2009 Studies & Research Blog

When we are young and healthy it’s quite easy to not envision what life will be like in our fifties and beyond. Do we ever really sit down and make a plan of attack towards long term general health goals or is it more or less just what will effect how we how aesthetic our appearance is in the “now” when we look in the mirror? Regardless of your perspective there are a few supplements which have shown a great benefit when used as older adults in their “golden years.”

Over the past decade we’ve seen beta-alanine emerge as a quite a popular ingredient among the well educated supplement consumer for its carnosine boosting properties. Quite clearly this has shown to increase endurance capacity in healthy athletes. Also, it’s been known for quite some time that as you age intramuscular carnosine levels and ultimately buffering capacity often declines. Whether this is a major factor causing age related muscular atrophy is up for debate, but the power to augment this effect really shouldn’t be.

A joint research team representing the University of Oklahoma, Florida Atlantic University, and the University of Chichester recently put the use of beta alanine in elderly adults to the test. As a result of beta-alanine supplementation showed to increase working capacity in older adults aged 55-92 years of age. In fact, the average increase in physical working capacity was an astonishing 28.5%. That’s over twice the increase found in younger test subjects in their mid twenties.

So what can we take from these findings? As you age you ability endurance and mobility can often be hampered by the aging process no matter what you activity level is. It is quite possible that beta alanine supplementation can help you maintain or even increase your physical working capacity thus allowing you to be more active during your “golden years.” Since this is the first step in beta-alanine use in elderly subjects I’m curious to see if more research will now begin focus on its effect in attenuating advanced glycation end products (AGES). Boosting carnosine appears to augment their deleterious effects but the direct research utilizing beta-alanine to potentially battle this has not yet been observed clinically. Only time will tell but I have a feeling it will prove to be powerful.

On a personal note, I just printed this study out for my father and purchased a beta alanine supplement for him (he’s been using them for a while now) to send along with it. The research is quite compelling as it alludes to the notion those entering into the world of supplementation later in life can actually benefit much more than the typical athlete in most cases as we’ve seen demonstrated with beta-alanine.

Stout JR, Graves BS, Smith AE, Hartman MJ, Cramer JT, Beck TW, Harris RC. The effect of beta-alanine supplementation on neuromuscular fatigue in elderly (55-92 Years): a double-blind randomized study. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2008 Nov 7;5(1):21.

Full Text found here.