BETA ALANINE is technically a non-essential beta-amino acid, but it has quickly become anything but non-essential in the worlds of performance nutrition and bodybuilding. Also known by its trademarked name CarnoSyn, it has become a shining star due to claims that it raises muscle carnosine levels and increases the amount of work you can perform at high intensities.
Beta-alanine is also famous for producing a certain "tingle" you probably felt—and possibly freaked out about—the first time you tried a pre-workout supplement containing beta-alanine.
Beta-alanine can offer real performance benefits, but it has unique chemical properties that need to be understood. It may also have a unique push-and-pull relationship with our old friend taurine that should be taken into account.
Beta-alanine could earn a permanent place in your nutritional war-chest. I'm here to provide you the science-based intel you need to decide if it's right for you.
Beta-alanine claims to raise muscle carnosine levels and increase the amount of work you can perform at high intensities.
What Is It?
Beta-alanine, or 3-aminopropionic acid is a naturally-occurring beta-amino acid and a component of the histidine dipeptides carnosine and anserine, as well as vitamin B5, or pantothenic acid. Structurally, beta-alanine is a hybrid between the potent neurotransmitters L-glycine and GABA, which may explain why consumers often claim to experience a caffeine-like response from it. Beta-alanine is even gaining support within the scientific community for being secondarily classified as a neurotransmitter.
Your body can produce beta-alanine in at least three ways. It can be released during the breakdown of histidine dipeptides, such as carnosine or anserine, or it can be formed as a secondary byproduct of a reaction that converts L-alanine to pyruvate. Additionally, beta-alanine can be formed during digestion, when intestinal microbes remove a carbon atom from L-aspartate, releasing both beta-alanine and CO2. But don't tell Al Gore that, or he'll try to argue that you should be charged for increasing your carbon footprint.
When consumed as a dietary supplement, beta-alanine passes from the bloodstream into skeletal muscle via a beta-alanine and taurine transporter that's dependent upon both sodium and chloride availability. Once it enters a skeletal muscle cell, it binds with the essential amino acid L-histidine to form the dipeptide carnosine. That's where the fun really begins.
What Does It Do?
The sports benefit of supplementing with beta-alanine lies mostly in its ability to raise muscle carnosine concentrations. In fact, beta-alanine is the limiting amino acid in carnosine synthesis, meaning that its presence in the bloodstream is directly tied to muscle carnosine levels.
To date, every study in which beta-alanine has been supplemented to human subjects has resulted in a significant increase in muscle carnosine. This stands in contrast to other iconic supplements like creatine, for which distinct responders and non-responders have been observed. But beta-alanine doesn't just work broadly; it also works well. Supplementation with beta-alanine has been shown to increase muscle carnosine concentrations by up to 58 percent in just four weeks, and 80 percent in 10 weeks.