acrolein, carnosine, fatigue, Parkinson's - brief notes

 Someone on a forum asked about carnosine ...

Carnosine is interesting since it can quench reactive carbonyl species such as acrolein. Acrolein can cause the formation of methemoglobin in red blood cells, which reduces oxygen delivery and can cause fatigue. Later stage PD patients have elevated levels of methemoglobin in RBCs. RBCs actually have a dopamine transporter and it may function to clear excess dopamine (maybe, not really known at this point). Oxidized dopamine can also interact with hemoglobin to form methemoglobin. Carnosine was found to reduce acrolein-induced methemoglobin in the following paper - which is unfortunately paywalled. The abstract says the carnosine had no effect on metHb formed by dopamine, but in the article it shows that the carnosine had an overall effect of greatly lowering the amount of metHb in the RBCs. The same group also put out a meeting abstract (so not peer -reviewed) that reported a lowering of the metHb caused by dopamine with spermidine.  

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134%2FS0006350917020154

Acrolein is a very nasty substance and has been implicated in pathophysiology of PD: https://translationalneurodegeneration.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40035-021-00239-0

There is some controversy about oral bioavailability of carnosine vs. its pre-cursor, beta alanine. Beta alanine is taken by athletes to increase muscle carnosine stores and many in sports medicine say it is preferable since digestion breaks down carnosine anyway. I don't know what beta alanine would do for serum carnosine. Beta alanine can cause a weird side effect, some describe it as pins and needles - it felt to me like being poked with fine needles and it was not pleasant. Interestingly it is being used as a treatment for 'water allergy': https://www.reddit.com/r/aquagenicpruritus/comments/ef3d66/potential_scientific_answers_for_why_betaalanine/

There's a topical carnosine product, LactiGo, that apparently does get into muscles and improves athletic performance - but again I don't know if it has an effect on blood levels of carnosine.


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