Beta Alanine a health food?
What’s worse: A bunch of excess sugar in the diet, or a bunch of oxidation in the body? Well we all know oxidation is pretty, right? The media has done a good enough job conveying that oxygen causes damage (think rust in your body) and that antioxidants are good because they prevent that. Okay, so back to the question. What about the sugar? It might make you fat, but how can it harm you? If you get too much of it once, it’s probably no big deal. Just like oxidation (think particularly hard workout session), if you get too much sugar once, most likely nothing will happen. But what about if it’s chronic?
Okay, so what happens if you replace the root word oxygen in oxidation with glycogen? You get something called glycation. Glycation is going on in your body all the time. It’s kinda like when your fry, sear, bbq etc. meat and the meat browns and even gets crispy in spots. That’s glycation, aka the browning, or Maillard reaction. Except that can happen in your brain, arteries, etc if you neglect your bodily systems that are there to prevent that from happening. Your body’s not quite as hot as a pan, but over time the effects really can add up.
In your body glycation is the process by which glucose combines with anything else really; it’s a very sticky substance and within your body, it sticks specifically to the proteins in your muscles, eyes, heart, arterial walls, brain, etc. Glycation of proteins is extremely important – likely just as important if not more so than oxidation. If it sticks around a while it produces what are called advanced glycated end products: AGEs. These things are really bad.
Glycation increases wear and tear in your body (another theory of aging) by damaging the protein so much so that white blood cells will grab a hold of it and kick it out the back door, literally. Then you have to produce more, putting more of a strain on your ability to repair and maintain your body.
This is not a theory, this is real and it only gets worse as you age, or as you further place strain on or weaken the systems in place to reduce bodily damage.
How can you prevent glycation? I don’t think you really can. How can you minimize the formation of AGEs? Ah, now we’re on to something.
What are some general approaches to improve health? Exercise, for starters, helps a lot. You can’t outwork a crappy diet, especially people trying to gain muscle or lose fat, right? But for health, tehe right kind of exercise strengthens your internal antioxidant system, by increasing things like glutathione for example. It also improves insulin sensitivity (so does fish oil, and even vit d, synthetic d3 or from the sun, as long as your blood DOH3 value ends up in a normal range, optimally ~60 ng/ml) and burns off extra blood sugar, aka glucose, the substance that causes glycation. Other healh promoters include high quality fish oil or krill oil (and to a lesser extent plants rich in ala like flax, chia, and hemp for example), both of which increase the omega 3 balance in your cells which among other things reduce inflammation. Other healthy diet choices like foods rich in antioxidants (superfood anyone), can dramatically improve health. Sugar (as can fish oil and other things that oxidize easily) can directly cause inflammation, so limiting excess (and maybe even consideration should be given too balancing it with antioxidants and noninflammatory substances) is key.
Okay so here’s my grand proposal - If glucose causes glycation, then why don’t we just get rid of blood sugar? Okay that’s just a joke. Not a very good one. We all know you can’t remove blood sugar.
AGEs and related compounds are implicated in Alzheimer’s, formation of arterial plaque, and cancer. Inhibiting their formation is an essential part of a health plan, anti-aging plan, or a prevention of Alzheimer’s plan.
There are certain drugs that can block AGE formation, but they require prescription and are expensive and safety is probably largely unknown. Carnosine on the other hand is safe, and is both an antioxidant and it prevents the formation of AGEs. Currently available drugs prescribed for Alzheimer’s disease do nothing to combat the damage caused by amyloid beta or oxidative stress, two key factors in the genesis of this devastating illness. Experimental studies, however, suggest that carnosine can help protect against both.
Based on the data I’ve seen, I think that beta alanine has a far greater ability thatn straight carnosine to increase intracellular muscle carnosine levels. I would imagine this includes carnosine in the brain and other tissues as well.
Oxidation is bad, but AGEs are no joke either. By protecting against both free radical-generated oxidative damage and AGE-generated cellular toxicity, carnosine, helps to counteract numerous, potentially harmful biochemical processes associated with aging. The best way to increase it is through timed release beta alanine supplements. The best strategy also involves limiting carbs in the diet. Its diverse effects offer support for the aging brain and cardiovascular system, and may help to modulate processes that contribute to cancer. In conclusion, Beta 7, surprisingly, appears to be a badass choice for its health boosting/protecting benefits.
More comprehensive reading:
http://nourishedmagazine.com.au/blog/articles/insulin-resistance-the-real-culprit-2
lef.org/magazine/mag2006/jan2006_report_carnosine_01.htm
