Supplements for Brain Health Support Series Week 32 N-Acetyl L-Carnitine Hydrochloride (ALCAR)

Welcome to the Brain Health Support Series where each week we will bring you one scientifically studied nutritional supplement to help support brain function including stress and mood elevation. Follow me on twitter to see all previous posts https://twitter.com/nettrain

This week we are looking at: N-Acetyl L-Carnitine Hydrochloride (ALCAR)

One insidious way mood and stress affect your body and brain is by depleting essential vitamins and minerals just when you need those most. Stress consumes excessive key vitamins and minerals and, if you don’t replace them with the right foods and supplements, stress, anxiety and mood swings can worsen.

The production of stress hormones and neurotransmitters consume a big chunk of these nutrients’ reserves and because stress largely shuts down the digestive system, less of them get absorbed from the food you eat. Consequently, your supply of anti-stress vitamins and minerals is decreased … and your tolerance to stress is lowered.

Many bad habits that people gravitate to when they’re stressed and anxious, like alcohol, caffeine, smoking, sugar, and recreational drugs, also deplete ital nutrients and unfortunately, so do many prescription drugs. Ironically, this includes anti-anxiety medications!

How can you stop this downward spiral? You can start by eating a diet rich in the right vitamins and minerals as a first step, and then supplement with quality, high-purity supplements that will top-up any deficiencies.

The following nutritional supplementation information purported to help support stress, anxiety, and other cognitive issues is based on my own research online through articles, medical papers, and online seminar events. You are welcome to do your own research.

ALCAR (N-Acetyl L-Carnitine Hydrochloride)

Acetylcarnitine hydrochloride is an acetic acid ester of CARNITINE that facilitates movement of ACETYL COA into the matrices of mammalian MITOCHONDRIA during the oxidation of FATTY ACIDS. -Source: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Acetyl-L-carnitine_hydrochloride#section=Top

Acetyl-L-Carnitine (also known as ALCAR, Acetyl L-Carnitine, ALC) is an amino acid that takes stored fat deposits in the body and turns them into energy. It is an invaluable nutrient that can improve your body’s ability to generate and use energy at the cellular level.

ALCAR benefits center around improved mental and physical performance, increased energy, focus, and strength, as well as enhanced whole-body health. One of the most exciting benefits of this supplement for the general population is that it helps your body metabolize fat. It actually works together with your mitochondria to facilitate this process.

In fact, without any Acetyl-L Carnitine HCL present the mitochondria would not be able to absorb and metabolize fatty acids. This is why many people take ALCAR for weight loss purposes, but there are also many nootropic reasons for taking this substance.

One of the primary benefits of Acetyl-L-Carnitine is as an antioxidant that can help to remove toxins and other waste products from brain tissues. This amino acid is considered to be neuroprotective because it has the ability to cross the blood brain barrier.

While many antioxidants can improve the health of your vital organs, few can reach the brain to protect neurons there from the damage associated with oxidation. This effect gives ALCAR the ability to strengthen and nourish neural structures with long-term use.

Additional benefits have to do with the removal of lipofuscin from brain cells and cells throughout the body. Lipofuscin is a type of waste product composed of fats that naturally accumulates in all of our cells. On our skin, this build-up looks like brown age spots, but these spots also begin to develop in the brain as we age.

With sufficient accumulation, this fat can impair the function of your cells, leading to memory loss and other problems. Neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s may have their development rooted in this kind of damage. ALCAR is able to eradicate lipofuscin from cells and return them to normal levels of healthy functioning, thereby slowing down the aging process.

ALCAR is frequently used in medical treatments to slow down the loss of function associated with various neurological disorders. Patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases report that this supplement helps to keep their neural functioning at a high level and slow the rate of future degeneration.

Acetyl L-Carnitine is even effective as an anti-depressant: elderly patients diagnosed with depression experienced a reduction in their mood-related symptoms as well as social anxiety or phobias when taking these pills.

-Source: https://nootriment.com/alcar-benefits/

Acetyl L-carnitine HCL is an amino acid naturally manufactured in the body through the conversion of L-carnitine and used by cells to produce fuel for energy. It is also involved in a variety of processes that regulate muscle movement and heart and brain function.

