Lack of effect of L-carnitine supplementation on weight gain in very preterm infants

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at L-Carnitine.

Carnitine transfer across the placenta occurs predominantly during the third trimester.

Unless L-carnitine is provided, very preterm infants develop carnitine deficiency.

Although breast milk and infant formulas contain L-carnitine, parenteral nutrition solutions do not routinely provide L-carnitine.

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as both men and women.

Eligible patients were <29 weeks of gestation, <72 hours of age, and did not have a potentially life-threatening congenital malformation or hereditary metabolic disorder.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and parallel-group study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the L-Carnitine group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on L-Carnitine, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with L-Carnitine could be set against what happens without it.

The L-Carnitine group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

The study was a double-blind parallel placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial.

Secondary outcome variables included food efficiency (defined as weight gain divided by caloric intake), weight gain at 4 weeks of age, time to regain birth weight and length of stay.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Carnitine, Dietary Supplements, Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena, Infant, Low Birth Weight, Infant, Premature, Infant, Premature, Diseases and Length of Stay.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of L-Carnitine.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2005 (Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association), a journal based in United States.

More context: the L-Carnitine compound page, all human trials.