Effects of acute L-carnitine supplementation on nitric oxide production and oxidative stress after exhaustive exercise in young soccer players

What Was Tested

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

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers and young adults, men only.

The subjects were 26 healthy males aged 17-19 years.

All subjects received a placebo via a glass of fruit juice. 1 h after the same exercise protocol mentioned above was performed and blood samples were drawn immediately.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, single-blind and placebo-controlled study.

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

In this single-blind L-Carnitine study one party knew the assignments and the other did not.

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

Venous blood samples were collected again within 5 min following the exercise test.

One week later, the test was repeated on the same athletes with placebo fluids.

These plasma samples were used for measurement of nitrate-nitrite (NOx), which are known to be the stable end products of NO, TBARs as a lipid peroxidation indicator and an antioxidant glutathione (GSH) levels.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Carnitine, Dietary Supplements, Glutathione, Nitric Oxide, Oxidative Stress, Physical Exertion and Soccer.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Results are reported in around 1 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2015 (The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness), a journal based in Italy.

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