Acetyl L-carnitine HCL is known by a variety of other names, including acetyl L-carnitine hydrochloride, acetyl L-carnitine and simply acetyl carnitine. It is synthesized in the liver and kidneys and stored in the heart, brain, muscle tissue and sperm.

The Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database monograph on acetyl L-carnitine states that this amino acid is used to treat a wide variety of cognitive disorders, including problems due to alcoholism, Lyme disease, Down's syndrome, depression and decreased blood flow to the brain following stroke.

Acetyl L-carnitine also appears to lessen pain due to nerve damage. For instance, a group of Italian researchers submitted a paper to the journal Drugs in R&D that described acetyl L-carnitine as a promising treatment for diabetic neuropathy. Another team of Italian researchers found that acetyl L-carnitine supplementation reduced sciatic pain in patients with herniated discs and decreased the need for pain medication.

-Source: https://www.livestrong.com/article/219163-what-is-acetyl-l-carnitine-hcl/

This Amino Acid Can Lift Your Mood and Boost Your Brain

Researchers have identified an amino acid that may be the key to warding off the damaging changes linked to two common conditions – chronic stress and depression.

According to these studies, the link between mood disturbances and this amino acid is so strong that measuring its levels in the blood may soon be used as a test to see if a patient has depression.

Because your liver can make this amino acid, it’s not considered an essential amino acid that has to be in your diet. But researchers believe the liver often can’t keep up with what the body needs.

So the scientists are starting to come around to the understanding that many of us should be supplementing with this amino acid – acetyl-l-carnitine (ALC) aka N-Acetyl L-Carnitine Hydrochloride, ALCAR. In my personal view the supplement can be life-changing if you suffer a deficiency. Here’s the story. . .

Fighting off Stress

For a long time ALC has been known to be important for the function of mitochondria – the little energy-producing structures that function as the body’s batteries or little energy factories. ALC chauffeurs fatty acids across the membranes of mitochondria and facilitates their processing for energy.

I’ve been taking it daily myself for years for precisely this reason – the mitochondrial benefits. It helps energize every cell in your body. The benefits I’m going to talk about today – relief from stress and depression – are new discoveries.

A recent study now shows that ALC can help parts of the brain fend off harmful changes brought on by persistent stress.

Lab tests show that stress changes the structure of a section of the brain called the amygdala, which is a center for anxiety, fear and other similar emotions. Stress alters the networks of neurons in the amygdala that are thought to make you more prone to suffer anxiety and depression. As part of these alterations, the researchers discovered that neurons in the part of the amygdala called the medial amygdala retract and shorten.1

The new studies show when these neurons pull in on themselves and lose their connections to other neurons, their plasticity – their ability to adjust to new experiences – decreases. The result: a feeling of being trapped in a cycle of mood problems and anxious emotions.

But these tests also showed that treatment with ALC supplements can reduce the effects of stress and preserve more of the connections that keep brain tissue functioning more effectively.

A Useful, Risk-Free Depression Fighter

Further investigations also throw more light on how ALC may help alleviate depression by supporting the medial amygdala function.

For one thing, ALC can help the mitochondria in this part of the brain produce more energy as well as stimulate epigenetic effects on DNA – i.e. exert influence on how DNA functions. The supplement helps turn on the function of genes crucial to the health of neurons.

And when these researchers -- a consortium of scientists at Stanford, Rockefeller University and the Karolinska Institutet -- analyzed the levels of ALC in blood samples from people in normal health and compared them to the blood from folks suffering depression, they found that the depressed people were significantly lower in ALC.2

Plus, they found that the very lowest ALC levels occurred in the blood of people who were suffering the most severe depression. The low levels were especially significant in those whose depression had resisted treatment and whose mood disorders had started at the earliest ages.

People who had been abused as children and brought up in an environment of poverty, violence and neglect had very low levels of ALC.

"In patients with depression, something is causing a problem in the mechanisms related to the biology of LAC (acetyl-l-carnitine)," says researcher Carla Nasca. "And, surprisingly, the deficiency in LAC is even stronger in patients that don't respond to standard antidepressants."

