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Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2022-08-19 Origin: Site
L-carnitine is a naturally occurring amino acid-like substance in the human body. Its main physiological functions are: on the one hand, L-carnitine transports fatty acids to mitochondria for oxidation to generate energy; on the other hand, L-carnitine transports waste and toxic compounds out of the mitochondria, thereby preventing the accumulation of harmful substances in the body.
Therefore, L-carnitine plays an important role in human metabolism. The main application fields of L-carnitine include the field of food additives, the field of feed additives, and the field of drug therapy.
1. The field of food additives
A. Athlete food
During aerobic exercise, fatty acids become the main fuel for exercising muscles. The level of L-carnitine in the body has a direct impact on the degree of oxidative decomposition of fatty acids. Exogenous supplementation of L-carnitine can improve the body's ability to use fat for energy and prolong exercise.
After physical activity, the concentration of L-carnitine in human muscle tissue decreases by 20%, so appropriate supplementation of L-carnitine is beneficial to improve athletes' explosive power and enhance tolerance.
In addition, L-carnitine can reduce the anaerobic glycolysis of muscle glycogen by increasing fatty acid oxidation and energy supply, inhibit the production of lactic acid, and at the same time accelerate the elimination of lactic acid accumulated during exercise, thereby delaying the generation of exercise-induced fatigue.
At present, most of the products on the market are adding L-carnitine to functional drinks or nutritional supplements to make sports health food.
B. Weight loss products
One of the main physiological functions of L-carnitine is to promote the conversion of fat into energy, thereby enhancing the body's utilization of fat. Strengthening exercise while supplementing L-carnitine can accelerate the oxidation and utilization of accumulated fat in the body, so as to achieve the effect of weight loss, and will not produce adverse reactions such as diarrhea and fatigue. With the increasing number of obese patients worldwide, the demand for L-carnitine for weight control products will continue to increase.
C. Baby products
The L-carnitine synthesis capacity of infants is only 15% of that of adults, and L-carnitine is necessary for infant growth and development. have an important role.
L-carnitine is one of the important elements naturally present in breast milk. Therefore, it is of practical significance to supplement L-carnitine in infant formula milk powder to make its formula composition as close to human breast milk as possible. At present, many brands of milk powder in the world have added L-carnitine to their products.
D. nutritional supplements
L-carnitine is mainly found in various meat and dairy products, and plant-based foods are low in content, so vegetarians are often prone to L-carnitine deficiency and need to supplement L-carnitine.
In addition, with the increase of age, the L-carnitine in the human body continues to decrease, and the synthesis ability of L-carnitine in the elderly decreases. The reduction of L-carnitine will lead to a decrease in the vitality of myocardial cells, and it is easy to increase the incidence of cardiovascular disease and heart disease. Therefore, the elderly can enhance myocardial capacity by supplementing L-carnitine.
2. Field of Feed Additives
L-carnitine can ensure the normal metabolism of amino acids in animals, improve the survival rate of sperm, and promote the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, calcium and phosphorus.
Its main functions are: saving protein, improving feed utilization, promoting the growth of livestock and poultry, improving meat quality, and promoting the normal energy metabolism of animals.
At the same time, L-carnitine and its derivatives can also improve the immunity of animals. Adding an appropriate amount of L-carnitine to the feed can effectively promote the growth of animals and enhance their disease resistance.
3. The field of drug therapy
As a drug, L-carnitine and its derivatives can improve the body's metabolic function. In recent years, with the continuous deepening of the research on the biological and pharmacological effects of L-carnitine, its application in clinical treatment has become increasingly widespread.
At present, L-carnitine is mainly used in cardiovascular diseases, kidney-related diseases, diabetes and its complications, liver-related diseases, septic shock and other fields, with a wide range of applications.
The main production processes of L-carnitine include: natural animal extraction, biosynthesis and chemical synthesis. Among them, chemical synthesis methods can be further divided into chemical resolution methods and chiral synthesis methods.
The earliest L-carnitine production processes were mainly derived from animal meat and offal extracts. Due to the low content of the product in animals, the large-scale production is limited, the method is costly and inefficient, and it is quickly replaced by other process methods.
Biosynthesis refers to the production of L-carnitine through the fermentative production of microorganisms. The method uses ethyl chloroacetoacetate as a raw material, uses specific high-quality strains, strictly controls the technological conditions of the fermentation process, and prepares optically pure (R)-4-chloro-3-hydroxybutyrate, and then undergoes amination, hydrogenation, Chemical reactions such as hydrolysis yield products.
The chemical resolution method uses epichlorohydrin or 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol as raw materials, and through multi-step chemical reaction, the racemic mixture of carnitine is obtained, and then the chiral reagent is used for resolution. This route produces cheap raw materials, but produces a large amount of biologically inactive D-carnitine by-products during the production process, so it has been phased out.
The chiral synthesis method usually takes a chiral substrate as the starting material. After three-step chemical reaction, L-carnitine with high chiral purity is obtained. It has the advantages of high production efficiency and low unit energy consumption. It is the current mainstream production process.
