Effect of oral L-carnitine administration on insulin sensitivity and lipid profile in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of L-Carnitine, published as a randomized controlled trial.

It was the aim of this study to evaluate the effect of oral L-carnitine administration on insulin sensitivity and lipid profile in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

To assess insulin sensitivity, the euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp technique was performed.

Who Took Part

The study group was 12 subjects.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial was carried out in 12 subjects with type 2 diabetes.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

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

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

Six other individuals took a placebo for the same period of time, as the control group.

Before and after the intervention, insulin sensitivity and the lipid profile were estimated.

Wilcoxon's signed rank and the Mann-Whitney U test were used for the statistical analyses.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Blood Glucose, Body Mass Index, Carnitine, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Glucose Clamp Technique, Insulin and Lipids.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of L-Carnitine in 12 subjects.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

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 (Annals of nutrition & metabolism), a journal based in Switzerland.

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