thus, this may reduce fatigue and discomfort and further increase stamina.
L-Carnitine supplements may increase oxygen supply to your muscles during exercise by increasing red blood cell production.
Since L-Carnitine supplements help in post-exercise recovery, it may also reduce muscle soreness.
Conclusions:
Overall, L-Carnitine supplements may prove beneficial to you if you consume them within the recommended dosage. Though it shows mixed results regarding its effects on weight loss, several studies support the use of L-Carnitine supplements for improved brain functions, heart health, disease prevention, and athletic performance.
L-Carnitine supplements are also vital to increase levels of L-Carnitine in the body.
