About losing weight with L-carnitine
1. L-carnitine, also known as carnitine and vitamin BT, is a compound naturally existing in human cells, and its chemical name is β-hydroxyγ-trimethylammonium butyric acid. The human body can synthesize L-carnitine by itself, and food can also provide part of it. In cells, the basic function of L-carnitine is to transport fatty acids from mitochondria to the inner membrane of mitochondria as a carrier. Because fatty acids (and other energy substances) can only be oxidized in mitochondria to release energy, fatty acids outside mitochondria cannot be oxidized to release energy. Therefore, it is easy to give people an illusion that L-carnitine is the key to fat oxidation.
2. But in fact, L-carnitine is just a carrier, just like a car carrying fat. As for how much fat is consumed, it does not depend on L-carnitine. That's good. All the bricks needed in Gai Lou are transported by cars, but how many bricks Gai Lou consumes does not depend on the number of cars, but on the size and structure of the building. Simply put, if the amount of exercise (energy consumption) is not large and the fat consumption is not much, just increasing L-carnitine will not increase the oxidative energy supply of fat, so it will not help to lose weight. Under normal circumstances (the amount of exercise is not very large), the human body will synthesize enough L-carnitine by itself, and there will be no shortage of L-carnitine. Only when the amount of exercise is large, such as athletes or bodybuilders, the energy consumption per unit time is large, and the "flow" of fat oxidation energy supply is large, it is possible (supported by many research reports, but denied by some research reports) that the synthesis of L-carnitine is "relatively insufficient". At this time, taking more L-carnitine, expanding the scale of the transport fleet (carrier) and transporting more bricks (fatty acids) to the construction site (mitochondria) per unit time are obviously beneficial to the oxidation and consumption of more fat. Therefore, taking L-carnitine can only help you lose weight if you exercise a lot. At this time, a lot of exercise is still the key to lose weight, and carnitine only plays an auxiliary role. If the amount of exercise is not large, such as just dieting to lose weight, taking L-carnitine has no effect on losing weight. As for the online statements that "L-carnitine can transform fat meat into lean meat", "L-carnitine is suitable for lazy people to lose weight" and "L-carnitine consumes excess fat", they are completely nonsense and completely inconsistent with the most basic physiological and biochemical common sense.
L-carnitine is not a diet drug, its main function is to burn fat, which is different from losing weight. If you want to lose weight with L-carnitine, you should not only burn fat, but also cooperate with proper exercise and control your diet.