L-Carnosine, A Strong-worded Caution From An Expert. Wow!

[TreasureVibe]

I bought some zinc carnosine since it apparently is prescribed by doctors in Japan since 1994 for gastritis and GERD, but I came across this website, written by a serious orthomolecular expert judging from his CV and track record, Dr. E.K. Schandl. His website has been down for a while now but it can be traced back through the Wayback machine. Here is what his website said on L-Carnosine:

L-Carnosine Warning!

MIRACULOUS, LIFE-EXTENDING NUTRIENT OR NEUROTOXIN?

• The dipeptide, carnosine, composed of two linked amino acids, histidine and beta-alanine, occurs naturally only in meat products, has been recently promoted in some publications for the treatment of disorders that may range from neurological degeneration to brain circulatory deficit.

• The studies described were performed on cell culture experiments, i.e. cells grown in bottles away from a living being, or in rodents. After reading these articles, one may have the notion that taking carnosine is a prerequisite for health, youth and longevity.

It must be considered that every coin has two sides ...

• Aspartame (NutraSweet), is also a two amino acid peptide (dipeptide) that has been used to sweeten foods and drinks, however, today we know that it may be a dangerous neurotoxin, causing numerous neurological symptoms and disorders.

So, what about carnosine?

• In the real biomedical world carnosine is significant when the HUMAN body is unable to detoxify itself of it, i.e. break it down. This simply means, when there is an accumulation of carnosine, serious, even life threatening neurological diseases may set in. This condition is referred to as

CARNOSINEMIA

• Carnosinemia is of established biomedical recognition and significance. The condition simply is carnosine overloadperpetrated by either a genetical defect due to a lack of production of the detoxifying enzyme carnosinase, or it can occur from the inhibition of the enzyme by too much of its substrate, carnosine.

• Saunders DICTIONARY & ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LABORATORY MEDICINE AND TECHNOLOGY, ed. J.L. Bennington, W.B. Saunders and Company, 1984, p.262 defines, "carnosinemia, an inherited condition, transmitted as an autosomal recessive trait, that is characterized by the presence of excessive amounts of carnosine in the blood and urine. Caused by genetic deficiency of the enzyme carnosinase (aminoacyl-histidine dipeptidase), carnosinemia results in progressive neurological damage, severe mental retardation, and myoclonic seizures," as found in Alzheimer's and progressive myoclonous epilepsy, Jacob-Creutzfeldt disease (mad cow or spongy brain diseases), subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, closed head trauma, and hypoxic-ischemic brain injury.

• A more current reference, TIETZ TEXTBOOK of CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, ed. C.A. Burtis and E.R. Ashwood, W.B. Saunders Company, 1999, p. 452 describes, "carnosinemia, carnosinase deficiency, excessive amounts of carnosine in the blood and urine, also excessive amount of homocarnosine in the urine, with clinical features of severe neurological disease with no effective treatment."

• It should be realized that an overload of substrate, i.e. carnosine in the present case, will cause the inhibition of the degradation/detoxifying enzyme, carnosinase. As a result, there will be an accumulation of high concentrations of carnosine in the blood and tissues. This carnosine accumulation is the same as induced carnosinemia and potentially, in time it may cause many of the deleterious effects described above.

• Scientists reported a reduced carnosinase activity in patients with Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and patients following a cerebrovascular accident, Wassif WS, Sherwood RA, Amir A, Idowu B, Leigh N, Petres TJ, Serum Carnosinase Activities in Central Nervous System Disorders, Clin Chim Acta 1994 Feb;225(1): 57-64.

Might there be a correlation between carnosine overload and these neurological disorders?

• As a conclusion, those who are presently taking carnosine may, in fact, induce the potentially dangerous neurotoxic condition, carnosinemia. Therefore, it is not advisable to supplement with carnosine. In the light of all of the above, one can see one of the true benefits of a vegetarian diet. Patients with neurological disorders such as M.S., Parkinson's Disease, A.L.S. and Alzheimer's Disease could very well benefit from a vegetarian diet.

Dr. E.K. Schandl

M.S., Ph.D., FACB, SC(ASCP), CC(NRCC), LNC, CLD, Clinical Laboratory Director, Oncobiologist Clinical/Nutritional Biochemist


All of the opinions expressed in these columns are solely those of Dr. E.K. Schandl.

