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Wednesday, October 9, 2019

A Lack of This One Molecule Might Be The Reason Millions of People Have Depression

BY MICHELLE STARR


Researchers seem to be quite excited about acetyl-l-carnitine. Could this be the breakthrough they have been waiting for? It's an anino acid which is readily available as a supplement on-line and in health food stores. 


People who live with depression have low blood levels of a specific molecule, new medical research has revealed. It's called acetyl-L-carnitine, and those with particularly severe, treatment-resistant or childhood onset depression were found to have the lowest levels.

Science Alert


Nutritional supplement may succeed where antidepressants fail, by Ben Coxworth



In previous studies conducted by Rockefeller's Dr. Carla Nasca, depression-like symptoms in rodents were also found to go hand-in-hand with lowered levels of the chemical. When acetyl-L-carnitine was orally or intravenously administered to the animals, however, those symptoms were eliminated within a matter of days. By contrast, traditional antidepressants typically take two to four weeks to have an effect in both people and rodents, and that effect is often negligible.



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