Insulin action on glucose and protein metabolism during L-carnitine supplementation in maintenance haemodialysis patients

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at L-Carnitine.

The researchers have used a randomised, matched-paired, double-blind, placebo-controlled experimental design to determine the capability of intravenous L-carnitine supplementation to modify insulin resistance and protein catabolism in non-diabetic patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) undergoing chronic haemodialysis treatment.

Why It Was Studied

Impaired protein anabolism and insulin resistance are characteristic features of maintenance haemodialysis patients.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Whole-body protein and glucose metabolism were assessed on interdialytic days by the L[1-(13)C]leucine and the [2,2-(2)H(2)]glucose kinetic models in the postabsorptive state and during euglicemic hyperinsulinemic clamp studies at baseline and at the end of the treatment period.

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got L-Carnitine and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received L-Carnitine.

Some participants received a placebo instead of L-Carnitine, giving a reference point.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Carnitine, Glucose, Insulin, Insulin Resistance, Kidney Failure, Chronic, Leucine and Proteins.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

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 2008 (Nephrology, dialysis, transplantation : official publication of the European Dialysis and Transplant Association - European Renal Association), a journal based in England.

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