[Double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled study of efficiency and safety of complex acetyl-L-carnitine, L-carnitine fumarate and alpha-lipoic acid (Spermactin Forte) for treatment of male infertility]

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at L-Carnitine.

To study the effects of complex acetyl-l-carnitine, l-carnitine fumarate and alpha-lipoic acid (SpermActin Forte) on oxidative stress, ejaculate quality and sperm DNA fragmentation in men with infertility.

Why It Was Studied

Drug complexes influencing various factors of spermatogenesis disturbance (oligo-, astheno-, teratozoospermia), oxidative stress and the level of sperm DNA fragmentation are of greatest and reasonable interest.

Who Took Part

The study group was 80 men.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, both men and women.

The criteria for the efficiency of therapy included sperm analysis, the level of sperm DNA fragmentation, the level of sperm oxidative stress, as well as information about achievement of pregnancy, obtained by interviewing all participants.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, open-label and placebo-controlled.

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

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

Nothing was hidden in this open-label L-Carnitine study: the men and staff both knew the treatment.

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

What Was Measured

Drug complexes influencing various factors of spermatogenesis disturbance (oligo-, astheno-, teratozoospermia), oxidative stress and the level of sperm DNA fragmentation are of greatest and reasonable interest.

The subject headings attached to it are Acetylcarnitine, Carnitine, Fumarates, Infertility, Male, Oxidative Stress, Sperm Count and Sperm Motility.

The authors tagged it with the keywords antioxidant complex SpermAktin Forte, male infertility, sperm DNA fragmentation and sperm analysis.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and open-label study of L-Carnitine in 80 men.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2019 (Urologiia (Moscow, Russia : 1999)), a journal based in Russia (Federation).

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