I Think a Supplement is a Good Idea

The researchers investigating ALC emphasize that they aren’t ready yet to recommend ALC supplements to people who are depressed or suffering from stress. However, if you do want to take ALC, it seems to me this supplement is so safe it’s worth a try.

ALC is present in red meat, but a lot of people have cut back on the amount of meat they eat, possibly depriving themselves of this valuable nutrient. I don’t necessarily urge eating more meat, but rather making up the difference with an ALC supplement.

The only warnings I could find were the possible interaction it might have with blood thinners.3 If you’re pregnant or nursing, you probably shouldn’t take ALC simply because the effects haven’t been studied. As you can imagine, there are ethical problems in using pregnant women to experiment with medical treatments. I’m pretty confident the supplement is harmless to them, but I can’t guarantee it.

-Source: Lee Euler https://awakeningfromalzheimers.com

Acetyl-l-carnitine (ALCAR) is a form of the amino acid carnitine. ALCAR works largely by creating acetylcholine, the primary neurotransmitter required for learning and memory functions. It can improve mental clarity, alertness, processing speed, focus, mood, and memory.

ALCAR also has fast-acting antidepressant properties, bringing relief quicker than prescription antidepressant drugs. There are other forms of l-carnitine, but ALCAR is the one to use since it has the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier to get from your bloodstream into your brain.

Since carnitine is found almost exclusively in red meat, consider this supplement especially if you are a vegetarian or rarely eat meat. -Source: https://bebrainfit.com/natural-nootropic-supplements/

Enhanced Mental Function

Anyone looking for enhanced mental function and weight loss from the same supplement might have found their answer with Acetyl-L Carnitine Hydrochloride (ALCAR) This is a nootropic compound that has undergone a lot of research both as a cognitive enhancer and for athletic performance and muscle building.

There are actually a number of different forms of Carnitine, but Acetyl-L Carnitine HCL (ALCAR) is the best version to take advantage of the brain-boosting effects.

Acetyl-L Carnitine offers benefits for memory, mental energy, and information processing as well as reasoning, learning, and prolonging your attention span. The supplement is capable of crossing over the blood-brain barrier and entering into the central nervous system. Once this happens, it is thought that the supplement acts as a precursor for the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine.

Acetylcholine is a powerful brain chemical that plays a vital role in memory formation, learning capacity, overall cognition, and a number of additional brain connections behind our thoughts.

Other benefits include helping to protect a number of organs throughout the body such as improving the quality and function of sperm in males. It can raise cardiovascular function and may even protect the heart and brain cells from environmental damage.

-Source: https://nootriment.com/acetyl-l-carnitine-hcl/

N-Acetyl L-Carnitine Hydrochloride is Possibly Effective for:

Improving memory problems in elderly people

Taking acetyl-L-carnitine improves memory and mental function in older people with some memory loss.

Tiredness in older people

Taking acetyl-L-carnitine improves feelings of mental and physical tiredness in older people. It also appears to reduce feelings of tiredness after exercise.

Age-related testosterone deficiency ("male menopause")

Taking acetyl-L-carnitine by mouth along with propionyl-L-carnitine seems to help symptoms related to declining male hormone levels. This combination taken for 6 months seems to improve sexual dysfunction, depression, and fatigue in much the same way the male hormone testosterone does.

Alcohol withdrawal

When given intravenously (by IV) for 10 days then taken by mouth for 80 days, acetyl-L-carnitine helps reduce withdrawal symptoms and increase the amount of time before another alcoholic drink is consumed. However, most of the symptom improvement occurs during the first week. Therefore, it's not clear if taking acetyl-L-carnitine by mouth offers further benefit following IV treatment.

Treating Alzheimer's disease

Acetyl-L-carnitine might slow the rate of disease progression, improve memory, and improve some measures of mental function and behavior in some patients with Alzheimer's disease. It is more likely to help those with early-onset Alzheimer's disease who are less than 66 years of age and have a faster rate of disease progression and mental decline.

