Abstract
BackgroundCarnosine is a naturally present dipeptide abundant in skeletal muscle and an over-the counter food additive. Animal data suggest a role of carnosine supplementation in the prevention and treatment of obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease but only limited human data exists.Methods and ResultsSamples of vastus lateralis muscle were obtained by needle biopsy. We measured muscle carnosine levels (high-performance liquid chromatography), % body fat (bioimpedance), abdominal subcutaneous and visceral adiposity (magnetic resonance imaging), insulin sensitivity (euglycaemic hyperinsulinemic clamp), resting energy expenditure (REE, indirect calorimetry), free-living ambulatory physical activity (accelerometers) and lipid profile in 36 sedentary non-vegetarian middle aged men (45±7 years) with varying degrees of adiposity and glucose tolerance. Muscle carnosine content was positively related to % body fat (r = 0.35, p = 0.04) and subcutaneous (r = 0.38, p = 0.02) but not visceral fat (r = 0.17, p = 0.33). Muscle carnosine content was inversely associated with insulin sensitivity (r = -0.44, p = 0.008), REE (r = -0.58, p<0.001) and HDL-cholesterol levels (r = -0.34, p = 0.048). Insulin sensitivity and physical activity were the best predictors of muscle carnosine content after adjustment for adiposity.ConclusionOur data shows that higher carnosine content in human skeletal muscle is positively associated with insulin resistance and fasting metabolic preference for glucose. Moreover, it is negatively associated with HDL-cholesterol and basal energy expenditure. Intervention studies targeting insulin resistance, metabolic and cardiovascular disease risk factors are necessary to evaluate its putative role in the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Highlights
Type 2 diabetes is a global health problem [1]
We have recently shown that higher muscle carnosine was associated with progressive impairment of glucose tolerance, with the highest levels found in individuals with type 2 diabetes [35]
Muscle carnosine content was not correlated with the overall volume of the every day free living ambulatory activity but was inversely associated with the dynamic parameter of ambulatory activity i.e. percentage of high and moderate intensity ambulation (Table 1, association presented in [35])
Summary
Type 2 diabetes is a global health problem [1]. This is largely due to increasing rates of obesity underpinned by obesogenic lifestyle. Carnosine (β-alanyl-L-histidine) is a dipeptide present in mammalian tissues abundant in skeletal muscle, heart muscle and central nervous system It is available as an over-the-counter food additive and appears safe in human trials [3,4,5,6,7,8]. An increasing number of animal studies have suggested a role for carnosine supplementation in the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes and its complications as well as cardiovascular risk factors (adverse lipid profile and hypertension) and disease [19,20] [13,14,15,21] [22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31]. Animal data suggest a role of carnosine supplementation in the prevention and treatment of obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease but only limited human data exists
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