Carnosine

• Carnosine, beta-alanyl-L-histidine, is found in a lot of tissue, but in abundance in skeletal muscle. It has many important roles including: buffering, fighting free radicals, enzyme regulation, and sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium regulation. Carnosine is found more in fast-twitch fibers. This is a result of the decreased amount of carnosinase, a degrading enzyme of carnosine, found in skeletal muscle.
• Carnosine in skeletal muscle tissue acts as a buffering system to combat the H+ influx during exercise, reducing fatigue onset time.
• Carnosine antioxidant and anti proliferation abilities. Carnosine has the ability to affect ATP and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) of cancer cells. HIF-1α is a protein that is found the be overly expressed in many cancers. Carnosine possess the ability to reduce HIF-1α protein levels by affecting its stability and through degradation.
• Carnosine supplementation also was shown to improve glucose metabolism. A double blind randomized study with non-diabetic individuals that were overweight and obese were either given 2 grams of carnosine daily or a placebo for 12 weeks. The following parameters were measured: glucose tolerance (through oral glucose test), blood pressure, insulin sensitivity and secretion, plasma lipid levels. The participants that received carnosine supplementation, who were previously labeled as impaired glucose tolerant, had a decrease in their 2 hour glucose level and 2 hour insulin level.