Beta-alanine supplementation IN SPORT, EXERCISE AND HEALTH
Jay R Hoffman in Dietary Supplementation in Sport and Exercise, 2019
Histidine containing dipeptides, including carnosine are abundant in meat and poultry. As such, an important determinant of muscle carnosine in humans is the dietary intake of histidine containing dipeptides from an omnivorous diet (71). These dipeptides are hydrolyzed to their constituent amino acids of beta-alanine and histidine by carnosinases in the gastrointestinal tract (3) and blood (110), before being taken up into muscle via transporters and synthesized in skeletal muscle in a reaction catalyzed by the enzyme carnosine synthetase (83) (Figure 6.1, Panel A). The influence of histidine containing dipeptides from the diet on muscle carnosine content is demonstrated by the fact that vegetarians, whose only source of beta-alanine is the endogenous production that occurs through hepatic degradation of uracil (64), have been shown to have a significantly lower muscle carnosine content compared to their omnivorous counterparts (61). Beta-alanine is present in meat and fish products, although large quantities would be required to substantially increase the muscle carnosine pool. For example, 200 g of chicken breast contains the approximate equivalent to an 800 mg dose of beta-alanine. Therefore, supplementation with beta-alanine is the most effective method by which to increase muscle carnosine content.
Functional Foods
Datta Sourya, Debasis Bagchi in Extreme and Rare Sports, 2019
β alanine is a non-essential amino acid synthesized by the liver. With histidine, it is the building block for carnosine (a muscle pH regulator and excellent antioxidant) and hence helps in maintaining muscle pH (buffering system), thereby lowering muscle fatigue and improving muscle performance (Artioli et al., 2010). β alanine is also recommended with sodium bicarbonate for endurance athletes for better performance (de Salles Painelli et al., 2013). Researchers have supported the use of β alanine to improve training adaptations (increase training ability-tolerance) through high-intensity training (Hill et al., 2007). Some studies suggested that β alanine supplementation would increase muscle carnosine and thus stabilize the intramuscular pH (lowering H+) during intense training and thereby lower or delay muscular fatigue (Harris et al., 2006; Stout et al., 2007). Hoffman and his co-workers (2007) reported that β alanine consumption might allow for higher intense training volume (stimulus) and eventually result in increased LBM and lower fatigue. Smith et al. (2009) concluded that chronic supplementation of β alanine with high-intensity interval training could significantly increase VO2 peak and LBM due to decreased anaerobic ATP production and thereby improve the endurance performance in a double-blind clinical trial.
Histidine-containing dipeptides
Linda M. Castell, Samantha J. Stear (Nottingham), Louise M. Burke in Nutritional Supplements in Sport, Exercise and Health, 2015
Hill and co-workers (2007) showed that increased muscle carnosine content leads to better performance during high-intensity exercise; an outcome first shown by Harris et al. (2006) to be achieved by supplementation with β-alanine (4–6g/day for four to ten weeks). Carnosine loading is higher in trained than untrained muscles (Bex et al., 2014), but seems to be independent of gender, baseline levels, age or the use of β-alanine supplements with different absorption characteristics (Del Favero et al., 2012; Hill et al., 2007; Stegen et al., 2013, 2014). However, this β-alanine-induced muscle carnosine loading can be further optimized by taking β-alanine together with a meal (Stegen et al., 2013). Based on a meta-analysis of 2012 (Hobson et al., 2012) and subsequently published papers, it seems that β-alanine supplementation is most ergogenic for exercises lasting between one and ten minutes. The ergogenic mechanism of β-alanine supplementation may be the result of the attenuation of acidosis through the proton-buffering capacity of carnosine, whereas other physiological properties of carnosine cannot be excluded at present. Indeed, both in vitro and in vivo experiments on rodents revealed for example an improvement in calcium handling during muscle contractions (Dutka et al., 2012; Everaert et al., 2013). Further information on β-alanine supplementation can be found elsewhere in this book, leaving the remainder of this piece to discuss the acute or chronic dietary intake of the intact dipeptides, rather than only the rate-limiting precursor β-alanine.
