Investigating the effects of co-supplementation with alpha-linolenic acid and L-carnitine on inflammatory status, oxidative stress, clinical symptoms, mental health and quality of life in women with migraine: a protocol for a randomized, triple-blind, placebo-controlled trial

What Was Tested

This clinical study looks at L-Carnitine in the context of migraine.

Migraine is a severe neurological disorder that is recognized as one of the most common debilitating diseases worldwide.

In this regard, the impact of nutrition, as a complementary medicine, is largely attributed to that of certain nutrients on inflammation and mitochondrial function.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 80 women were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, women only.

Secondary outcomes include mental health, sleep quality, and quality of life (QOL).

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, placebo-controlled and parallel-group study.

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

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

Groups ran in parallel: each of the women stayed in one arm throughout.

The primary outcomes include changes in clinical symptoms of migraine, including frequency, severity, and duration of attacks, serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), nitric oxide (NO), malondialdehyde (MDA), and superoxide dismutase (SOD).

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are alpha-Linolenic Acid, Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Antioxidants, Biomarkers, Carnitine, Dietary Supplements and Inflammation.

The authors tagged it with the keywords L-carnitine, Migraine and Oxidative stress.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and parallel-group study of L-Carnitine in 80 women in people with migraine.

Its findings take up roughly 3 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2024 (Trials), a journal based in England.

More context: the L-Carnitine compound page, Migraine research.