Zinc carnosine, a health food supplement that stabilises small bowel integrity and stimulates gut repair processes

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Carnosine in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To examine the effect of ZnC on various models of gut injury and repair, and in a clinical trial.

Why It Was Studied

Zinc carnosine (ZnC) is a health food product claimed to possess health-promoting and gastrointestinal supportive activity.

Scientific evidence underlying these claims is, however, limited.

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as men only.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

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

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Carnosine group a baseline to be compared against.

Each person switched between Carnosine and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

In vitro studies used pro-migratory (wounded monolayer) and proliferation ([(3)H]-thymidine incorporation) assays of human colonic (HT29), rat intestinal epithelial (RIE) and canine kidney (MDCK) epithelial cells.

In vivo studies used a rat model of gastric damage (indomethacin/restraint) and a mouse model of small-intestinal (indomethacin) damage.

What Was Measured

Zinc carnosine (ZnC) is a health food product claimed to possess health-promoting and gastrointestinal supportive activity.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal, Carnosine, Cell Division, Cell Line, Cell Movement, Dietary Supplements and Dogs.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study of Carnosine.

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2007 (Gut), a journal based in England.

More context: the Carnosine compound page.