Age Drives the Differences in Dietary Supplement Use in Endurance Athletes: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Cyclists, Runners, and Triathletes
Published in Journal of Dietary Supplements, 2023
Austin J. Graybeal, Andreas Kreutzer, Jada L. Willis, Kamiah Moss, Robyn Braun-Trocchio, Meena Shah
The positive association between age and use of DS in athletes (6) is therefore unsurprising given the belief that some DS may alleviate these decrements. For instance, omega-3 supplementation and using DS to alleviate joint pain are commonly reported in older adults (23), coinciding with evidence supporting that fish oil supplementation reduces osteoarthritis-specific pain in this group (24). OA may also benefit from planned electrolyte supplementation, given that strenuous exercise and compounding age-related declines in kidney function may lead to more severe imbalances (25). For sports-specific DS, studies show that products such as protein supplements and beta-alanine improve endurance exercise in older adults (26). Thus, it appears that OA have distinct dietary needs (27) and more so now, given recent findings showing that masters athletics is becoming increasingly more competitive (28, 29). Moreover, higher training hours in endurance sports are associated with greater use of DS compared to non-endurance sports such as sprinting (30, 31). However, there are few established DS shown to improve endurance performance (6) and the prevalence of DS in most common endurance events is unknown. Additional insight to the use of dietary supplements in older endurance athletes will further develop the knowledge about patterns of use for DS in a sample of competitive endurance athletes. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the: (a) use of DS, (b) motivation for use of DS, (c) sources of information for DS, and (d) if these differ by age in endurance athletes who were cyclists, runners, or triathletes.
Identification of AL proteins from 10 λ-AL amyloidosis patients by mass spectrometry extracted from abdominal fat and heart tissue
Published in Amyloid, 2023
Julian Baur, Natalie Berghaus, Sarah Schreiner, Ute Hegenbart, Stefan O. Schönland, Sebastian Wiese, Stefanie Huhn, Christian Haupt
In a first step, we determined the amino acid sequence of the precursor LCs of the different patients. From 2 patients (FOR005, FOR006), the protein sequence of the precursor LCs and their corresponding AL proteins had already been determined as part of a study on the cryo-EM structure of the corresponding fibril [28]. The amino acid sequence of the remaining cases was determined mainly by translation of the cDNA sequence obtained from isolated CD138+ plasma cells. In three out of eight cases (FOR101, FOR142, FOR159) the cDNA sequence contained 1 to 2 uncertain base positions leading to two possible amino acids. With the help of additional MS data, the sequences could be confirmed and it was possible to accurately identify the ambiguous amino acids within one of the two possibilities that resulted from the cDNA sequencing. The only exception in this regard was the case FOR159, where amino acid position 133 in the CL could not be accurately identified because this position is not part of the fibril protein and thus MS could not provide information about this position. However, the DNA sequence at this position encodes for either a valine or an alanine. Since an alanine at this position corresponds to GL and there is no evidence of mutations in this region, the alanine was considered to be the corresponding amino acid.
Taurine and N-acetylcysteine treatments prevent memory impairment and metabolite profile alterations in the hippocampus of high-fat diet-fed female mice
Published in Nutritional Neuroscience, 2022
Alba M. Garcia-Serrano, Joao P. P. Vieira, Veronika Fleischhart, João M. N. Duarte
Metabolic alterations induced by long-term HFD exposure occur throughout the whole brain, but are particularly prominent in the hippocampus [7,11]. Therefore, we set to measure hippocampal metabolites using MRS (Figure 4(a); Table S2). As expected, supplementation with taurine increased its concentration in the hippocampus of CD- and HFD-fed mice (P < 0.001 for both relative to the respective untreated group; Figure 4(b)). NAC treatment had a smaller effect on hippocampal taurine, which was only significantly increased in HFD-fed mice (P = 0.027 vs. untreated HFD). N-acetylaspartate concentration, which is considered a neuronal health marker [26], was decreased by HFD consumption (−6%, P = 0.007 vs. CD), but not upon supplementation with either taurine or NAC (Figure 4(b)). Lactate concentration was also decreased by HFD feeding (−19%, P = 0.004 vs. CD), but not upon NAC treatment (Figure 4(b)). A similar trend was observed for alanine. Small variations in phosphocreatine and creatine were observed in the hippocampus of HFD-fed mice (Figure 4(c)). Most importantly, their ratio was significantly reduced by HFD (−10%, P = 0.014 vs. CD), a modification that was prevented by treatment with NAC but not taurine (Figure 4(c); diet F(1,54) = 9.75, P = 0.003; treatment F(2,54) = 2.04, P = 0.140, interaction F(2,54) = 0.832, P = 0.441).
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