Link: L-Carnosine Warning - from American Metabolic Laboratories - Health Warnings! home of the original CAProfile, Longevity Profile, HE Profile, SHE Profile and many others!

Here his track record can be found, it is quite impressive:

Dr. Schandl

He himself has a PhD, and has a very impressive background. Judging from his credentials alone, I would believe anything he would say surrounding his field of knowledge. He also uses a huge sum of supplements daily, and has a black belt in Karate, and is a senior champion Karate in South Florida.

So what are your thoughts on this warning of his surrounding L-Carnosine?

 

[lollipop]

I am no expert, but I have heard L-Carnosine is toxic.

His work and reasoning seem legit.

 

[Tarmander]

An autosomal recessive trait is a big deal...like Huntingtons or Cystic Fibrosis. You would know in infancy actually: "Symptoms that begin during infancy may include drowsiness, seizures that may be accompanied by involuntary jerking muscle movements of the arms, legs, or head (myoclonic seizures)". Carnosinemia from genetics seems extremely rare.

As far as consuming Carnosine and developing Carnosinemia...well I think you would need some examples of people developing severe neurological disorders from taking this supplement, and I have never seen anything like that happen. Do you have any examples? Perhaps you could get some short term effects from consuming massive amounts of Carnosine...but presumably it would slowly metabolize and leave the body...in other words I do not think you can break your carnosinase enzyme.

Just found that the LD50 in mice for carnosine is 14.93g/kg...that is super high: http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9923324

The fact that he brings up aspartame is a red flag to me...aspartame is a devil well known by the health community, and trying to put carnosine in that category seems disingenuous when they are completely different chemicals. "Paint with linseed oil in it is toxic...did you know the soviet union used paint with linseed oil? They killed millions of people!" Bad logic

For the record I have never tried carnosine.

 

[TreasureVibe]

Thanks, well yeah that is the weird thing, this guy seems like he is tremendously knowledgeable on the subject, yet he gives no proper foundation as to why l-carnosine is toxic, other than suggestion. I can understand that l-carnosine could be labeled under the group of bad amino acids as Dr. Peat coined, but well, is l-carnosine a bad amino acid? Perhaps Dr. Schandl is hinting at a possibility that genetical carnosinemia is not that rare as is thought? I am really confused here.

I am no expert, but I have heard L-Carnosine is toxic.

His work and reasoning seem legit.

Thank you for your reply, could you tell me where you have heard L-carnosine is toxic?

Edit: basically according to this post from another thread:

There's a lot of misinformation in this thread. But I'll address this in particular, which should answer other questions.

When the carnosinase enzyme is overloaded, generally at over a gram of carnosine, additional carnosine is able to slip through and be stored for later use. Taking smaller doses will speed up the breakdown of carnosine into histidine and beta-alanine, and prevent storage of carnosine.

Unless the carnosinase enzyme has reached full saturation, you will not be able to bypass the breakdown of carnosine to histidine and beta alanine to any meaningful level.

Let's say you want to store 500mg of carnosine in tissues and avoid it being broken down to its components, this would require saturation of around 1 gram, followed shortly after by another 500mg.

Because of the time it takes for carnosinase to downregulate, a person could eventually saturate several grams of carnosine into tissue over the span of a few days, assuming they continously redose on the half life and initially saturate the carnosinase enzyme.

This would result in a large amount of histidine and beta alanine in circulation, with a large amount of carnosine occupying the carnosinase enzyme, followed by a moderate level of carnosine tissue saturation and the ability to lower ones dose while maintaining such a moderate tissue saturation of carnosine through the reproduction of carnosing in serum and continuous saturation of carnosinase, preventing large amounts of tissue carnosine being broken down.

The carnosinase enzyme saturates at 1 gram of L-carnosine. So any dosage past that could induce carnosinemia, or free floating L-carnosine in the blood if we were to interpret the word by it's actual meaning like Dr. Schandl does. Carnosinemia is associated with the degenerative diseases he named. You actually get around 200 mg of L-carnosine atleast if you eat meat with dinner, so your safety level would be around 800 mg of L-carnosine before risking full saturation of the enzyme. So an actual supplement of L-carnosine of 1000 mg could potentially cause carnosinemia, especially when taken daily. I still wonder why then Dr. Schandl completely avoids any L-carnosine supplementation, perhaps because the de-saturation of the carnosinase enzyme takes longer than we know? Because theoretically any supplement containing L-carnosine below 800 mg would be safe, unless the period the carnosinase enzyme stays saturated is longer. Strangely enough, all over the internet it is touted for it's safety and beneficiary effects for your health.

