Acetyl-L-Carnitine: A Promising Treatment for Alzheimer’s

Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that is necessary for memory and brain function. In people with Alzheimer’s Disease it is used deficiently. Acetyl-L-carnitine is structurally related to acetylcholine and, it turns out, it can mimic it. So supplementing acetyl-L-carnitine offers great promise for people suffering from Alzheimer’s. . . .

Although there has been one mostly negative study of acetyl-L-carnitine in people with Alzheimer’s, there have been a number of impressively positive ones. At least three double-blind studies have shown that acetyl-L-carnitine significantly slows the rate of deterioration (1,2,3) in people with Alzheimer’s. Double-blind research has even shown that acetyl-L-carnitine can produce significant improvement in people with senility (4) and that it is significantly more effective than a placebo in people with dementia caused by either Alzheimer’s or vascular dementia (5). Another study found a trend toward improvement, but the improvement did not reach statistical significance at least in part because of the small number of people in the study (6).

Studies have also found that acetyl-L-carnitine is beneficial for people with mild mental deterioration (7) and that in this condition it can improve not only memory, but also mood, including depression, stress and negative feelings (8).

That is a substantial body of research suggesting that supplementing acetyl-L-carnitine can be beneficial for people with memory deterioration or Alzheimer’s Disease.

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