Super Human Blend

A meta-analysis of 43 randomised controlled trials of supplemental l-carnitine in adults reported reductions versus control in body weight (1.13 kg, 95% CI -1.59 to -0.67), BMI (0.36 kg/m2) and fat mass (1.16 kg), but none in body fat percentage or waist circumference; the effect was confined to overweight and obese participants and was absent in haemodialysis patients. The pooled trials are daily supplementation studies at gram-range doses; route is not uniformly reported.⁶

Across 21 randomised trials in 2041 adults with type 2 diabetes, each 1 g/day of supplemental l-carnitine lowered HbA1c by 0.16% (95% CI -0.32 to -0.01, GRADE moderate), LDL cholesterol by 0.11 mmol/L (95% CI -0.16 to -0.05, GRADE high) and BMI by 0.37 kg/m2 (GRADE low) versus control. Heterogeneity was 91-94% and the authors said the results should be interpreted very cautiously. Doses were modelled up to 4 g/day.⁷

In the CARNIDIAL trial, 92 incident haemodialysis patients received 1 g of intravenous l-carnitine after each dialysis session, or placebo, for one year. Plasma carnitine rose from 79 to 258 micromol/L on carnitine while placebo fell from 68 to 53, yet erythropoietin resistance improved no more than with placebo (P=0.7). This is intravenous carnitine at 1 g per session, about 4.5 times this vial's 220 mg, and the clinical result was null.⁸

In a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled crossover study, 20 healthy volunteers took oral l-citrulline or l-arginine regimens for a week each. Citrulline raised plasma arginine AUC and Cmax more than arginine did (P<0.01); at 3 g twice daily — 6 g/day by mouth against 120 mg here — it raised the arginine/ADMA ratio from 186 to 278 and urinary nitrate and cGMP. No regimen improved flow-mediated vasodilation over baseline.¹

The mitochondrial carnitine/acylcarnitine carrier, characterised in protein purified from rat liver mitochondria and in recombinant carriers reconstituted into phospholipid vesicles, exchanges cytosolic acylcarnitines for intramitochondrial free carnitine and so delivers fatty acyl units to beta-oxidation; mutations in its gene SLC25A20 cause carrier deficiency with fasting-induced coma, cardiomyopathy and muscle weakness. This is the biochemistry of a transporter, not an effect of supplemental carnitine at any dose or route.³

A review of mitochondrial tRNA modification reports that in cybrid and patient-derived cell lines carrying MELAS and MERRF mitochondrial DNA mutations, the taurine modification normally present at the anticodon wobble uridine of mitochondrial tRNAs is absent, and the resulting failure to decode cognate codons impairs mitochondrial protein synthesis. This is a structural role for taurine in mitochondrial translation, not evidence that supplemental taurine, by any route or dose, alters that modification.⁵

In six healthy men, 30 g of arginine infused intravenously over 30 minutes and followed by 200 micrograms of TRH raised mean serum growth hormone from 0.6 to 23.3 micrograms/L at 60 minutes — below the 44.9 reached by a GHRH bolus alone. Arginine did not release growth hormone from rat anterior pituitary cells in vitro, implicating suppression of endogenous somatostatin. The infused dose is roughly 270 times this vial's 110 mg.⁹

A narrative review of human studies reports that oral l-arginine in the 5-9 g range raises resting growth hormone by at least 100%, that higher oral doses are not well tolerated, and that exercise alone raises growth hormone 300-500% while oral arginine plus exercise reaches only about 200% of resting levels — less than exercise alone, in both younger and older individuals. These are gram oral doses, not the 110 mg injected here.¹⁰

In 36 healthy non-smoking volunteers randomised to daily oral arginine aspartate (17 g free arginine), arginine hydrochloride (24.8 g free arginine) or placebo for two weeks, hydroxyproline deposited into a subcutaneous PTFE implant rose from 10.1 nmol/cm graft in controls to 17.6 with aspartate (p=0.028) and 23.9 with hydrochloride (p<0.001), with parallel increases in lymphocyte mitogenesis. Those oral doses are over 150 times this vial's arginine.¹¹

A review of collagen precursor supply notes that proline and hydroxyproline form about 23% of the collagen molecule and that wound-fluid proline runs at least 50% above plasma, yet additional dietary proline does not increase collagen accumulation, and neither does glutamine. It states arginine above growth requirements enhances wound collagen deposition and that ornithine shares this, giving no species, route or dose, by mechanisms it says none have proven.²

Pooling 48 randomised controlled trials in 3255 adults, supplemental l-carnitine lowered C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, TNF-alpha and malondialdehyde and raised total antioxidant capacity versus placebo (p=0.029 to p<0.001), with no effect sizes reported in the abstract. Subgroup analyses placed the CRP and TNF-alpha reductions in trials of 12 weeks or longer and in type 2 diabetes or BMI 25 kg/m2 and above; trial doses ran to 2 g/day and higher.¹²

In the PANTHEON trial, 1006 patients with moderate-to-severe COPD at 34 Chinese hospitals took oral N-acetylcysteine 600 mg twice daily or placebo for one year; exacerbations fell from 1.49 to 1.16 per patient-year (risk ratio 0.78, 95% CI 0.67-0.90, p=0.0011). Adverse events occurred in 29% on N-acetylcysteine versus 26% on placebo. That dose is 1.2 g/day by mouth, sixteen times the 75 mg in this vial.¹³