The Equalizer

Q. You seem to be a huge fan of L-carnitine. What form of L-carnitine do you feel is the best and why?

A. I’m a huge fan of L-carnitine! Without any reservations whatsoever, I feel the best “type” or salt of L-carnitine is L-carnitine L-tartrate (LCLT), and I’m highly partial to the material first patented and produced by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Lonza as its branded Carnipure® product. The justification for this is elegantly simple: There are better than 20 in vivo studies of LCLT published and accessible via PubMed, and almost all are very positive. Around double that number of studies are published in other nonscientific journals and magazines. LCLT has clinically validated human studies showing benefits related to exercise and recovery, male fertility, cardiovascular health, and anti-aging, and growing evidence shows that in infants, LCLT supplementation might be “essential” (at least in babies who are not being breast fed). The stuff is, for all intents and purposes, nontoxic at any realistic oral dose. It is one of the very few, select, proven (legal) performance enhancers. I prefer the Lonza-branded product over others due to Lonza’s impeccable quality standards and 25+ years of experience in manufacturing and researching LCLT. A gram per day of LCLT goes a long way and is one of the best things an athlete or really anyone can do for his or her body. Every athlete should be supplementing with LCLT!