Dietary Carnosine Supplementation in Healthy Human Volunteers: A Safety, Tolerability, Plasma and Brain Concentration Study
Open-label, no control groupHumans
- Design
- Open-label, no control group
- Subjects
- 16 healthy volunteers; 5 had brain MR spectroscopy; 4 completed 4-week dosing
- Dose used in the study
- Single escalating oral doses up to 15 g; long-term arm 5 g twice daily
- Duration
- Single doses, plus 4 weeks in the long-term arm
- What was measured
- Adverse events, plasma carnosine pharmacokinetics, brain carnosine by proton MR spectroscopy.
What the authors reported
Single doses up to 10 g were safe and generally well tolerated. At 15 g, 77% of participants had side effects, mainly headache (43.5%), nausea (21.7%) and paraesthesia (21.7%). Plasma levels peaked within 1 hour and little remained after 4 hours. Brain carnosine rose at 1 hour and returned to baseline by 5 hours. Four weeks at 5 g twice daily caused no adverse events.
Limits of this study
Very small study. Open-label dose escalation, no placebo. Long-term arm had 4 people. Two authors were employed by companies (Glycyx MOR, Certara UK), and the study was funded by Hestia Investments, which the authors say had no role in design, analysis or reporting. Full text not read.
Source
PubMed 40647235 · doi:10.3390/nu17132130
Entry checked against PubMed abstract (E-utilities) on 2026-10-19. The dose shown is the dose the researchers used. It is not a recommendation. How to read this page.