It is interesting, I wonder what Dr. Peat would have to say about L-carnosine.

 

[lollipop]

Thank you for your reply, could you tell me where you have heard L-carnosine is toxic?

Wish I could. In my earlier athletic days, my bike racing boyfriend was taking to increase his speed and strength. Then he began reading and hearing that it wasn’t as good for you as promoted.

This guy seems to like it with references. Might be interesting to look into more research.

L-Carnosine: Still the Best for Anti-Aging

 

[TreasureVibe]

Wish I could. In my earlier athletic days, my bike racing boyfriend was taking to increase his speed and strength. Then he began reading and hearing that it wasn’t as good for you as promoted.

This guy seems to like it with references. Might be interesting to look into more research.
L-Carnosine: Still the Best for Anti-Aging

Hmm, it seems like it used to be common knowledge too for advocates of L-carnosine to take dosages of around 1500 mg to let L-carnosine slip through the carnosinase enzyme. And here is where Dr. Schandl raises worry, as he basically makes a case that carnosinemia is just what the word means, (excess) carnosine in the blood. As a genetic disease it is understandably more devastating since there is virtually no conversion, but when invoked in this way, it might be just as damaging to the body. Which, is contradictive to what health promoters like the guy in that link says. Also I have read in another thread that beta-alanine also raises carnosine levels in the body. All carnosine below the 1000 mg threshold will be converted to beta alanine, so an excess of carnosine with high doses can be achieved faster than thought, if the carnosine that gets raised by beta alanine gets in the blood somehow. Suddenly it becomes clear as to why supplemental induced carnosinemia is not far away from a reality and I understand a bit better now where Dr. Schandl is coming from, if my reasoning is scientifically correct. However I can assume that in the quantity of my Dr's Best supplement, 59 mg of L-carnosine per pill, it could be deemed safe. Yet since the carnosinase enzyme apparently has a saturation point, I still worry, since I don't know much about the carnosinase enzyme's synthase and function yet and it's quite alot of literature. Yet, if you tolerate meat, you should presumably be fine, although a supplemental form of L-carnosine is possibly not the same as that from a food source. It's annoying, because I had high hopes for this supplement but I don't want to risk any major degenerative ailments..

Interesting yet hard to understand!

 

[lollipop]

Hmm, it seems like it used to be common knowledge too for advocates of L-carnosine to take dosages of around 1500 mg to let L-carnosine slip through the carnosinase enzyme. And here is where Dr. Schandl raises worry, as he basically makes a case that carnosinemia is just what the word means, (excess) carnosine in the blood. As a genetic disease it is understandably more devastating since there is virtually no conversion, but when invoked in this way, it might be just as damaging to the body. Which, is contradictive to what health promoters like the guy in that link says. Also I have read in another thread that beta-alanine also raises carnosine levels in the body. All carnosine below the 1000 mg threshold will be converted to beta alanine, so an excess of carnosine with high doses can be achieved faster than thought, if the carnosine that gets raised by beta alanine gets in the blood somehow. Suddenly it becomes clear as to why supplemental induced carnosinemia is not far away from a reality and I understand a bit better now where Dr. Schandl is coming from, if my reasoning is scientifically correct. However I can assume that in the quantity of my Dr's Best supplement, 59 mg of L-carnosine per pill, it could be deemed safe. Yet since the carnosinase enzyme apparently has a saturation point, I still worry, since I don't know much about the carnosinase enzyme's synthase and function yet and it's quite alot of literature. Yet, if you tolerate meat, you should presumably be fine, although a supplemental form of L-carnosine is possibly not the same as that from a food source. It's annoying, because I had high hopes for this supplement but I don't want to risk any major degenerative ailments..

Interesting yet hard to understand!

Really appreciating your reasoning. Maybe someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

 

[Dave Clark]

Is Dr. Schandl a card carrying vegetarian? Many vegetarians thrive on any science that implies something in a meat eating diet is problematic. I would rather hear what Dr. Peat, or a meat eating expert has to say about carnosine, to eliminate any bias or agenda. I keep an open mind since many isolated amino acids can be problems when taken as supplements.

 

[Anders86]

I guess Beta Alanine would be fine?