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03.02.2015

L-Carnitine makes fasting easier and more effective

Fasting for a couple of days every so often is very healthy, but a lot of people find this really difficult. They feel hungry and tired. Doctors at the Sun Yat-Sen University teaching hospital in China discovered that supplementation with L-carnitine can help these problems. What's more L-carnitine increases the amount of body fat you can lose through fasting.

Study
The Chinese did an experiment on two groups each consisting of 15 obese adults. One group was given injections twice daily containing 2 grams L-carnitine for 7 days; the other group was given injections containing no active ingredients.

The Chinese chose to give injections because the body does not absorb orally administered L-carnitine easily. How to get round this problem you can read here.

All subjects started to fast on day 3 of the experiment. They ate 200 kilocalories per day, for example vegetable soup which they ate for breakfast and lunch. During the fasting period the subjects also walked for a couple of hours every day.

Results
The L-carnitine injections speeded up the weight loss. The placebo group lost 3.2 kg, the L-carnitine group lost 4.6 kg.

The subjects in the L-carnitine group lost more centimetres from their waist measurement.

The placebo group reported an increase in feelings of hunger during the experiment. In the L-carnitine feelings of hunger decreased.

In the placebo group feelings of physical fatigue increased during the experiment and mental fatigue remained the same. In the L-carnitine group both physical and mental fatigue decreased.

Conclusion
"Interestingly, together with fatigue improvement, weight loss and anorexia was significantly promoted with intravenous L-carnitine administration during modified fasting therapy in our study", the researchers write.

"In addition, a reduction in waist circumference was also seen in the L-carnitine group. Based on these results, it was inferred that L-carnitine was able to promote lipolysis and contribute to preservation of lean body mass during fasting."

Source:
Nutr J. 2014 Nov 26;13:110.

More:
L-Carnitine gives football players the edge 21.11.2013
The anti-catabolic effect of a couple of grams of L-carnitine 02.10.2013
L-Carnitine helps centenarians build muscle mass 27.03.2012

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