Zinc carnosine works with bovine colostrum in truncating heavy exercise-induced increase in gut permeability in healthy volunteers

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Carnosine.

The researchers examined whether zinc carnosine (ZnC), a health-food product taken alone or in combination with bovine colostrum (a natural source of growth factors), would moderate such effects.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were young adults and adults, men only.

Eight volunteers completed a 4-arm, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover protocol (14 d of placebo, ZnC, colostrum, or ZnC plus colostrum) before undertaking standardized exercise 2 and 14 d after the start of treatment.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Carnosine.

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.

Changes in epithelial resistance, apoptosis signaling molecules, and tight junction (TJ) protein phosphorylation in response to a 2°C rise in body temperature were determined with the use of Caco-2 and HT29 intestinal cells.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Caco-2 Cells, Carnosine, Cattle, Colostrum, Dietary Supplements, Exercise and HT29 Cells.

The authors tagged it with the keywords clinical trial, gut growth, injury, nutriceutical and repair.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 9 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2016 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Carnosine compound page, all human trials.