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A placebo-controlled trial of acetyl-L-carnitine and α-lipoic acid in the treatment of bipolar depression
Plain-language guide to PMID 23948785 (2013): placebo-controlled randomized controlled trial study of L-Carnitine in 12 patients.
Key Facts
- PMID
- 23948785
- Journal
- Journal of clinical psychopharmacology
- Year
- 2013
- Study type
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Authors
- Brennan BP et al. (8 authors)
- DOI
- 10.1097/JCP.0b013e31829a83f5
What This Study Did, in Plain Language
What Was Tested
This randomized controlled trial paper looks at L-Carnitine.
The researchers performed a randomized placebo-controlled trial of the mitochondrial enhancers acetyl-L-carnitine (ALCAR) and α-lipoic acid (ALA) in patients with bipolar depression, and assessed markers of cerebral energy metabolism using phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
Who Took Part
The study group was 12 patients.
The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.
How the Study Was Run
The design is described as randomized and placebo-controlled.
Because people in this L-Carnitine study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.
A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the L-Carnitine group a baseline to be compared against.
Statistical analysis used random effects mixed models.
What Was Measured
The researchers performed a randomized placebo-controlled trial of the mitochondrial enhancers acetyl-L-carnitine (ALCAR) and α-lipoic acid (ALA) in patients with bipolar depression, and assessed markers of cerebral energy metabolism using phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acetylcarnitine, Antidepressive Agents, Bipolar Disorder, Brain, Chi-Square Distribution, Energy Metabolism and Linear Models.
What This Means in Plain Language
The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of L-Carnitine in 12 patients.
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.
The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.
The publication is from 2013 (Journal of clinical psychopharmacology), a journal based in United States.
More context: the L-Carnitine compound page, all human trials.
Our Notes on the Compound
L-Carnitine: An amino acid derivative that carries fatty acids into mitochondria for energy production.
Related Pages
Source: PubMed record. This explanation is written by PeptideWhiz from the public record. For research and education only. Not medical advice; no dosing information is given.