Poor blood flow to the brain. Administering a single dose of acetyl-L-carnitine intravenously (by IV) seems to produce short-term improvements in blood flow in the brains of people who have poor blood circulation in the brain.

Improving memory in alcoholics

Taking acetyl-L-carnitine seems to improve memory in 30-60 year-old people whose use of alcohol has produced long-term thinking problems.

Depression

Taking 1-4 grams of acetyl-L-carnitine per day seems to improve mood and decrease depression in some people. It seems to work better in elderly people and when taken in higher amounts.

Reducing nerve pain (neuropathy) caused by diabetes

Taking acetyl-L-carnitine seems to improve symptoms in people with nerve pain caused by diabetes. Acetyl-L-carnitine seems to work best in people who have not had diabetes for a long time and those who have poorly controlled diabetes. Doses of 1000 mg taken two or three times daily seems to work better than doses of 500 mg three times daily.

Poor brain function in people with liver failure (hepatic encephalopathy)

Taking acetyl-L-carnitine improves physical function and may improve mental function in people with poor brain function due to liver failure. It also might improve liver function, as indicated by reduced blood levels of ammonia.

Treating male infertility

Taking acetyl-L-carnitine by mouth, along with L-carnitine, seems to increase sperm motion and may increase the rate of pregnancy in infertile men. Also, taking acetyl-L-carnitine and L carnitine after treatment with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) seems to improve sperm count and sperm movement in men with infertility caused by a swelling of the prostate gland, seminal vesicles, and epididymis.

In addition, taking a combination of acetyl-L-carnitine, L-carnitine, L-arginine, and Panax ginseng seems to increase sperm movement in men with infertility due to reduced sperm movement. It might also increase sperm movement and sperm count in men with infertility due to prostate swelling caused by Chlamydia infection.

Treating Peyronie's disease, a connective tissue disease in men

Acetyl-L-carnitine seems to be more effective than a drug called tamoxifen for reducing pain and slowing worsening of the condition.

-Source: https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-834/acetyl-l-carnitine 

The use of Acetyl-L-Carnitine HCL has also significantly increased in popularity among those who wish to slow the cognitive decline that comes with age or impede the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, the amino acid is considered one of the best options for those seeking a natural supplement to enhance energy, mood, memory and clarity.

Acetyl-L-Carnitine is the substance of choice, whether one has an inherent deficiency of the amino acid or just wishes to enhance his or her memory, mood or energy levels. This is because Acetyl-L-Carnitine is more bioavailable than plain L-Carnitine.

The reason for this is that it is more efficient about crossing the brain-blood barrier. When taken orally, it quickly travels to the heart as well as the brain. Therefore, it is not merely considered an effective nootropic–a substance that enhances memory and cognition and facilitates learning–but also an excellent tool for general wellness and health. The latter is because it targets free radicals, and therefore works as an effective antioxidant.

To further understand Acetyl-L-Carnitine, one must realize that the acetyl group of amino acids play a vital role in producing crucial neurotransmitters. For example, the acetyl component enhances the body’s ability to manufacture acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter directly responsible for reasoning, memory, and other cognitive functions. When these levels are increased, more efficient learning is possible.

Acetyl-L-Carnitine is the substance of choice, whether one has an inherent deficiency of the amino acid or just wishes to enhance his or her memory, mood or energy levels. This is because Acetyl-L-Carnitine is more bioavailable than plain L-Carnitine.

The reason for this is that it is more efficient about crossing the brain-blood barrier. When taken orally, it quickly travels to the heart as well as the brain. Therefore, it is not merely considered an effective nootropic–a substance that enhances memory and cognition and facilitates learning–but also an excellent tool for general wellness and health. The latter is because it targets free radicals, and therefore works as an effective antioxidant.

To further understand Acetyl-L-Carnitine, one must realize that the acetyl group of amino acids play a vital role in producing crucial neurotransmitters. For example, the acetyl component enhances the body’s ability to manufacture acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter directly responsible for reasoning, memory, and other cognitive functions. When these levels are increased, more efficient learning is possible.

-Source: https://mindyourzen.com/acetyl-l-carnitine-hcl-benefits/

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