Effect of L-carnitine on quality of life in covert hepatic encephalopathy: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

What Was Tested

Researchers studied L-Carnitine in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The researchers aimed to evaluate the impact of L-carnitine on the quality of life and liver function in patients with liver cirrhosis and covert HE.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 150 patients taking part.

The researchers conducted an investigator-initiated, prospective, multi-center, double- blind, randomized phase III trial in patients with covert HE.

The model for end-stage liver disease (MELD), the 36-Item Short Form Survey (SF-36), the psychometric hepatic encephalopathy score (PHES), and the Stroop Test were evaluated in all patients.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

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

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with L-Carnitine could be set against what happens without it.

Changes in quality of life and liver function were assessed at 6 months.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Carnitine, End Stage Liver Disease, Hepatic Encephalopathy, Liver Cirrhosis and Quality of Life.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Randomized controlled trials as topic and Stroop test.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of L-Carnitine in 150 patients.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2022 (The Korean journal of internal medicine), a journal based in Korea (South).

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