Top

L- Carnitine A Potential Dietary Supplement

November 12, 2008


Dietary supplements are becoming a popular remedy for the improvement of bodily functions, enhancing the lean body mass, loosing body weight using dietary means and improvizing on the beneficial effects of existing diet. Here we will have a look in one such dietary supplement viz. L-carnitine.

What is L-carnitine?

Carnitine is a non-essential amino acid, produced from the essential fatty acid methionine in the brain and liver. It is termed as non-essential because it is not required to be synthesized by the body on a regular basis. As a nutrient carnitine is responsible for the transport of long-chain fatty acids to the mitochondrion which are the storehouse of energy.

Carnitine and its functionality

As a non-essential amino acid carnitine plays a critical role in metabolism of the body which assists in regulating numerous metabolic functions. Carnitine acts a major chain for taking the fats to the cellular levels and making the mitochondrion energy rich, thereby improving the metabolic rate.

Dietary sources of carnitine

Carnitine is not found to be present in vegetarian food and most of the dietary sources include animal meat. The major sources of carnitine include foods of animal origin, such as meat and dairy products, the sources of carnitine include products such as red meat (particularly lamb) and dairy products. Fish, chicken, fermented soybeans, wheat, asparagus are the other major sources of l-Carnitine. Although, products rich in methionine are also supposed to enhance the synthesis of carnitine in the body.

Carnitine and weight loss

L-carnitine has been implicated as a major dietary weight loss supplement and a lot of hype has been given to its ability to enhance metabolic rate. Although, not much ha been researched in this regard still the amount of data available clearly demonstrates that l-carnitine supplementation helps in improving the rate of burning fat by the body, hence improving the rate of body weight loss.

In conclusion, it would be befitting to state that L-carnitine holds a lot of promise and potential as a weight loss supplement of future.


Comments

Got something to say? Join the conversation and leave a comment below.





What's More today?

A Beginner’s Muscle Building Routine

Are you tired of looking at skin and bones on your body? Do you want to replace your skinny physique... 

Healthy Ways of Losing Fat

Many people dream of certain diets which would help them lose fat in a faster way. There cannot be anything... 

Tips for Getting Ripped Abs

Many people are worried that they have a skinny or overweight body shape. They are searching for a solution... 

How to deal with a sore muscle

Muscles can get fatigued and sore if they are over exercised. They will hurt you, because they might... 

2 Simple Tips to Lose Weight through Cardio Workouts

This article gives you two very simple tips that can help to lose weight by adapting cardio workouts... 

Tips to Build Bigger Muscles

If you are one of those people who are looking to build some huge, fierce muscles, then you need to follow... 

Body Building for Women

Now more than ever, you see women trade in the skinny look for a more toned, fit and muscular appearance.... 

Facts about Muscle Building

Do we wish to burn fat, feed the muscles, achieve real fitness in life, and also get nice abs that we... 

Muscle Building Tips for Beginners

Muscle building is a desire for every common man and a beginner wants to do workouts the first day and... 

Weight loss and food addiction

Some of you are simply addicted to foods, you love eating, trying out new recipes, you know you are overweight... 

Tips for losing that fat belly, quickly!

Are you trying to get in shape? Do you want to have a nice sleek abdomen ? Maybe you already have the... 

Low calorie diet

If you have just stopped dining out because you are worried that it will derail your weight loss program,... 

Height Increasing Exercises

Getting tall is never easy. Some people are tall naturally. Their growth hormones assist them in becoming... 

Exercises for double chin

Double chin is nothing but some flab sitting pretty at a place that does not make you more pretty! In... 

What you can do with a pair of dumbbells

For maintaining a well-toned body, you really don’t need lots of equipments and associated paraphernalia.... 

Bottom