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posted by mrpg on Thursday August 02 2018, @07:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-comment dept.

Study links depression to low blood levels of acetyl-L-carnitine

Investigators at Stanford and elsewhere have shown, for the first time in humans, that low blood levels of acetyl-L-carnitine track with the severity and duration of depression.

People with depression have low blood levels of a substance called acetyl-L-carnitine, according to a Stanford University School of Medicine scientist and her collaborators in a multicenter study.

Naturally produced in the body, acetyl-L-carnitine is also widely available in drugstores, supermarkets and health food catalogs as a nutritional supplement. People with severe or treatment-resistant depression, or whose bouts of depression began earlier in life, have particularly low blood levels of the substance.

The findings, published online July 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, build on extensive animal research. They mark the first rigorous indication that the link between acetyl-L-carnitine levels and depression may apply to people, too. And they point the way to a new class of antidepressants that could be freer of side effects and faster-acting than those in use today, and that may help patients for whom existing treatments don't work or have stopped working.

Acetylcarnitine.

Also at The Rockefeller University.

Acetyl-l-carnitine deficiency in patients with major depressive disorder (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1801609115) (DX)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 02 2018, @01:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 02 2018, @01:16PM (#716186)

    Thanks for jumping the shark.