L- CARNOSINE Part 2
Part 1 Alpha Lipoic Acid Part 3 Acetyl-l-Carnatine
n 1900 in Moscow, Gulevitsch and Amiradgibi isolated a new compound. In 1994 Professor Steven Charles Gallant attention was drawn to an experiment and found that when l-carnosine was added to old human cells in a culture, it was able to rejuvenate the cells in such a way that they virtually matched young human cells. In 1996 they began testing mice with amazing results. L-Carnosine is a natural body product consisting of the amino acids Beta-alanine and L-histidine chemically bound to each other and is known scientifically as N-beta-alanyl-histidine. It is found in high levels in nerve cells (neurons) and muscle cells (myocytes). Levels are high when you are born and decreases with age. L-Carnosine is the most effective anti-carbonylation agent yet discovered and helps to prevent skin collagen cross-linking which leads to loss of elasticity and wrinkles. (Carbonylation is a pathological step in the age-related degradation of the body’s proteins.) It may extend the functional life of the body’s key building blocks – cells, proteins, DNA and lipids.
Studies on the rejuvenating effects of L-Carnosine support it is free radicals protective, has rejuvenating ability of cells at end of the life cycle of dividing cells, restoring normal appearance and extending their cellular lifespan, ability to rejuvenate connective tissue cells and thus to expedite wound healing, has brain protective quality from plaque formation, helps prevent skin collagen cross-linking which leads to loss of elasticity and wrinkles and other issues.
For the intent of this article which is to address diabetes:
- Carnosine works to lower glucose in cases of hyperglycemia.
- Protein glycation or cross linking by excessive glucose damages nervous, vascular, kidney, retinal and other tissues and carnosine is an effect anti-glycating agent due to free radical scavenging abilities.
- Works to suppress diabetes triggered increases in BP by reacting with small carbonyl compounds (aldehydes and keytones) which accumulate on proteins during aging.
- Carnosine increases heart contractility by releasing calcium which enables the heart muscle to contract more efficiently through enhancement of calcium response in heart myocytes, in calcium-regulated proteins in cardiac muscles
- Carnosine works to inhibit advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) which cross-links proteins, renders them insoluble, accumulates in protein plaques and leads to oxidation of neurons.
- AGE inhibitors such as carnosine may work by chelating copper which is linked to brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s.
