The effects of l-Carnitine supplementation on inflammatory markers, clinical status, and 28 days mortality in critically ill patients: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at L-Carnitine.

Critical ill patients experience catabolic stress, which results in a systemic inflammatory response.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of l-Carnitine supplementation on clinical status, inflammatory markers, and mortality rate in critically ill patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).

Why It Was Studied

Trial registration: IRCT, Registered 30 May 2018, https://www.irct.ir/trial/30748.

Who Took Part

This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was performed on critically ill patients.

Nutritional status and the acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) score, sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score, and 28-day mortality were also recorded.

How the Study Was Run

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

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.

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

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

Serum levels of inflammatory markers, including C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were measured.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Biomarkers, C-Reactive Protein, Carnitine, Critical Illness, Dietary Supplements and Interleukin-6.

Author keywords: Critically ill patient, Inflammation, Intensive care unit and L-Carnitine.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2022 (Clinical nutrition ESPEN), a journal based in England.

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