L Carnitine safety

[Punkrocker]

So I been taking l Carnatine for the past month to assist with my physique. Although I recently read that it can interfere with the thyroid and cause hypothyroid!!!! How true is this!?! I stopped the l Carnatine until further notice...

 

[BlockBuilder]

Yea if you take over 2-3 grams. You aren't going to have any problems at 1-2 grams

 

[Punkrocker]

Yea if you take over 2-3 grams. You aren't going to have any problems at 1-2 grams

****.... I been taking 6 grams!

 

[BlockBuilder]

Yea 6 is unnecessary really you don't need more than 2

 

[The_Old_Guy]

You really don't need any unless you are deficient in Carnitine.

 

[HIT4ME]

I'm surprised I've never seen this before. I take 1-2 grams of ALCAR in the morning...don't weigh, just a scoop so I know it can vary quite a bit and I aim for 1.5 grams. I feel ALCAR is one of the best nootropics I've used.

I will have to look into this aspect more.

 

[JudoJosh]

Where did you read about the thyroid issue? Post a link

 

[ericool007]

i read something about carnitine being linked to heart disease or somthing bad as well but i just stick to 1-2 grams LCLT and im not to worried.

 

[Punkrocker]

Just google l carnitine hypothyroid. Tons of info

 

[HIT4ME]

Doing the google search you suggested, I didn't find anything suggesting that carnitine CAUSES hypothyroidism. It seems that carnitine MAY act as an agonist to T3 and T4. If you are hyperthyroidism, this may improve the situation. If you are hypothyroidism, agonizing T3 and T4 may not be a great idea. In either case it doesn't change the levels of t3/T4 so tsh and the negative feedback loop shouldn't be effected is my guess. Of course, I'm uneducated and could be wrong, but nothing I see suggests carnitine as a cause.

I also saw some information that showed carnitine helped normalize function of both hyper and hypothyroidism subjects.

 

[Punkrocker]

Doing the google search you suggested, I didn't find anything suggesting that carnitine CAUSES hypothyroidism. It seems that carnitine MAY act as an agonist to T3 and T4. If you are hyperthyroidism, this may improve the situation. If you are hypothyroidism, agonizing T3 and T4 may not be a great idea. In either case it doesn't change the levels of t3/T4 so tsh and the negative feedback loop shouldn't be effected is my guess. Of course, I'm uneducated and could be wrong, but nothing I see suggests carnitine as a cause.

I also saw some information that showed carnitine helped normalize function of both hyper and hypothyroidism subjects.

Yeah maybe it's no big deal, but honestly I don't wanna mess with my thyroid so I'm just gonna steer clear. Better safe than sorry

 

[HIT4ME]

The point is it antagonists the hormones the thyroid releases and doesn't have any effect on your thyroid itself.

 

[BlockBuilder]

Also l carnitine l tartrate is what you want not l carnitine

 

[Jiigzz]

Yeah maybe it's no big deal, but honestly I don't wanna mess with my thyroid so I'm just gonna steer clear. Better safe than sorry

I can understand that, but also consider the creatine and kidney relationship. You can google that and find multitudes of Google hits for deaths related to it (Jonah Lomu is a recent one where they are trying to implicate creatine), but that doesn't mean it actually caused the issues - it just means that a web author connected a few vague dots to create a story.

The data on what you're saying seems scarce and nothing I have come across points toward it being an issue, so if you would like to get some insight, post up your source and some of us will chime in with our thoughts

 

[HIT4ME]

The source was posted. He did a Google search. And doing that Google search actually shows hits saying that L Carnitine can alleviate both hypo and hyper thyroidism. But misinterpreting those results leads to things like believing kind of things causes hypothyroidism.

 

[HIT4ME]

And your elevated creatinine levels in kidney failure analogy is spot on.

 

[Jiigzz]

The source was posted. He did a Google search. And doing that Google search actually shows hits saying that L Carnitine can alleviate both hypo and hyper thyroidism. But misinterpreting those results leads to things like believing kind of things causes hypothyroidism.

But surely he would have clicked a link? Google isnt a source, its a means to find the source.

I'll have a look now at some links

 

[HIT4ME]

But surely he would have clicked a link? Google isnt a source, its a means to find the source.

I'll have a look now at some links

I agree. I was being slightly tongue in cheek.