Carnitine Benefits: Is Acetyl Carnitine Better than other Carnitines?

On October 5, 2011, in Acetyl carnitine, Carnitine, Supplements, by admin

Carnitine—along with its other natural forms—is one of the most sought after supplements these days because of the startling scientific findings regarding carnitine benefits to human health, especially that of acetyl carnitine. Unsurprisingly, you only have to make any random search on any search engine and you’ll be flooded by carnitine this and carnitine that. But as you probably know by now, not all carnitine forms are equal in efficacy—if you’re not careful, you might just be gobbling up huge doses of the compound without actually making a positive effect on your over-all well-being.

There is no denying that carnitine benefits to human health are real—as real as the red meat you might be enjoying right now. However, one important aspect of the whole health supplement concept is that you should not forget that carnitine can also (and most naturally) be ingested through the usual foods we eat. With the pervasiveness of so many different carnitine supplement brands you see in the media these days, you might end up getting the impression that carnitine benefits are accessible only in supplement form and not through anything else, which is very, very misleading. When you try to buy a bottle or orange juice, for instance, you are conflicted by the choice between a bottle of juice with L carnitine and another one without carnitine—and this can be utterly laughable, because in their natural form, fruits actually contain carnitine in them.

There are schools of thought, however, that seem to assert that the acetylated form of carnitine—acetyl carnitine—is more readily absorbed (and therefore quicker and more effective in doing its health-giving job) than the usual form of carnitine, specifically L carnitine. This may have something to do with acetylation—which enables the carnitine molecule to go direct to its target, such as the cell’s mitochondria, to revive it and do its magic. The problem with other forms of carnitine, it seems, is that carnitine benefits are negated by the body’s digestion process, with a lot of the said substance ending up in the waste.

So the Shakespearean question may be: is acetyl carnitine actually the best form of carnitine? The jury is still out on the matter. But if you have money to burn, it probably doesn’t hurt to buy a bottle of acetyl carnitine to compliment a healthy lifestyle. And we emphasize “healthy lifestyle” here, as no amount of carnitine supplements can work if you heavily smoke or drink or basically lead a self-abusive style of living.